12.27.06
lee1990 Movie Review: Night at the Museum
Ben Stiller seems to have been typecast playing down and out losers who triumph in the end. In this movie, he plays a divorcee who has drifted his way through life with one scheme after another. Desperate to avoid having visitations with his son being canceled, he takes a job as a night watchman at a natural history museum.
The job starts out routinely enough. Ben is introduced to the 3 elderly guards he is replacing. Two are played by well known venerable actors Mickey Rooney and Dick Van Dyke. They show him the ropes, but there is a hint of things to come when VanDyke warns him not to let anything in or out.
The meaning of this warning becomes evident on the first night as Ben turns around and finds the massive Tyranosaurus skeleton that dominates the museum lobby missing. He then discovers it drinking from the water fountain down the hall. The little problem that the night guards at the museum have to deal with is that all the exhibits come to life between sundown and sunrise.
What follows are encounters with:
A wisecracking Moi (Easter Island Statue) with a taste for chewing gum.
A t-rex skeleton that likes to play fetch with one of his own ribs.
A wax figure of Teddy Roosevelt (brilliantly played by Robin Williams) that has a crush on the wax figure of Pocahontas who is stuck behind the glass of her display.
An Africa exhibit filled with man-eating lions and an extremely mischievous monkey.
Rampaging huns.
Stampeding woolly mammoths.
A war between Maya, Wild West, and Roman diorama miniatures.
Out of control cavemen.
Ben must attempt to keep order, and also keep all inside the museum. Anything outside the museum at dawn will vanish in a cloud of dust.
There is another sub-plot that provides Ben a chance to be a hero, but I don’t want to give away too much of the plot.
As a side note, those familiar with the British version of the TV show “The Office” will recognize the museum director as being the smarmy boss on “The Office”. His character has essentially been transplanted, smarmy attitude and all.
The movie provides a good share of laughs and lighthearted action. Worth the admission price.
