Back in what will probably soon be referred to as the Stone Age -- before computer games, the Internet, home video and when electric football and Lite-Brite were about the only games that could be plugged in -- kids were "forced" to use their imagination a great deal more so than today.
Accordingly, visits to museums -- be they of the regular or wax variety -- were tremendous fun as they presented physical manifestations of things we had only previously imagined from reading about in the old World Book Encyclopedia. While the fossil skeletons and miniature dioramas were cool, the most intriguing were the recreations of real or just general historical people.
Beyond the academic (read boring) aspects, the coolest part was imagining that the wax figures were real (helped, no doubt, by the few that actually moved due to creaky mechanical parts hidden within). And when left alone in a room with them, you would almost swear you could see them breathe or catch their eyes watching you.
Imagine then, having to spend an entire night alone with a museum full of such characters. Spooky? Yes. Creepy? Most definitely. Scary? Possibly. But funny? Not remotely. Perhaps that's where the filmmakers responsible for "Night at the Museum" erred.
The tale of a night shift security guard at New York City's Museum of Natural History who discovers that most everything there comes to life when the last tourists have left and the doors are locked, the film intends to leave its audience in stitches. Yet, while younger kids might enjoy the antics of a bone fetching T-Rex skeleton, a slap-happy monkey, fire-desirous Neanderthals and much, much more, older teens and especially adults might find all of the slapstick antics a bit too juvenile for their liking.
Based on the book of almost the same name by Milan Trenc, the film stars comedy stalwart Ben Stiller as the divorced night guard who must endure the nightly chaos, all in the name of holding down a job so that he doesn't disappoint his 10-year-old son (Jake Cherry). It seems the boy favors his mom's bond trader boyfriend (an underused Paul Rudd who isn't in much more than cameo mode) over his chronically failed inventor father, and thus the movie follows the standard trajectory of such light tales of fractured families where the loving but loser dad strives to prove his worth.
Yet, writers Robert Ben Garant & Thomas Lennon, as well as director Shawn Levy ("The Pink Panther," "Cheaper by the Dozen") don't even milk that for all it's worth in terms of plot and comedy potential. Where's the overnight kids field trip to the museum where Larry must keep the students (including his son) and their adult chaperones out of harm's way or just from discovering what really occurring? On the other hand, why wouldn't he tell others about such events only to discover that only one person at a time can see them?
What about the possibility that he's dreaming all of this every night or is drugged every evening and thus hallucinates everything, all the better for the ulterior motives of some Hollywood legends who populate a woefully underdeveloped subplot?
Those would be Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, and Bill Cobbs who play the veteran security guards, but suffer from the lack of writing that's good, smart, and/or creative enough to warrant their presence here. When their subplot finally kicks into high gear and things turn to even more physical comedy, it only makes you long for these men's previous work (especially regarding Van Dyke).
While an uncredited Owen Wilson pretty much does his usual laidback shtick (here playing a diorama's cowboy figurine), the terrific Steve Coogan is wasted playing his Roman emperor counterpart. Robin Williams is in slight schmaltz rather than over-the-top mode playing a wax figure of Teddy Roosevelt (and thus source of profound inspiration for our nebbish protagonist), while Carla Gugino plays what seems like the love interest character, but that subplot never develops into anything of interest.
Thus, what we're pretty much left with is nightly chaos, where Stiller's character bones up on his history so that he can connect with the emotional side of Attila the Hun when not having fire extinguisher foam flung onto him by a caveman right before getting into a slapping match with a key lovin' capuchin monkey. If that sounds hilarious, by all means, schedule a visit with this film.
But with Stiller in uninspired everyman loser mode and the filmmakers failing to take full advantage of the premise and the various complications and developments that could and should have arisen, the effort isn't as much fun -- in a spooky, thrilling and/or comedy fashion -- as one might otherwise expect. "Night at the Museum" rates as a 4 out of 10.
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