SMT Weekly Flick by Paul Krismantis
Of Robots and…Other Things
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (Rated PG) 105 mins
Terminator Salvation (Rated PG-13) 114 mins
Memorial Day weekend always likes to unleash something monstrous at the cinema, and this time did so with two painfully expensive, too played out sequels to previous blockbusters. Let’s begin with Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. The original Museum was cheeseball enough, but it scored at the box-office, prompting Hollywood bigwigs to make a predictably safe sequel. As the old saying goes, “work it ‘til it’s dead,” which is exactly the kind of axiom film studios live by today.
So where exactly can a film based entirely in a museum take us when going to the next level? How bout another museum? Yup, seems the old Museum of Natural History that Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) worked in the first film has figured it is time to spruce things up by saying “adios” to their old exhibits and remodeling completely. Naturally this doesn’t sit well with Daley, for the exhibits getting the boot contain all his buddies from the first go-round (see the first one to understand), and he is not ready to let them all simply go into storage at the National Archives in the Smithsonian. Desperate to help, Daley fakes his resume and gets hired at the Smithsonian, then proceeds to free his pals up for one more night of manic messiness. Shakespeare, this is not.
Back for round two are Hank Azaria as Kah Mun Rah, the Pharoah whose magic tablet sparks the exhibits into life; Robin Williams as Teddy Roosevelt; Owen Wilson as Jedediah Smith; and Steve Coogan as Octavius. They all play their parts as decent clichéd versions of the various historical figures. The stand out is newcomer Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart, who amidst the noise finds a way to make her character have some depth and charm beyond the one-liners offered by the others. She alone gives the formulaic Museum some much-needed heart.
To be fair, Museum will catch you off-guard with some occasional wit enough to garner a few genuine laughs, but they are not as many as would be hoped. Young children will be drawn in by the special effects and silliness of it all, but most adults will be left wanting. When it comes to the Museum movies, if you have seen one you have pretty much seen it all.
That is something that cannot be said for Terminator: Salvation, the latest addition to a tried-and-true franchise (which has now spanned the course of 25 years, egad!). Finally set in the future that the previous three alluded to, Salvation actually lets us see why John Connors (Christian Bale) was such a big deal in the others. In the war against the machines, Connors remains humankind’s last hope, and now he is taking the fight to them instead of running from time-traveling assassins. Looking for a plot? Well most of that was left in the first three films as well. Salvation is roughly 90% action, which is unfortunate seeing as how the other films had enough story in them to spin-off an entire Terminator mythology. Other than showcasing Terminator’s grim future setting, Salvation adds little to the franchise.
Of course Salvation finds excellence in one area, and that is in its action sequences. Spectacular to say the least, the film would make a better video game than cinematic experience. Bale plays a much more hardened John Connors than the previous incarnations (Edward Furlong in T2, Nick Stahl in T3), which is to be expected after seeing the earth blitzed by Skynet’s war machines. Unfortunately he doesn’t add much to the character’s depth or mystique. Connor aside, there are some glimpses of real humanity in Blair Williams (Blood Moongood) and Seren Kogan (Helena Bonham Carter), but glimpses are all we get. Knowing the actors involved, I won’t blame them, especially because it doesn’t seem as if the script left any room for humans to be, well, human. In this Terminator: Salvation is much like the character (played by our Governator) who made the franchise famous in the first place; it tries to reach out to us, but in the end it is simply too mechanical.
SCORES: 3/5
