Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb

"The end will come." This line is uttered early in Secret of the Tomb. It's fitting for the final installment in the Night at the Museum trilogy. Sadly, the end for this series was guaranteed when star Robin Williams tragically committed suicide earlier in the year. That made me kind of scared of this movie because I didn't want it to end on a bad movie. As much as I liked the Battle for the Smithsonian there was no doubt it had lost a step on the magic of the original. But the secret of the tomb is apparently that they saved the best for last.



In 1938 a joint archaeological dig between the United States and Great Britain uncovered the Tomb of Ahkmenrah and despite the warnings from the locals that "The end will come!" they take the artifacts and divide them up between the Museum of Natural History in New York and Britain. In present day, the tablet that has made the Nights at the Museum so lively has started to corrode, causing mayhem with the displays. To discover the secret of the tablet and restore order, Larry Daley must travel to England, with his most trusty exhibits, to raise the parents of Ahkmenrah himself.

This isn't an end of the year prestige drama. It wont win an Oscar. But it is one of the most enjoyable movies I've seen all year. There are moments of surprising darkness along with a celebrity cameo that steals the whole movie. (It is probably the funniest scene I've scene all year.) It's a sweet, funny, and partly because of the death of Robin Williams poignant film about accepting that some things do end. Except the magic...  A