Ben Stiller in Night at the Museum
© Fox
Reviewed Format: Theatrical Release
Rated: PG
Stars: Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Carla Gugino, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, Ricky Gervais, Jake Cherry, Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, Bill Cobbs, Mizuo Peck, Kim Raver
Writers: Robert Ben Garant & Thomas Lennon, based on the book by Milan Trenc
Director: Shawn Levy
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
"Night at the Museum"
By: Abbie BernsteinDate: Saturday, December 23, 2006
In Night at the Museum, the displays at the New York Museum come to life after dark, thanks to a mystical Egyptian tablet that’s been on the premises for the last 50 years. The movie has some good setpieces and the occasional effective laugh, but it also feels something like a cinematic museum of used themes and plot devices that mostly don’t get the magic they need to come to life on the screen here.
Ben Stiller plays Larry, a divorced dad whose remarried ex-wife (Kim Raver) worries that he’s a source of disappointment to their little boy Ricky (Jake Cherry). Facing loss of visitation if he’s evicted from his current residence, Larry takes a job as night guard at the museum. A trio of older guards (Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney and Bill Cobbs) are being “downsized” and replaced, but they seem good-natured about it, leaving Larry a set of rules on a sheaf of paper that he initially fails to consult. He therefore is quite surprised by the museum’s activity after dark and has a scary encounter with a Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton before he learns the key to coexistence – only to lose the instructions to a reanimated capuchin monkey. Larry nevertheless starts getting the hang of things on his own, but a new threat looms – and he still must prove himself to his son.
It’s hard to stress how absolutely rote the “magic as a way for father to impress kids” theme is here. Although this turns up in more studio fantasies than not, there’s nothing wrong with it if it’s heartfelt, but in Night at the Museum, it just feels like legally mandated formula. Likewise, most of Larry’s name-calling encounters with the museum’s inhabitants feel like “joke goes here” scenes rather than the result of actual comic impetus. However – and pay attention to this, because it’s big – the film does get big jolts of humor in places, often thanks to the performances of Owen Wilson and Steve Coogan as squabbling citizens of, respectively, a miniature Western frontier diorama and a likewise scale replica of a Roman legion encampment. Ricky Gervais also contributes some hilarious bits as the museum’s sentence-completion-challenged director, albeit these moments seem borrowed from The Office.
