Review of Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009) by Chads — 23 May 2009

Because of the times, General Custer(Bill Hader) was far from being a friend of the Native Americans, but "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" subtly paints the cavalry commander during the Indian Wars as a Kevin Costner-type soldier straight out of "Dances with Wolves".

When Custer tries to nail down the correct pronunciation for the name "Sacajawea"(Mizuo Peck), their benign alliance works like a response to the scene in the Costner-directed film where Kicking Bird(Graham Greene) mispronounces Dunbar as "dumb bear".

While Custer's supporters allege that Arthur Penn's "Little Big Man" was a malicious and wrongheaded hatchet job on their man, whom they consider a hero, the Battle of the Smithsonian, in which Custer commandeers, is presented by the filmmaker as the general's chance at redemption, a scenario that some conservative ideologue like the late John Wayne would have certainly approved of.

The second chance this new war affords him, in a sense, advocates genocide, because it forces the viewer to revisit the Battle of Little Big Horn as a squandered opportunity to spill more indigenous blood.

Before he leads the charge against Kahmunrah(Hank Azaria), Custer waxes nostalgic about how poorly he performed at his last campaign. Contrary to the film's rhetoric, Kahmunrah is not a villain; he and his Egyptian cohorts are only defending their home, the Smithsonian Museum, against foreign invaders.