Review of Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

The battle of the Smithsonian. The greatest battle the world will never know.

I lol'ed and aww-ed my way through this film. I still love the first one though, but a new cast of characters - as well as the old - provide still an excellent sequel to the first Night.
Larry Daley (Stiller) is now a top executive who heads his own company, where he sells his wacky and useful inventions, the latest of which is his glow-in-the-dark torch. During one of his visits to the National Museum, Larry learns that some of the exhibits are being moved to the archives in the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., such as Jededdiah (Wilson) and General Octavius (Coogan). In order to bring his exhibit friends back to their original home, Larry travels to the Smithsonian. There, he discovers that his friends have been taken captive by Kahmunrah (Azaria), the older brother of Ahkmenrah (Malek), who is after the golden tablet. Larry meets Amelia Earhart (Adams), who accompanies him while trying to protect the tablet from Kahmunrah and his minions, Al Capone (Bernthal), Ivan the Terrible (Guest), and Napoleon Bonaparte (Chabat), who plan to open the gates of the Underworld and rule the world.
The Smithsonian is probably the largest museum in the world, so you can imagine the number of exhibits and other items which come to life during the wee hours of the night. As much as it was nice to see more historic personalities come to life, I found it a bit hard to keep up with the sudden appearance and disappearance with some of the personalities. What I really liked was the tie up of one of the earlier scenes to that of a short scene at the end. When Larry and Amelia hid in a black and white painting depicting the end of the War, Larry accidentally leaves his cellphone behind, which is picked up by one of the sailors who helped them. Later, audiences can see the sailor tinkering with the cellphone, and after his mum calls him for dinner, it is revealed that his name is Joey Motorola. Nice one.