Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb will soon be released on Blu-ray and DVD (March 10), so I’ve decided to review it.
Robin Williams, 63, stood on the veranda of his home in California. As he looked upon the city he helped to create, tears rolled down his cheeks, collecting in the corner of his wizened mouth. He clutches a rail, inhales sharply and goes inside. As he fumbled with the belt around his waist, he clambers up a 19th-century accent chair that was a gift to him from the producers of Mrs. Doubtfire. Now, with the belt tightly clasped around his neck and affixed to a light fixture, Robin Williams was ready.
“Goodbye Susan, Zelda… I love you,” he whispers, “and fuck you, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb.”
End scene.
Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb is a disgusting, shameless cash grab of the highest order. It may not have been directly responsible for Robin Williams suicide, but it certainly contributed to his mental downfall. Williams looks like a man broken, both constrained and unfunny, with every saccharine word from his mouth studio-approved nonsense parceled to resemble Robin Williams speech™ but merely ending up imitating the man himself. The Robin Williams I knew was Genie, Mrs. Doubtfire, Mork, and a million other things, but not this awful clone of himself. To watch him fumble his way through Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb as Theodore Roosevelt will bring a cloud of depression to anyone.
It’s packed with big-name Hollywood stars and glistens with special effects, but is hollow to the core. Ben Stiller, Ben Kingsly, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Ricky Gervais, Rebel Wilson, The Fucking Monkey From Friends, they’re all here but don’t expect anything resembling an entertaining film. Special props to Ben Stiller’s son, Skyler Gisondo, who’s obviously been made to look as androgynous as possible so as to not offend the wealthy LGBT community.
Regardless, there’s some sort of a plot that was hammered out by two human beings, if you can believe that. I hate reading plot summaries so I’ll keep this mercifully short: The exhibits are dying, so Ben Stiller’s character must travel to London for some reason to save them. Spoiler alert: he saves them.
What happens along the plodding running time is a megaton of fuck-all. This film is all about the spectacle but the special effects are so cartoony that nothing really sticks to the screen. Sure, morons will say that it’s “for the kids” but when The Monkey From Friends starts pissing on people, I begin to doubt the validity of their words.
My main issue, my number one seething rage point is that it’s all so awful. Stiller is the deadpan straight man for all the wacky comic shit exploding around him. Oh look, he’s attacking a CG snake without cracking a smile. Hey, Stiller just got bonked on the head by a neanderthal clone of himself. Wow, Stiller is fighting with Jersy Shore Tan Edition Ben Kingsly and he cracked a Jew joke. Hilarity. Not a moment of this film has either comedy or fear, as no-one will die and how could they anyway? None of them are bleeding real.
There is some attempt to introduce a villain, but it’s ham-fisted and unremarkable. The villain’s reasons for being angry makes no sense, you simply want to slap the director across the face while saying “do you thing we’re this fucking stupid? Do you (punk)!?”
Every actor seems to be separate from each other as if they filmed each scene separately and spliced it all together. Nothing registers with them and, therefore, why the fuck should you care? You shouldn’t, and you shouldn’t watch Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb either. Even worse, it’s a horrible end to the career of one of the funniest actors in history.
1/10
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