So I saw 'Night at the Museum 2'

Night guard Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) offers more of the same in this follow-up to Night at the Museum (2006) while upping the ante as he takes the action from the Museum of Natural History to the Smithsonian Institute. The living, breathing exhibits of the original movie are brought back to establish a sense of continuity, though largely given a back seat to a new batch of historical characters.

It is intended as a family adventure/ comedy movie and has a benign, old-school quality to it. It even manages to slip in a piece of wisdom: do what you love to do.

(Running time: 105 minutes)

So I saw 'Angels & Demons'

As a kid I was invited to a classmate's birthday bash that turned out to be quite memorable as the main event involved a treasure hunt in the local park organized by his older brother and sister. So off we went scooting here and there based on clues nailed on trees or hidden under and behind other park objects. I don't recall what the treasure was only that the hunt was positively exciting.

In Angels & Demons, symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) does more or less the same in Rome as he races against time to locate a canister with antimatter, which is apparently highly dangerous stuff, hidden somewhere in the Vatican while trying to stay one step ahead of the sinister Illuminati.

Now, a treasure hunt is all about the hunt, and the movie's thrills and frills should've come from the hunt. Everything else is a moot point. The hunt here, however, feels rushed and therefore unsatisfying.

(Running time: 138 minutes)

So moi saw 'Monsters vs Aliens' in 3D

Susan Murphy, aka Ginormica (voiced by Reese Witherspoon), finds her inner strength when she and her monster friends battle an alien, Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson), who is out to destroy planet earth. The visuals are for the kids, the jokes for mom 'n pop.

(Running time: 94 minutes)