Night at the Museum

Night at the Museum **

I've a big fan of irony, and there is a bit of irony in the order that I ended up seeing "Night at the Museum." I saw this a few days after seeing it's rival family film "Charlotte's Web." You could probably tell from my rating which one I liked more, and the second I walked out of this I predicted to myself-this'll make so much money that "Charlotte's Web" will be left standing in the dust. Sadly, I was right. "Night at the Museum" is expected to walk around with hundreds of millions of dollars, while the web is barely lucky if they crack the one hundred million dollar mark. And it's a shame, because with the trend of family films of late, we need more films like "Charlotte's Web," and less like "Night at the Museum."

"Night at the Museum" did have promise, and judging by the ads and the overall plot of the film, I was expected to be catapulted back into a golden age of family films. For one we have Ben Stiller, who I do enjoy seeing most of the time. Here he plays Larry Daley, who just lost his job again, to the disappointment of his ex-wife Erica. Erica doesn't like how Larry's continuous shift in jobs is affecting their son Nick, which is why Larry goes to extremes to get a job: at the National History Museum. It turns out that budget cuts are having the museum director Dr. McPhee canning all the night guards-veteran workers-and then replacing them with one single night guard. Larry gets the job, and the vets leave(the vets being played by none other than Dick van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, and Bill Cobbs-and they are easily the best parts in the film.) And then during his first night on the job, Larry goes out to get a drink of water and encounters something strange; the T-Rex in the main hall is getting a drink from the water fountain. Larry runs away from the dinosaur only to discover that everything in the museum comes to life-the tiny statues of the Wild West are at war with the tiny statues of the Holy Roman Empire, Attila the Hun loves magic, and even the giant replica of the statues on Easter Island chew bubble gum. Larry soon befriends Theodore Roosevelt-or at least a wax figure of him-played by Robin Williams, who is continuing his weak streak of 2006. Larry learns that their is an ancient curse on everybody in the museum that causes them to come to life only at night, and he must ensure their safety as anyone left outside when the night is done will quickly disappear. Larry also decides to use this information to try and get in better terms with his son, and at the same time trying not to lose yet another job.

"Night at the Museum" does have a great premise, and a lot of fun could have been had with it, but it was a wasted opportunity. To start off, I could have lived without the entire subplot of Larry and his family. Not only was it not fleshed out enough, but it also took twenty minutes to even get to the museum-unless you include the painfully dull opening credit sequence-and that entire twenty minutes just set Larry up with his wife and son. There was even Paul Rudd as the annoying "other man." You know, that character who is the wife's new man, who you just love to hate because he makes the main character look bad. And then in the end this entire relationship was tied together too neatly. I would have liked some more gags with Larry in the museum trying to keep everything in order with everything coming to life and all, and not going off on a tangent to describe his personal life. It just wasn't needed, and slowed everything down. Ben Stiller has some moments where he is truly funny, but he's been better, and at times I felt that he was just kind of coasting his way through this. Robin Williams was once again not doing anything funny or entertaining. Perhaps he put all his energy into "Happy Feet" and was too tired to do this one. In any case, I think he was more enjoyable in "Man of the Year," and I really hated that one. The best two cast members were either Carla Gugino who was genuinely sweet and a joy to watch, as well as Ricky Gervasis from the original "The Office." Sadly for me, he was reduced to only three scenes, but he did make me laugh the most(Fool me once, shame on you. . . fool me twice. . . . .hmmmm). And I will thank the screenwriters for avoiding a love story between Stiller and Gugino, because that would have been a route that would have made this suffer even worse.

Like I said the best bits were in the museum itself, mostly because its something that I'm sure everybody has thought about when they were younger. What if all the history and statues and models in the museum all came to life at some point? And its a cool idea, but not used to its fully potential. There is even a silly plot involving the veteran night guards and an ancient tablet that makes everything come to life, and even that was a bit brutal to sit through. I was bored too much by "Night at the Museum" and I wasn't entranced like I should have been. And it's a real shame because this might have been the escapist film needed this time of year. I really must stress that instead of this you should see "Charlotte's Web," and much more magical and sweeter and even more entering family flick. "Night at the Museum" is a serious disappointment, given that it had more than enough potential to be a real winner. These are the types of films that hurt the most to give low ratings too-the ones that I thought would have been rated higher.