'Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian'

PG, $29.98

'Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian'

PG, $29.98

The Smithsonian Institution gives a fantastic performance in Ben Stiller's new family comedy.

But while the museum sparkles, the movie is awfully dull.

Last seen wowing his son by handling the late-night mischief at the Museum of Natural History, one-time night guard Larry Daley (Stiller) is now a corporate executive.

On one of his visits back to the museum, he learns that most of his moonlight pals -- Dexter the monkey and belligerent tiny cowboy Jedediah (Owen Wilson) among them -- are being shipped away.

Stiller underplays a little too much. It's not as much fun to watch him coolly face down a dozen spear-toting warriors as it was to watch him running -- screaming -- from a T. rex.

Coming off much better is Amy Adams, who plays an irrepressible Amelia Earhart.

If the producers are smart, they'll sign Adams up for a spinoff posthaste.

The film contains mild action and brief language.

'Paper Heart'

PG-13, $29.98

Something cold and calculating beats at the center of this ingratiating, mostly mock documentary by comedian and actress Charlyne Yi (Knocked Up).

A shy, bespectacled tomboy, Yi announces at the beginning of the movie that she doesn't believe in love, then sets off with a film crew across the South to interview real-life couples about their long-term, failed and budding relationships.

But the faux naivete begins to grate when Yi "meets" actor Michael Cera, and they embark on what purports to be their real-life relationship but is really a coy, fictionalized version thereof.

The film contains profanity.

'Terminator Salvation'

PG-13, $35.99

The latest installment in the Terminator series offers towering mechanical assassins; writhing, chrome-plated centipedes; and humans engaged in an epic battle -- all in a movie that mixes blockbuster hysterics with moody, visual grit.

Director McG picks up the pre-apocalyptic cue from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and drops us in 2018, with the machines of the malevolent Skynet well into their campaign against humankind.

Leader-to-be of the human rebellion John Connor (Christian Bale) is an insubordinate lieutenant but has been prophesied to be the savior of humanity.

The film takes itself far more seriously than its predecessors, but it seems believable -- as believable as a movie can be, anyway, when it's about besieged humanity, occupational forces, rebel insurgencies, torture, lawlessness and warfare by remote control.

The film contains vulgarity, intense action and violence.