If this movie were a museum exhibit — you know, a hologram where kids can watch paintings and sculptures come to life — it'd be great fun for about five or 10 minutes. But Night At the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian drags on for a punishing 104 minutes. The money shots of the living tableau are padded with jokes that feel embalmed before the actors get them out of their mouths. The first film in the series, 2006's plain old Night At the Museum, was even four minutes longer so I guess I shouldn't complain. But come on. Adults who see this movie unaccompanied by a child should sign up pronto for therapy with Gabriel Byrne on In Treatment. Ben Stiller, my satiric comic hero last summer in Tropic Thunder, has the dull-edged look of a man taking a paycheck job in a downsized economy. I swear I could see his ass dragging.

(Watch Peter Travers' video review of Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian)

As Larry Daley, the divorced dad who worked as a night guard last time at New York's Museum of Natural History, Stiller is too smart not to know that he's drowning in mainstream quicksand. But here's Larry again, a newly minted inventor, heading to the Smithsonian in D.C. to rescue his waxworks pals from being stored away in crates. Good actors from the first film (Steve Coogan, Ricky Gervais, Owen Wilson, Robin Williams) return for another go, and welcome such newcomers as Hank Azaria as an Egyptian ruler bent on evil and Amy Adams as an Amelia Earhart aviatrix bent on being relentlessly, mercilessly perky. There is one way to survive this onslaught of bland from director Shawn Levy and screenwriters Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon. Consider your own museum sleepover.

(Get more news and reviews from Peter Travers on the Travers Take)

“All Along the Watchtower”

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."