Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian Blu-ray

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

 (2009)

Action | Adventure | Comedy | Family | Fantasy



Shawn Levy directs the sequel of his hit film 'Night at the Museum'. Night guard Larry Daley (Ben Stiller), now a successful entrepreneur, returns to the Museum of Natural History to visit his friends--the exhibits that come to life at night--only to learn that they are being shipped off into deep storage at the Smithsonian Institution. To make matters worse, the exhibits at the Smithsonian, including the pharaoh Kahmunrah (Hank Azaria), are suddenly coming to life--and they aren'’t at all happy about their new visitors. Determined to save his friends, Larry rushes to Washington, D.C., and makes his way into the inner workings of the largest museum complex in the world while Kahmunrah recruits the likes of Ivan the Terrible (Christopher Guest), Napoleon (Alain Chabat), and Al Capone (Jon Bernthal). Larry, meanwhile, finds himself with spunky Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams) as a co-conspirator and love interest, and General Custer (Bill Hader) leading the battle for the Smithsonian.

For more details about Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian on Blu-ray, see the Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian Blu-ray Review

Starring: Ben Stiller

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian Blu-ray, Video Quality

 


Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian comes alive on Blu-ray with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. I popped in the included DVD for comparison and, as expected, there’s no contest; the Blu-ray version is sharper, ultra- colorful, and much more vivid. Throughout the movie’s run-time I was impressed by the depth of the color saturation. Steve Coogan’s cloak is an absolutely intense red, Ben Stiller’s guard uniform is a deep blue, and every corner of the frame bursts with color, from the bold golden yellows of Egyptian relics to Amy Adams’ fiery orange hair. Contrast runs a little hot during the few outdoor daytime scenes, but once we get inside the museum the image is nearly perfectly tuned, with inky and substantial blacks and luminous but never overblown highlights, all coming together to create a satisfying sense of dimensionality and presence. The black and white scene inside the VJ- Day photograph is equally impressive, with a strong gradation of smooth grays. Clarity is excellent in both close-ups and long shots; just examine the intricate detailing on Hank Azaria’s tunic or watch as he sits in Archie Bunker’s recliner atop a pile of ornate treasures. Shot on 35mm, NATMBOTS definitely retains its filmic quality in this transfer, with a thin layer of fine grain that gives the image some cinematic warmth, and that carries no traces of DNR or overt edge enhancement. My only real complaint is that some of the digital inserts and artificial backgrounds can flatten the otherwise dimensional image.

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian Blu-ray, Audio Quality

 


Compared to the stellar visuals, Battle of the Smithsonian’s DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track comes as somewhat of a disappointment. With all the shenanigans and tomfoolery caused by museum pieces come to life, I was expecting a raucously immersive audio experience. Instead, I got a much more subdued track that’s almost entirely front-heavy for the first half of the film. Even when the action heats up, there’s really not as much engagement as there could have been. Take the scene inside the Air and Space Museum; there are rockets warming up and dozens of aircraft taking off and flying about, but the rear channels only get a few timid fly-bys and swooshes. Where are the loud cross-channel dynamics and pin-point pans? Or listen to the climactic battle scene; for a sequence of such action and intensity, the soundstage is comparatively barren. There are some nice flourishes—like the tinkling of shattered glass on the floor as the Wright Flyer crashes through a window—but the sound design is surprisingly anemic. That said, Alan Silvestri’s larger-than-life score picks up some of the slack with deep bass, frenetic orchestration, and pounding electronic elements. Dialogue is almost always clean, clear, and easily understood, though there were a few moments when it could stand to be a little louder in the mix. There are some missed opportunities here for a truly bombastic audio track, but the mix is at least well-balanced and dynamically solid.

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