The third film in the Night at the Museum franchise was branded as the final installment, with a tagline that read “One final night to save the day.” Well, there’s at least one more night and a new day to save in Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again. With none of the original cast returning, this animated fourth film is the latest 20th Century Studios property to be harvested for parts as a Disney+ original.
(20th Century Studios)
Welcome back to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, where night watchman Larry passes on the job to his son Nick for the summer. Nick has grown up with the museum’s best-kept secret, the tablet of Ahkmenrah that brings the many displays to life each night. But when the villainous Kahmunrah escapes his confines in the basement and steals the tablet, Nick will have to venture outside the museum’s walls with some of its most famous inhabitants to stop him.
While the voices may not be the original actors from the live-action trilogy, producers Shaun Levy, Chris Columbus, Mark Radcliffe, Michael Barnathan, and Emily Morris provide the connecting tissue between the pre-Disney films and this one (which opens with the castle logo, despite the copyright being under 20th Century Studios). Animation was outsourced to Atomic Cartoons, a frequent collaborator for Disney Branded Television with collaborations including LEGO Star Wars specials, Disney Junior’s hit series Marvel’s Spidey and his Amazing Friends, and the fan-favorite web series Legend of the Three Caballeros. Director Matt Daner brings in some of the slapstick humor that fans loved in Legend of the Three Caballeros, although more often than not, the film takes itself seriously.
In terms of style, Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again strives for a classic look. While there’s plenty of 3D animation employed in the backgrounds, this is a 2D animated film. The overall look comes across as high-budget television animation, but it surpassed my expectations visually. It may not be on the level of a true hand-drawn 24-frames-per-second production, but it’s enough to invoke a warm nostalgic effect.
(20th Century Studios)
Plotwise, the film uses the animated medium to go beyond what you would typically see in a live-action film, venturing into the Egyptian afterlife (although it was recently depicted in Marvel’s Moon Knight with such heightened fantasy that it feels constrained in comparison). One of the new characters introduced is Seth, the Egyptian God of Chaos, who plays more like one of the gargoyles in Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame than ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, a stone statue of a dog with an over-the-top cartoony voice provided by Akmal Saleh. The script was penned by Ray DeLaurentis and Will Schifrin, the duo behind another Disney+ franchise takeover, The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild. Their take on Night at the Museum is much better than the effort to continue the Ice Age series without Blue Sky Studios, but it’s hard not to look at this as more than what it really is – a modern-day replacement for direct-to-video animated sequels.
While Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, or any of the original actors weren’t brought back to speak for their characters, Disney has attracted some recognizable voices for the film. Zachary Levi (Shazam!, Tangled) takes over Stiller’s role as Larry and the caveman Laaa, while Joshua Bassett (High School Musical: The Musical: The Series becomes the third actor to portray his son Nick. Thomas Lennon (Reno 911!) takes on the role of Teddy Roosevelt, filling in for the late Robin Williams but seemingly not attempting to sound like him (the obvious choice would’ve been Disney Character Voices' current go-to for Genie, Jim Meskimen). Other voices you may recognize are Gillian Jacobs (Guardians of the Galaxy) as Nick’s mother Erica, Jack Whitehall (Jungle Cruise) as Octavius, Steve Zahn (That Thing You Do!) as Jedediah, and Bowen Yang (Fire Island) as a temporary security guard named Ronnie.
Overall, Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again captures the spirit and tone of the live-action film series. There are a few meta jokes aimed up at parents, but overall the comedy plays to the youngest age-appropriate viewers for this PG film. For the most part, I was reminded of the multitude of feature-length Scooby-Doo animated films.
I give Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again 3.5 out of 5 fruit texts.
Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again is now streaming on Disney+.