Night at the Museum 3: Secret of the Tomb

RATING: C-

Five years after a successful sequel that was an improvement on its predecessor, we finally end up getting a third film to close out this series. And within that five years, one would hope that they would've come up with something good. Or at the very least, that they would've kept expanding upon the world they'd created.  Unfortunately, they only do the former just barely and the latter? Not at all. 

In this third film, Larry Daley is continuing to be the museum's night guard--now open at night for "animatronic" figures to come out (actually the museum exhibits). It's been going pretty well for them, but then the tablet suddenly starts to corrode, which causes the exhibits to start acting oddly (why the exhibits behave strange is never explained). Larry's gotta take some of the exhibits with him--Akhmenrah included (the owner of the tablet) and get it to its original creators, who just happen to be exhibits in... the British Museum. 

Okay. For starters, there are some continuity issues--especially regarding the tablet and its purpose. In the last film, we discovered that the tablet was created partially as a gate to the underworld. Now we learn that it was actually created via some weird magic to keep Ahkmenrah's family together forever. And how that causes museum exhibits to come to life... or a gateway to the underworld to be opened... never explained. Makes a bucket load of sense, right? Seriously, that darn tablet changes its abilities without explaining itself and somehow retaining its old abilities a lot in this series. 

On a different note, unlike the previous film, which introduced loads of new concepts and characters, we get very little here. The only new "historical" figures are the mythical Sir Lancelot (who for some reason is brainless here), and the fictional Egyptian pharaoh Merenkahre. Oh yeah, and there's a new Neanderthal named "La" who thinks he's Larry's son, for some reason. He doesn't add much besides annoyance. And there's a Triceratops skeleton and a gigantic multi-headed snake monster. That's about it. I mean, we're at yet another brand new museum for crying out loud. Look at how much new stuff was brought in the Smithsonian. And the British Museum is smaller, sure, but that's it? Seriously? 

Another annoyance is the new "main" female character Tilly. (While we're on that note... what happened to that potential love interest that Larry met at the very end of the last movie?) This trilogy has really had a problem with creating non-annoying female human characters. Rebecca from the first movie was tolerable at best. Amy Adams then showed up in the second film, and is probably the worst offender. Tilly starts out okay, but then quickly discredits herself when she falls for the weird new Neanderthal. And then she just goes downhill from there. 

Despite these various issues and others (more of the awkward humor and an odd ending), Night at the Museum 3 still has its moments. It's worth noting that Teddy Roosevelt is returned to "main exhibit character" status, instead of barely being on screen at all in the last movie. Jedediah and Octavius still deliver a lot of laughs. Hugh Jackman makes an hilarious appearance as himself confronting Lancelot in a scene that almost alone makes the movie worth watching. 

Night at the Museum 3 is a mixed bag indeed; one moment we're getting something hilarious thrown at us, and the next we're getting something dumb thrown at us, and the next we're getting some unexplained mumbo jumbo thrown at us. I don't think it's a sequel that shouldn't exist, but I really wish they had left the tablet's various secrets alone for this one. In the end, it's a flawed closer, but this trilogy has always been flawed in one way or another, so this really shouldn't have been too surprising. 

Postscript: It's worth noting that this was a posthumous performance from Robin Williams, and as such, his death has more impact on the ending for present-day viewers who were familiar with him than one might expect. It adds unexpected emotion to an ending that might've actually been pretty meaningless otherwise. RIP Robin Williams...