Night at the Museum

Night at the Museum is supposed to be a fantastical romp through an imaginary world in which the creatures and characters that populate the American Museum of Natural History come to life at night. Unfortunately, it’s no more interesting than spending a night in the museum actually would be.

The plot centers around Larry Daley (Ben Stiller), a failurish divorced father who takes a job as the night guard at the Museum of Natural History because otherwise he’ll be evicted from his apartment and denied access to his cookie-cutter-cute son. And as you know, once there he has to deal with everything from a skeletal T-Rex with canine tendencies to a borderline sadistic capuchin monkey.

The idea is a good one—though a bit of a rip-off of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. But the execution is dreadful. Nearly everyone involved with this movie—from the director on down—seemed to be giving about 35% effort. The idea seemed to be: “You know, if we make a family movie that’s chock full of star power, market it aggressively, and release around Christmas, we’ll make money no matter how sloppy it is.” The depressing thing is that they’re right. Museum made $250 million, a lucrative return even on the substantial $110 million they spent making the movie.

But enough financial talk, let’s discuss why this movie sucked.

The script is poor beyond belief. Comic actors can only be comic actors if they have any comic lines to deliver—or at least comic situations to get in. But there’s not a lot to work with here. The script was penned by Reno 911’s Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon (who also teamed up for such beloved films as Herbie Fully Loaded and Let’s Go to Prison). Either the pair have a hard time being funny in a PG setting, or their comic sensibilities clashed with that of the actors. Whatever it was, I can count the laugh-out-loud moments in this movie on one finger.

But there are worse problems than that, such as laziness with continuity: Stiller stays up all night for his shift, then spends the entire next day researching. Rather than, I don’t know, passing out the moment he gets home. He then goes to work the next night, never betraying a hint of tiredness. (Another complaint: Night at the Museum is actually several nights.)

There are also moments of severe stupidity—the two most flagrant are caveman-related. On his second night of work, Stiller is prepared, and there’s a montage wherein he neutralizes a bunch of potential problems before they start. One of the things he does is find the now-living caveman display in the midst of their quest to create fire—and gives them a lighter. Never does he consider the fact that that this is completely retarded. Honestly, the cavemen weren’t even a problem the first night, why would he just give them fire?

Inevitably, one of the cavemen sets his hair on fire, and Stiller has to jump in with a fire extinguisher. This makes a big mess of foam in the display and, in the commotion, one of the cavemen escapes. The next morning, the museum’s curator (Ricky Gervais) chides Stiller for the mess in the display, but completely ignores the fact that there is a caveman missing. I mean, come on.

The actors clearly know that they’re dealing with substandard material, and mail in their performances accordingly. There’s a lot of comic talent involved here, so that’s a lot of mailing.

Stiller kind of tries, but he never gets out of second gear, and that’s nearly enough. Robin Williams is completely wasted as a pretty bad Teddy Roosevelt impersonator. Owen Wilson knows he's acting for kids, and hams it up accordingly (and obnoxiously). Poor Ricky Gervais looks like he has no idea what his character is supposed to be. Dick Van Dyke, as former night guard Cecil, holds up admirably for a short while, but eventually succumbs to the ridiculousness surrounding him. Mickey Rooney might actually be the pick of the litter here. He isn't given much to do as Cecil's pugnacious sidekick Gus, but he at least seems to be having some fun with it. The same can't be said for the rest of the cast.

If there is a saving grace to this movie, it's that it is legitimately family-friendly. There's not much cussing and a total absence of sex talk (save for one fairly veiled Brokeback Mountain
reference). And the movie does manage to teach kids a bit about history, which is something. Though the history is predictably truncated, such as when Roosevelt rides up and quotes (without citing) Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, saying, "Some men are born great. Others have greatness thrust upon them." Which, of course, totally leaves out that irrelevant middle part: "Some achieve greatness."

Needless to say, Night at the Museum does not achieve greatness. It struggles to even achieve mediocrity. Sometimes I'll have days at work when I think, "I'm beat and I'm bored. I'm just going to do the minimum required of me and then call it a day." So I can't really chide the people involved in Night at the Museum too much for having the same thoughts, but I can warn you against tasting the fruits of their lack of effort. And I can give the movie a stern shake of the head and a -4.