The Good News: Most of the ingredients that turned Night at the Museum into a colossal hit 2 1/2 years ago are back in the sequel, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.

The Bad News: What was so fresh and entertainingly original the first time around now seems like a stale copy made from a forced script that tries too hard and comes up short in both adventure and amusement. And that despite the fact that the sequel has the same director — Shawn Levy — the same writers — Robert Ben Garnat and Thomas Lennon — and many of the same characters and stars — Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, Ricky Gervais and Robin Williams as Teddy Roosevelt.

But the 2006 film enchanted because it spent as much time on the father-son story in which Stiller, a frustrated failed inventor, tried to prove his worth to his son by taking an overnight security job at a museum, as it did on the magical special effects in which the museum exhibits sprang to life at night. We got caught up in the real-life story as much as we did with the bounding T-Rex skeleton and the statue of Teddy Roosevelt that came to life astride his horse.

In Battle of the Smithsonian, Stiller’s Larry Daley has become a multimillionaire because his wacky inventions have finally caught the public fancy. No father-son crisis there.

At the start of the film the lively museum exhibits have been banished from New York’s Natural History Museum, where they are of no more use in the museum’s multimedia presentations, to a basement storage area at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.

There they are about to lose their magical abilities to come to life at night and, as they are about to be shipped out, make a last-ditch plea to Larry. They had that power thanks to an ancient Egyptian golden tablet.

But a new character — wannabe pharaoh Kahmunrah (Hank Azaria) who has been waiting 3,000 years to claim the throne from younger brother Ahkmenrah (Rami Malek, back from the first film) — is about to snatch the tablet and use its powers to control the world by unleashing characters from the Egyptian Underworld.

Smithsonian soon turns into an extended, not very clever chase film as Larry heads to D.C. in hopes of stopping Kahmunrah, played by Azaria with a put-on Boris Karloff accent — slightly British and with a lisp. (This is amusing for about 45 seconds.)

Most of the characters from the first film have little to do in the sequel, save for the four-inch-tall diorama figurines — Roman General Octavius played by Coogan and cowboy Jedidiah Smith played by Wilson. Octavius has a funny moment with a squirrel on the White House lawn; Wilson faces death in the sands of an hourglass. Dexter, the mischievous capuchin monkey, also has his moments, though not as many as in the first film.

Few of the new characters are as charismatic. Azaria’s Kahmunrah is a silly fool who enlists the help of Ivan the Terrible (Christopher Guest), Napoleon Bonaparte (Alain Chabat), gangster Al Capone (Jon Bernthal) and their soldiers and thugs. The writers haven’t figured out anything for Napoleon to do except fret about his height.

The muscular Azaria also takes the roles of Rodin’s The Thinker, who has a Brooklyn accent and whose only thought is about chasing girls, and of the giant marble statue of Abraham Lincoln from the Lincoln Memorial, with a booming slightly British accent that seems odd considering that Lincoln was born in Kentucky and made his name in Illinois.

Many of the jokes and sight gags are not as funny as the writers may have thought, including the sight of Gen. George Custer (Bill Hader), still smarting from his defeat at the Little Big Horn, trying to rally the troops on a motorcycle.

One very imaginative sequence that does work for the most part, however, takes place in the museum’s art gallery where Larry and new helpmate, 1930s’ aviatrix Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams), are trying to escape Kahmunrah’s troops amid pictures on the wall that have sprung to life. For a time Larry and Amelia try to hide inside the famous 1945 black and white photo of a sailor kissing a nurse as they celebrate the end of World War II in the middle of Times Square. Here the movie goes into black and white.

There’s also a funny sequence in which Larry and Amelia try to flee the thugs by flying the Wright Brothers’ airplane out of the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum.

Too much of Battle of the Smithsonian, however, looks as though the writers are desperate to come up with something hilarious. Yet with characters that are not as fully drawn and chase scenes that look like retreads, one’s patience — unless one is 10 years old or younger — is put to the test.

**Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

Starring: Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Owen Wilson, Hank Azaria, Robin Williams, Steve Coogan, Christopher Guest, Alain Chabat, Ricky Gervais, Bill Hader, Jon Bernthal, Rami Malek, Mizuo Peck.

Rated: PG, contains action violence.

mjanuson@projo.com