After retiring from being a night guard at the Natural History Museum in New York City and becoming a successful inventor and TV salesman Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) is shocked to find out that the museum is being re-invented. All the museum’s items are being shipped to the underground archives of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC. Larry has almost forgotten about his friends, the museum pieces which come alive at night and which we learned to love in the first movie, Night at the Museum. But when the tiny cowboy figure Jedediah Smith (Owen Wilson) calls him to tell him that they are all in big trouble at the Smithsonian’s, Larry doesn’t waste any time and flies right down to Washington to help them.

Thus the great battle of the Smithsonian’s begins. Some fun new characters and ideas are being introduced in this movie. My personal favorite is Kahmunrah (Hank Azaria) who plans to unleash his undead army. I absolutely love Hank Azaria and always wonder when he is going to get a leading role. I’d watch him for 1 1/2 hours! The giant statue of Abe Lincoln (Hank Azaria) also comes to live. I wasn’t too impressed with Amy Adams in this movie. She plays Amelia Earhart and although she seems to do a good impersination, she doesn’t seem believable as a human being. You could argue that she is not a human being in the movie but there is a little love story going on between her and Larry and I somehow didn’t buy it.

Overall the movie is great fun. It is almost as good as the first one, although it is missing the surprise effect, because we have already seen the museum collection coming to live. Some funny new things were added though. In this movie, even paintings and sculptures start moving.

We went on a short trip to Washington this weekend (alright, I’ll admit it, the trip was slightly inspired by watching the movie) and went to a few of the Smithsonian museums as well as Abraham Lincoln’s monument. Seeing it all up close really showed how much is invented or changed to serve the movie. The distances that they walked or ran between all the museums are really a lot further then the movie leads us to believe. Especially Abe’s statue is quite a way away from the rest of the museums. One museum shown in the movie doesn’t even exist in real life. Neither do the underground archives. Well, they do exist, but not in Washington. It is absolutely worth the trip to see the Smithsonian Institute though. The Air and Space museum is beautifully made. The others are, as well, but that one really stands out. And the admission to all of them is free, so go and see it for yourself!

This is the Subway station Julie uses in the film!

I had heard a lot of negative, well, let’s say not-positive feedback about this movie from people around me, so I wasn’t expecting it to be great. But it was! I thought Julie & Julia had a really fun and moving story with wonderful actors to portray interesting characters. I know that it is a cliché for an acting student to say that Meryl Streep is one of their favorite actresses but she is just fantastic. In every single film. I have to admit to not knowing Julia Child before watching this movie (I don’t know if this is because I grew up in Europe for the most part or due to pure ignorance), but Meryl Streep created such a vibrant character that I just had to “youtube” her after the cinema.

Watching Julie & Julia felt a bit like someone had made a movie about me (or us, since my boyfriend felt the same way). I am not aspiring to become a cook or a writer but I did feel very connected to the characters. And it wasn’t just my love for Paris or French food.

First of all, I love cooking and I love eating even more, so when Paul Child asks Julia what she really likes to do and she answers “Eat!” the movie had me captured already. I also thought it funny that Julie and her husband live, literally, around the corner from where we just moved to in Long Island City. Their subway stop (in the movie) is five minutes away from our house!

Julie’s blogging felt strangely familiar as well. Not that I am on a mission or have a point or a deadline or anything, but I could really feel with Julie when she got her first comment on her blog…and it was from her mother. And then the first time she got a comment from someone she didn’t know! What a feeling! I never experienced the joy of 53 comments on one post though…

After leaving the cinema we stopped at a Barnes and Nobles to check out Julia Child’s cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and were shocked to hear that it wasn’t only sold out at the store, the publishers don’t have any more copies. Crazy!

Well, I highly recommend Julie & Julia to any food or movie lover and it definitely deserves to get a MovieCat Award!