Night at the Museum 2 isn’t a film content with itself. When it isn’t vying for the title of most irrelevant sequel, it decides to take a trip to Ben Stiller’s house for a mass celebrity circle jerk.

This isn’t just an excuse to make a mundane sequel, but for a bunch of overpaid comedians to make few laughs out of big ideas.

Growing up, adventure films would appeal to the simplistic nature of our naive brains and inspire us to climb trees and swashbuckle imaginary friends until our parents took us into psychotherapy.

What gave these films their longevity? Their lasting appeal for adults, their refusal to patronise and their universal humour. Now, what we are left with is Ben Stiller slapping two monkeys round the face – times have changed.

Night at the Museum didn’t set the world on fire. A night guard at a museum pitted against the exhibits as they came alive at night – it was a premise that had potential to be an exciting adventure tale, but the end result was underwhelming.

What we get in the sequel is more of the same. We get a brief glimpse at the larger scale objects that are sure to amaze but nothing really takes off. The only thing that is substituted from the original is the location and – instead of the father and son relationship anguish – it has Larry doubting his newly found fortune. Amelia Earhart (the adorable Amy Adams) lends support and acts as a strange love interest (considering she turns to wax come sunlight – something they get around with a cop-out, come closing credits).

One of the most surprising elements of the film is how it can be so packed with great comedy actors, some old (Christopher Guest) and some new (Bill Hader), but all of whom make damp squibs of their respective roles. Ben Stiller just seems to mope about in a role that actually gives him less to do than the original.

As an aid to the little ADHD, dribbling spawn that the film is aimed that, there are enough colourful characters and monkey-slapping action to keep them transfixed for quite a while. Otherwise there is little here for anybody to really connect with. Stiller is going through a mid-life crisis of sorts – something your average eight-year-old finds as interesting as their veg – and appears dull to adults. The historical figures are about as accurate as a pack of Top Trumps cards, with only Al Capone proving entertainment value.

When it comes to the finale battle, neither Steve Coogan entering stage left mounting a squirrel or eagle-headed Spartans make a spectacular finale. This throw-it-at-the-wall approach to studio comedy is ineffective and a reflection of a business that thinks sticking a bunch of ‘it’ name comedians in a bluescreen room with a blank page in front of them equals comedy gold. This is instead a display of Ben Stiller polishing his ego and giving a generous cheque to all his buddies.

Hecklerspray Rating: 2/5

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter

With the first one, Elton John really conveyed the majesty of the African Pride Lands. In the second he managed to capture the frustration of living in the north of England under Margaret Thatcher beyond compare, and the final one – well, let’s just say that there has never been a more hilarious, dance-in-the-aisle musical ever written about Ben Stiller getting AIDS.

No, really. Elton John’s writing a musical about Ben Stiller getting AIDS. To be fair, it’s too early to say if the Stiller/John AIDS musical will be the funniest AIDS musical ever made – we hear that Billy Joel’s adapting Philadelphia into a showstopping musical for Jim Carrey, and the song Bumming A Man At The Cinema is supposed to be particularly rib-tickling.

There’s nothing that Elton John can’t do. Nothing. Well, OK, nothing apart from grow his own hair, see properly or react to criticism in a fair and balanced way, but apart from that, Elton John is golden.

He’s a modern-day Renaissance man is what he is – he’s been the chairmen of a football club, the composer of hits like Crocodile Rock, slightly misguided political campaigner and the Elton John-branded smelly candles really are second to none.

But where Elton John arguably shines the brightest is in the world of musicals. The Lion King was the highest-grossing animated movie for several years – not to mention its extended run as a stage musical – Billy Elliot was a similar success and Lestat was… well, The Lion King and Billy Elliot were very good.

And now comes Elton John’s greatest challenge yet – he’s writing a musical about Ben Stiller catching AIDS. And it’s very funny. All right? According to MSNBC, Elton John told GQ:

He’s “got to try and write a film musical for Ben Stiller,” which is, “about a guy on Broadway who is gay, has HIV and AIDS, and has to go back and face his wife and his kids that he left. It’s very funny.” “It wasn’t sounding funny, so far…” his interviewer replied. “No, it’s very funny,” John responded. “The premise doesn’t sound funny, but it is. All right?”

From this snippet of conversation, if any of it is true, it looks like Ben Stiller’s going to try and out-offend everyone who was upset by Tropic Thunder – his most recent film which angered protesters by featuring a man in blackface and a comedy retard. And, to be fair, a musical about a gay man dying of AIDS does sound like it’d be more offensive than Tropic Thunder, at least on paper. But we wouldn’t be too sure.

After all, Tropic Thunder starred Tom Cruise. You can’t get much more offensive than that.

While we all thought we would have to live in a world where no other films would ever get anywhere near The Dark Knight – a world where daily recitals of The Joker’s best speeches were made to be recited every morning in our schools, where every car is replaced with a Batmobile and where Morgan Freeman is elected King of Everything (with Christian Bale as his alleged muscle, obviously) – we have been proven wrong.

We worried for a while, but fortunately the ‘Greatest Film of All Time(tm)’ has been dethroned by Ben Stiller, Jack Black and a blacked-up Robert Downey Jr. And it’s sure to make the latter quite happy about it.

It would appear that controversy and notoriety really does help the fortunes of a cinema release these days – there were the obvious little numbers coming about before and after the release of The Dark Knight. It can’t be denied that the often-mentioned death, car crashes and alleged assaults had a positive effect on the fortunes of Nolan’s Batmasterpiece, and Tropic Thunder seems to have used the same technique to dethrone the four-week king.

Yes, there has been a lot of hoo-ha in recent weeks about the usage of the word ‘retard’ in Stiller and the gang’s Vietnam-movie comedy movie. Movie. Some people don’t like the word, and it’s apparently used quite liberally through the film.

But, of course, instead of looking into it and forming some kind of reasoned argument or debate about the issue, people just went and picketed screenings of the film, thus bringing it far more press coverage than it would have got without protests. And it would have got a lot of coverage without them anyway.

Throw on top of the pile the fact that one actor plays a blacked-up white man and you have another pile of outrage for the public to jump on. Shockingly though, this fell by the wayside with only a handful of comments being raised about the questionable portrayal. Possibly because they realised there was some satire at work there.

Either that or the blacked-up protesters couldn’t be heard over the legions of retard protesters. That’s as in protesting the use of the word, of course – we’re not calling them retarded for protesting the use of a word in a movie that is meant as a light-hearted comedy and a satire of the world of movies we are surrounded by today. Oh no. Not us.

Anyway – regardless of the retarded, blacked-up reasons that can be thrown around the fact remains – Tropic Thunder has dethroned The Dark Knight at the box office, raking in $37 million to the Baler and company’s $16.7 million.

If Tropic manages to gross more overall than Batman and chums then… well, frankly we’ll eat four gallons of testicle juice. Because that isn’t going to happen, even with all the controversy in the world.

Well, wish no more! Paramount Pictures is introducing a new, cherry-licious drink called Booty Sweat. The drink comes from the upcoming Ben Stiller fiasco, Tropic Thunder, and is being marketed in conjunction with the film.   

And for the calorie-conscious, like ourselves who strive to keep our girlish figure for our lovely readers, we’re anxiously hoping for Diet Booty Sweat. Same great taste, new fruit flavor, but lower in Back Sauce! 

A new trend is emerging in Hollywood. It's called: invent a product with a funny name, put it in a movie, and then market said product along with the movie so people will buy the product because of the silly name and watch the movie, too. 

Okay, that might not be the official name of the trend, but Paramount Pictures believe this product will long outlive the movie on the shelves of Hot Topic stores, and probably at midnight revivals of Shaft throughout the world.  

And since the shelf life of an opened can of carbonated beverage is at least an hour or so, it will probably outlive the movie by an easy 45 minutes.  

The drink will have two versions with different labels for urban and rural marketing. The urban label is as follows:  

“delicious and bump up struttin' energy drink that will pump up a brotha's ass right-pronto. This swill will crank yo' metabolism up skippin' right over jiggy to straight G-pimp level, word to your mutha. Brothas will be layin' down the 2-3 on the wiggy jig focusing the energy flow into cold-face benjamins that will fill yo' pimp pockets to burstin'. Damn straight! Booty Sweat will keep a brotha pitchin' straight game all night to the baby-dolls."  

The rural can is described as follows:

“Rural stores will get a can that simply has the Booty Sweat moniker, but no street slang.” 

Oooh, thrillling rural packaging!

 Anyway, look for the appearance of products from movies being placed in stores more frequently in the future. Or don’t look.

We don’t care, but if you do look you’ll see stuff like Sex Panther cologne, as seen in the movie Anchorman, in stores this September.

That’s right. It will no longer be illegal in nine countries. You’ll just wish it were.