‘Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again’ Review
Stars: Joshua Bassett, Thomas Lennon, Joseph Kamal, Akmal Saleh, Steve Zahn | Written by Ray DeLaurentis, William Schifrin | Directed by Matt Danner
Nick Daley is following in his father’s footsteps as the night watchman at the American Museum of Natural History, so he knows what happens when the sun goes down. But when the maniacal ruler Kahmunrah escapes, it is up to Nick to save the museum once and for all.
It’s been eight years since we thought the family-oriented fantasy comedy Night at the Museum film series ended, and yet here we are with a brand new film – although this time, it’s animated. Despite absolutely loving the original trilogy as a kid, I have to say that I wasn’t really crossing my fingers for any new films to get made. In fact, did anybody actually want to see a new film in this franchise, let alone one that’s animated? They couldn’t even get Ben Stiller to reprise his role as Larry Daley, instead opting for Zachary Levi, who does a fine job in the role but it just doesn’t feel the same, unfortunately.
But that’s the least of this film’s problems. Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again is a film so incredibly boring to the point where you’ll be shocked to learn that it’s not over two hours but actually just under an hour and a half. With a laughably bad story, poor characterization, and humour that’s seemingly aimed at toddlers, this is one of the worst movies of the year.
Nobody’s saying that the first three films in this franchise are masterpieces, but they were still remarkably fun family films that boasted a great sense of wonder and adventure, while also being genuinely hilarious at times. This film failed to make me laugh even once. As a matter of fact, I found myself cringing throughout most of the movie.
Ray DeLaurentis and William Schifrin‘s script feels like it was crafted specifically to cater to extremely small children which is honestly quite baffling to me considering the fact that the trilogy of films that came before this one managed to contain plenty of jokes that everyone could enjoy.
Another one of this film’s many issues is that it simply fails to justify why it even exists in the first place. As mentioned earlier, after eight years, people had already moved on from this franchise after the release of Secret of the Tomb. We all thought it was a satisfying ending, so why couldn’t they have just left it at that?
They probably thought that this was going to be a hugely successful movie but I honestly don’t think it’s going to be, mainly because I don’t think the market for a new Night at the Museum movie exists. It’s not like when The Force Awakens came out and people went crazy for it. That made sense because it was a new Star Wars movie. Does anybody actually care about Night at the Museum anymore? Probably not.
Regardless, we can only hope and pray that this is the last one in the franchise because I don’t think I can stomach any more entries, especially if they’re going to be of the same quality as this one. Perhaps it would just be best if they bury this franchise once and for all.
* 1/5
Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again fails to justify its existence with a painfully bad script, weak characterization, and humour that will only be funny to toddlers.
