Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again – An Unnecessary Sequel

Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again is the sequel to 2014’s Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb and marks the first installment in the series in nearly 7 years as well as the first animated entry. The plot follows Nick Daley (Bassett), son of Larry Daily (the protagonist from the original trilogy) as he hesitates to follow in his father’s footsteps and reluctantly agrees to become the new Night Guard at the Museum of Natural History after his father leaves for a new job opportunity overseas. After forgetting to lock the basement door on his first night in the museum, Nick accidentally unleashes Kahmunrah (Joseph Kamal) who returns to try and take over the world once again.

This recent trend for Disney as of late of bringing back all its popular family franchises from the mid 2000’s (or really any decade at this point) is getting tiresome to say the least because it’s becoming clear that the effort and energy being put into them isn’t the same as it once was. If anybody was asking for another addition to any of these franchises (which most people weren’t), the final products have been far from what most would’ve pictured or hoped for. Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again unfortunately fits into that category perfectly. That being said, it’s not nearly as painful or insulting to the legacy of the other films as most of the others have been.

Clocking in at a mere 77 minutes, the film thankfully moves along fairly quickly and wastes no time setting its story up. It is clearly geared more towards younger children rather than families like its predecessors and will likely entertain the former throughout. In terms of the animation, it is surprisingly good while it’s always nice to see 2D animation when 3D seems more commonplace nowadays. But besides that, there isn’t really much else in the way of positives to latch onto. At the end of the day, it’s a very middle-of-the-road animated film that never really justifies itself nor leave much of an impression.

Though none of the original films would be considered classics by today’s standards, audiences who grew up with the franchise will undoubtedly feel some nostalgia. However, this film fails to recapture any of the magic that made at least the original films so enjoyable and fun for families. An animated sequel or series to the previous films isn’t a bad idea but to wait this long before release and not get any of the same cast back even as voice actors felt strange. It seemed like it was trying to rely on nostalgia while also trying to appeal to a younger demographic. Unfortunately, it doesn’t convincingly succeed at either. Ultimately, the film is sure to be a hit with younger audiences. Others will just find it dull, formulaic, unfunny, and unimaginative.

In the end, Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again is yet another unnecessary and uninspired sequel cranked out by the Disney machine with no reason to exist. While it isn’t a terrible film by any stretch of the imagination and one of the better reimagined Fox properties, there’s very little here for older audiences to latch onto. Though this franchise definitely has potential and there is a more successful path out there for it to continue or be rebooted, this attempt greatly missed the mark and was too little too late.

still courtesy of 20th Century Studios

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Connor Carey

www.connorsmoviereviews.com/