Movie Reviews

Security: it's a boring, demeaning job, but somebody's got to do it. In Night at the Museum, that someone is Ben Stiller, who one can guess made considerably more than $11.50 an hour for his role as a borderline-deadbeat dad who takes a job as the night watchman in a museum where the exhibits come to life at night. Everything from dinosaurs to dioramas animate and start chewing on the scenery, either metaphorically (Robin Williams as Teddy Roosevelt) or literally (a big ol' T-Rex skeleton).

It's essentially one big set piece, so much so that the off-site scenes between Stiller, his son and his ex-wife add almost nothing to the picture, cleaving so closely to formula as they do. The promise of inspired mayhem makes the setup that much more agonizing. While the mayhem is amusing enough, many of the pop-culture winks and nods thrown in to give the adults something to laugh at seem too artificial.

This family-friendly comedy still serves as amiable, old-fashioned entertainment, though, mostly due to its array of high-caliber comedic talent: Ricky Gervais as the uptight, malapropistic curator, Owen Wilson and Steve Coogan as turf-warring miniatures, and Dick Van Dyke, Bill Cobbs and Mickey freakin' Rooney (!) as a trio of young-at-heart guards in a hurry to retire.

While they're mostly recycling roles, the film moves fast enough that nothing gets old—other than Wilson's loopy cowboy schtick, which hasn't improved from Shanghai Noon.

Night at the Museum's sense of wonder, cynical and calculated though it may be, does give it some—dare we say?—social value. The film's vision of a museum as a lively place might excite your tykes into wanting to see a real one; it might thus be the most expensive PSA ever produced.