The Night Comedy Was Brought To a Stand Stiller (Night at the Museum (DVD))

Member Name: marandina

Product:	Night at the Museum (DVD)
Date:	29/12/06 (274 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Kids will love it

Disadvantages: Superficial

The fight for the big movie hit at Christmas time used to be as much a big a deal as who would be the musical number one in the charts until X-Factor swept all the competition away each year. With a tempting teaser trailer and a cast that reads like a who’s who of comedy, “Night at the Museum” has taken the number one spot in North America this Yuletide cinema season and duly opened over here in the UK on Boxing Day. Drawn in by the trailer and the equivalent of pester power only in the guise of my good lady, I duly booked the tickets in advance for an opening day showing at my local multiplex.

Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) is a down on his luck divorcee facing eviction from his home in Brooklyn. Desperate to temporarily avoid losing his part time rights to look after his son, he takes a job as a night watchman at the Natural History Museum bordering Central Park in Manhattan. Inducted by the outgoing guards who tell him that he is to replace all three of them in a cost cutting drive by the museum (which is losing money hand over fist due to a dearth of visitors), the head guard Cecil (Dick Van Dyke) leaves him a set of keys, a flashlight and an old tattered, instructional manual to cope with his first night’s duties. As the doors close and the lights go off, Larry discovers that history really does come to life in this antiquated setting as he suddenly finds himself chased by the skeleton of a dinosaur and that’s just the start of his adventure!

Based on Milan Trenc's children's book and adapted for the screen by Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, “Night at the Museum” is a suspension of belief type of story in the mould of “Toy Story” or at least that’s what came to mind the most with historical figures coming to life at night in the same way that toys would become animated as soon as the adults weren’t around. The story itself takes the movie across a number of genres including fantasy, action and slapstick with the result that it ends up as none of them in a real patchwork quilt of a production. With a cast list like the one assembled for this film, you would imagine that it would be difficult for anything to go wrong, such is the strength and depth of the roll call and yet only Ben Stiller gets to develop any kind of characterisation whilst everyone else is reduced to cameo amongst the customary explosion of special effects. With the mercurial Dick Van Dyke playing the scheming Cecil, Mickey Rooney and Bill Cobbs supporting as the other guards, Ricky Jervais playing the museum curator and Steve Coogan and Owen Wilson featuring as miniature Romans and Cowboys, the movie boasts a stellar cast and we haven’t even mentioned Robin Williams as a horse-bound Theodore Roosevelt yet. However, there are plenty of occasions when the screen is simply too full of what’s going on when a defter touch and a more subtle screenplay may have harvested better results.

There are aspects of the movie that work well. Ben Stiller is as reliable as ever in playing the vulnerable sap being taken for a ride by the pantomime villains. He did it well in “Meet the Parents” and here again; he creates an empathy that goes with his vacant stare and puppy dog expressions. That he is the stereotypical American male so prodigiously outlined in so many movies ultimately doesn’t detract too much from the end result although the American movie notion that men are mostly divorced, down on their luck and looking to make their fortune by coming up with a stroke of marketing genius is challenged by the contrast of Stiller impressing his son by holding down an ordinary job as a security guard. It was nice to see Steve Coogan still kicking his heels in Hollywood despite the artistically disastrous “Around the World in Eighty Days” and even better to see Ricky Jervais bring his absent-minded brand of comedy to the big screen even if it’s nearly impossible to think of him in any other way apart from David Brent. The pace of the movie is frenetic throughout and Shawn Levy takes his directorial experience gained through movies like “Cheaper by the Dozen” and applies them to the breakneck plot that spans the lead’s experiences in the surreal world of the museum at night. If nothing else, the movie serves as a great advertisement to go and visit the grand old monolith that is The Natural History Museum in the stunning location of Central New York. Add to that a rollicking musical score by Alan Silvestri and you have an hour and a half or so of mindless family, festive cheer.

Where the movie falls down is its eagerness to please at the expense of a coherent story. With a sub-plot centring on the magical ability of an Egyptian tablet to bring the exhibits to life and the self-centred “Cocoon”-like motives of the old codgers that make up the security guards to steal it for their own purposes and consign the museum residents to a statuesque future, most of the film is simply Ben Stiller chasing around after recalcitrant historical figures. A large part of the run time is spent with the screen filled to overflowing with renegade CGI creations causing mayhem in what looks and feels like anarchy when we know this kind of thing can be done to greater effect a la “Gremlins”. Needless to say, there’s the obligatory moral to the tale which consigns Stiller’s ex-wife and son to inconsequential bit parts in order to justify the plot line. In essence, you can’t help feeling that the movie would have benefited from a “less is more” approach.

Rated PG with the suggestion that the movie is unsuitable for under-8s, I really couldn’t see anything featured that would stop just about anybody going to see this flick. It’s a family movie with a light-hearted story line and an iconic cast. There’s slapstick violence in the Tom and Jerry mould but nothing worse than you would see in "The Simpsons" (Simpsons movie due out in 2007!) and at 108 minutes run time, the movie isn’t overly long. Children will love it, adults will be entertained but ultimately it’s a light piece of seasonal fluff that is instantly forgettable. It’s a bit like the annual, home-made knitted jumper you get off your gran each year for Christmas; you’ll wear it to please everybody but as soon as nobody is watching you’ll change your clothes!

Thanks for reading

Mara

More info at: http://www.nightatthemuseum.com/

Summary: Review of movie