What would Hollywood do without hoary Egyptian myths? When a film franchise runs out of ideas, the failsafe fallback options are time-travelling pharaohs, vengeful mummies and cursed treasure. Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb is the latest to look to the land of the pyramids for inspiration.
The trilogy’s essential premise is this: when night falls, a mystical Egyptian artefact, the Tablet of Ahkmenrah, brings to life all the exhibits of the American Museum of Natural History. This motley collection includes a T Rex skeleton, a capuchin monkey, Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams), a pharaoh’s son Ahkmenrah (Rami Malek), miniature cowboy Jedediah (Owen Wilson) and Roman general Octavius (Steve Coogan).
Night guard Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) is the only one privy to this information, which transforms his life — and the viewership of the museum.
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In this third — and presumably final — instalment, director Shawn Levy also falls back on that other time-honoured device to inject fresh life into a tired franchise: shifting the scene of the action.
In Night at the Museum 3 , inexplicably, the tablet is getting corroded and the exhibits are losing the power to come to life. A possible solution takes the old characters — and a new Neanderthal, Laaa, also played by Stiller — all the way across the seas to the British Museum.
This allows a plethora of different museum artefacts to come to life, including Kingsley as Ahkmenrah’s father, a metallic serpent, and most effectively, Sir Lancelot played with verve and aplomb by Dan Stevens. A subplot revolves around Larry’s son Nick (Skyler Gisondo); much against his father’s wishes, Nick wants to take the less-travelled road after school.
Structurally, the movie is poorly tied together with unnecessary sequences such as an opening set in ancient Egypt, or a museum patrons’ dinner that goes awry. The movie tries very hard to be both funny and say meaningful things about parents allowing children to grow up — but does so ham-handedly.
Yet Part 3 does have its moments, and is a definite improvement on its predecessor. One of the chases through the British Museum, for instance, has a nicely inventive set piece where three characters fight in the disorienting mathematical landscape of an Escher drawing.
There’s also an unintended poignancy in Larry’s search for ways to save his friends’ lives. We know we’re watching Robin Williams in one of the final roles; so too, Mickey Rooney, who has a cameo as an old museum guard.
Still, after three rounds of being dusted off and tepidly displayed, I suspect there will be few who mourn the cobwebs finally settling on these museum exhibits.