"I am Kahmunrah, great king of the great kings...I am half-god, once removed, on my mother's side. Rightful ruler of Egypt, future ruler of, well, everything else." --Kahmunrah.
Kahmunrah is by no means humble. He introduces himself grandiosely and has a hugely elaborate plot to take over the world which relies heavily on the solidarity of his legions of the damned (who, spoilers, ditch as soon as they see the Lincoln Memorial come to life and work out some of his pigeon issues) and the cooperation/coercion of others. With him in charge, of course.
According to the screenwriters' commentary, the end result of Hank Azaria's acting strategy as he played Kahmunrah resulted in such a blend of comedy and drama that it looks like Kahmunrah is going insane the more he's trying to hold this elaborate scheme together. This is an indication of desperation on Kahmunrah's part to make sure his efforts pay off and his plan goes off without a hitch (or with as few hitches as possible). Which then further implies (in my mind) that he needs his world domination plan to work.
When Kahmunrah and Larry are interacting for the first time, Larry mentions that he knows Ahkmenrah, the younger Brother Egypt, who now lives on New York. Kahmunrah's response? "He knows Baby Brother, the favorite son...You know, Mother and Father always gave him the best of everything, and I do mean everything. They even gave him the throne, the throne which was rightfully mine." This bit of insight into the family dynamics is just the tip of the iceberg. Parental favoritism implies feelings of neglect but could also indicate other forms of abuse or that Kahmunrah is a "secret", which is to say either adopted at birth or was taken in by the Pharaoh as the child of their mother from another marriage, also at a young age. It could very well be a combination of any of these circumstances, and it is in fact very likely that Kahmunrah was passed over, in spite of being older, because he isn't really of royal descent, considering that the throne (usually) went to the eldest legitimate son for the smoothest succession possible. Given Kahmunrah is claiming parental favoritism, chances are good he has no idea the real cause of his parents' actions toward him and his brother.
It's also very likely that Kahmunrah was neglected or otherwise abused by his parents (who could encourage the same behavior in others because they were in charge), suggested most visibly by the fact that he becomes unglued when his scheme for world domination is threatened. The plan itself is, following this line of thinking, an outward expression of a psychological/emotional need to be important. Common sense and too much Dr. Phil dictate that he learned this behavior from his interactions with his parents and others coming up, which may have been directly controlled by his parents, as abusers are wont to do. Therefore, Kahmunrah lashes out by seeking power for himself. It's a means of compensation and a form of justice, at the very least in his mind, which over the course of his life became his obsession. His plans became more and more grandiose as time went on, leading to the plot of Battle of the Smithsonian.
Kahmunrah's role in BOTS is that of the slightly crazy bad guy who just happens to be the older brother of the good pharaoh from NATM 1. Besides being proud in his introductions of himself, he willingly allows Larry to lead him into a trap with an on-the-fly, cockamamie story about a "Cube of Rubik" (feel free, take a wild guess) which will "turn all who oppose [him] to dust". Taking his gullibility into account, a man of any age with half a brain should be able to tell when he is being lied to. Kahmunrah doesn't put two and two together until his group of guards is attacked by a giant octopus. Pride also led, indirectly and in relatively small measure in comparison to other villains, to his defeat. He assumed his new recruits would be loyal to him (considering they've proven it throughout the second act and into the third, he has a good case for this), but Larry is able to break the alliance apart relatively easily, playing on the pride of the three lieutenants as well, and possibly their desire to attain greater favor in Kahmunrah's eyes by delivering the tablet to him. This results in the epic fight between Kahmunrah and Larry at the end, which leads to his being thrown in the Underworld.
But pride is a natural extension of the aforementioned development of a fixation on power. That fixation also results in what looks like insanity while he is forced to watch his plan start to crumble and fix it as time goes along, from the attack by the giant octopus to losing all of his troop in the V-J Day photograph to learning that the tablet's combination has been changed to believing that Larry is escaping--which he was expressly forbidden to do--to being forced into a position where he has to take on Larry himself. As BOTS progresses and Kahmunrah faces hitch after hitch in his plan for world domination, he starts to lose it. He senses he can't keep this plan together, but the implications of letting it fall apart are too much for him, so he becomes desperate to do whatever it takes to get what he wants.
Summation of Kahmunrah: proud, slightly deranged, deeply psychologically scarred by mysterious dynamics with his parents, likely someone's bastard somewhere along the line.
Ahkmenrah redux: Ahkmenrah speaks one line at the beginning and a short passage at the very end. In the beginning, he is quickly disregarded by Larry, an offense likely not to go forgotten, but instead to be carefully hidden by Ahkmenrah's natural orientation toward peace and harmony between as many people as possible. He is never seen interacting with Larry again, but is instead giving a presentation to a bunch of tourists, among whom are two unimpressed girls. He is enthused about the tablet's power and wants to be able to tell as many people as possible about it, and shows visible disappointment/distaste/possibly anger at the girls' skepticism.
Next time on "For the Love of Night at the Museum": My foray into the tablet and its powers, as well as a theory as to its cause.
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