>>REVIEW
NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM
STARRING: Ben Stiller, Dick Van Dyke, Robin Williams and Carla Gugino
DIRECTED BY: Shawn Levy
Opens Friday, December 22
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With a plethora of imagination and killer special effects, Night at the Museum is a light, fun, family film. Based on a book by Croatian author and illustrator Milan Trec, the Shawn Levy directed film comes to life, both literally and figuratively, with the moral being the unprecedented role history plays in our lives, and how it can teach us about the future.
But let’s not get too deep – we are talking about a Ben Stiller film. This is a child-friendly, but no less hilarious film. Stiller plays Larry Daley, a hopeless dreamer who has no direction in his life and who is holding on to his hopes of being an inventor and entrepreneur. Daley is desperate to appear successful and together to his son, Nick, who lives with Daley’s ex-wife and her yuppie bond-broker fiancé (played by Paul Rudd). In order to show his son that he is capable of having a "real job," Daley begrudgingly accepts a job as the night guard at the beautiful Museum of Natural History (in New York City). The torch is then handed to Daley from the older night guards, played by the still-spunky Dick Van Dyke, a crotchety Mickey Rooney and Bill Cobbs. They leave Daley alone at the museum, and something strange, and magical happens. As soon as night falls, history is reborn and everything in the museum comes to life.
A skeletal tyrannosaurus rex starts runs around to play catch, a bronzed Christopher Columbus babbles in Italian, the "African wildlife" run amuck, Attila the Hun and co. go on the hunt, a bratty little monkey named Dexter causes havoc, Robin Williams as Teddy Roosevelt gets philosophical and tiny miniature figurines wage war on each other. The miniature Romans, who battle, conquer and build things, clash with the miniature cowboys, led by Owen Wilson. Watching a mini Owen Wilson fight with a mini Roman Emperor is worth the price of admission.
Daley successfully accomplishes his goal of impressing his son when he brings him to work one night and all hell breaks loose. The action sequences are both funny and captivating, and Night at the Museum is a great film to see with the entire family, I should know, as almost all of mine came with me – and they all loved it. |
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