Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again offers a fun addition to the popular franchise, with Joshua Bassett delivering a great performance.
Night at the Museum is a beloved franchise that follows a museum in which all of the exhibits come to life at night thanks to a mystical and powerful tablet. Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again is the newest addition, an animated film that passes the torch to a new night guard — Nick Daley who is voiced by the talented Joshua Bassett.
This is a good enough addition to the franchise, but don’t go into it expecting a masterpiece. The animation style is pretty and the story is entertaining, yet predictable. The voice cast does a great job with what they are given. The best part about Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again is that it is quite short, clocking in at less than 90 minutes. It’s a quick and easy watch that offers some giggles and a whole lot of action.
The premise follows night guard Larry’s son as he takes over for his father as night guard. The majority of the movie occurs on his first night on the job, when he is too scared to lock the loading dock door and Kahmunrah escapes. His plans are to take over the world and Nick must stop him. There are some fun action sequences and some really (really) cheesy dialogue in this Disney+ movie that is very much for a younger audience.
How Are The Voice Changes?
Because of real life circumstances, the voice of Teddy Roosevelt is passed from Robin Williams to Thomas Lennon. He does a wonderful job that luckily doesn’t feel like an impersonation at all. Rather he decides to give the character his own spin.
As for Larry, who is played by Ben Stiller in the live action films, he is also voiced by a new actor. This time Zachary Levi lends his vocal chords to the iconic character and while this also doesn’t feel like he is copying the voice, it does sound eerily similar. This is often done when franchises move to the animated side of things, especially if there are big name actors playing the roles. Sometimes studios just cannot afford them on a smaller budget.
Larry takes a backseat to his son in Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again, but he is still in quite a bit of scenes. Levi doesn’t ever sound weird or out of place. His voice totally works in the role and we don’t think this is something that will bother long time fans. Levi himself is a big star, so it is exciting that he signed on for this film.
How Is Joshua Bassett?
Joshua Bassett voices the lead character in Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again. Larry’s son Nick, who takes over the night guard duty while Larry is away for the summer. This character needed to be young-ish. He is down on himself and has pretty much no confidence at all, something that Joshua does a wonderful job lending his voice to.
If he doesn’t come off as self-pitying, the movie doesn’t work. But Joshua pulls this off with ease. He delivers a lot of fun lines and honestly our biggest complaint is we didn’t get any singing. Because as Joshua Basset fans know, that boy can sing.
Overall Thoughts
The biggest issue with Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again is that it is very clearly geared towards kids. Yes, it is a fun addition to the franchise and those that love the live action will likely have a blast with this one, but it just comes across as a made for TV kid’s movie. This is not necessarily a bad thing, however it doesn’t really move it into the “good movies” category.
It is entertaining and a very quick watch (about 75 minutes long). Younger audiences will really enjoy it while older ones will tolerate it and maybe giggle once or twice. The writing is alright, but the story itself is extremely predictable.
Still, if you enjoy the Night at the Museum movies, we recommend checking this one out. If only to say you saw it.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
NEXT: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules Review
About Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again
Based on the popular film franchise, “Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again” is an all-new animated adventure coming December 9, 2022, exclusively to Disney+, about the mischief that takes place every night at the American Museum of Natural History when the sun goes down. Nick Daley’s summer gig as night watchman at the museum is a challenging job for a high school student, but he is following in his father’s footsteps and is determined not to let him down.
Luckily, he is familiar with the museum’s ancient tablet that brings everything to life when the sun goes down and is happy to see his old friends, including Jedediah, Octavius, and Sacagawea, when he arrives. But when the maniacal ruler Kahmunrah escapes with plans to unlock the Egyptian underworld and free its Army of the Dead, it is up to Nick to stop the demented overlord and save the museum once and for all.
Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again is streaming exclusively on Disney+ now.

Tessa Smith is a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer-approved Film and TV Critic. She is also a Freelance Writer. Tessa has been in the Entertainment writing business for ten years and is a member of several Critics Associations including the Critics Choice Association and the Greater Western New York Film Critics Association.