Night at the Museum

It's been a good while since i've gotten to write a solid rave, so be forewarned: I just loved this movie.

All the signs were there for a great movie outing. I managed to get out of work by 3:30 which, for me, almost always means a 4:00 movie. And, it being a holiday week, there was a packed house of kids who were at least as excited as this often-immature adult.

And we certainly weren't disappointed. After thankfully little exposition about how Ben Stiller's character can't hold a job and constantly lets down his son, we quickly get to the big show at NYC's Museum of Natural History, where he takes a job as the night watchman.

His guides in this endeavor are three sometimes surly old gents being forced into retirement, played with obvious relish by Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney and Bill Cobbs. It would be painful to watch Rooney, in particular, playing such a cartoonishly angry old man if they weren't all clearly having so much fun doing it.

And what they leave Stiller is based on a premise I've always secretly believed: That at night, all the creatures in museums come to life. Any kid who has seen that giant elephant in the lobby of the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum and didn't dream of it coming to life needs a serious shot of imagination.

NYC's version is the perfect setting for the fairly manic show that unfolds, and it plays exactly to Stiller's strengths. He's described his chief comedic talent as being "the reactor," and while that's definitely more than a bit of false modesty, it's just the right pose for this movie, and he nails it.

If you've seen the trailer for this one, it promises a wild ride and mostly delivers. The T-Rex comes to life first, and within minutes you've got pure chaos, tempered with more than a few choice jokes.

Whereas a lot of trailers give away all the best jokes, this flick, which was written by "Reno 911" creators Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, saves plenty of surprises for the movie itself. Sure, it's a cathartic joy to watch Stiller smacking a monkey (rather than, if this were a Farrelly brothers flick, I suppose choking the chicken), but also watch out for a very funny moment with Attila and his huns, plus a lot more.

And in this melee, you get some seriously good comics in top form. Robin Williams, who I can either take or leave, channels the spirit of Teddy Roosevelt perfectly as he rides through the museum spouting empty platitudes about greatness. Apparently all he needs is a good target for all that energy, and he definitely hits it here. You'll also get naturally funny guys Owen Wilson and Steve Coogan as, respectively, a cowboy and a Roman soldier who are rivals forced, of course, to unite to save their fellow museum creatures. And you also get Carla Gugino who, though she has very little to do, is always a welcome sight in my book.

One quibble, if I may. Ricky Gervais' museum director is, naturally, supposed to be stuffy bad guy, but he plays it as a lightweight version of David Brent from "The Office," and it just doesn't work. A man as funny as he is should never be a one-trick pony.

But, like I said, thats just a quibble with this flick that has the audacious goal of making history cool again. It doesn't quite get there, but it does make it loads of fun, which was good enough for me.

It's gonna be a busy movie weekend here (my favorite kind of Christmas!) We're going to see "Rocky Balboa" later today, and then "Dreamgirls" Monday, so please feel free to stop back for reviews (which I'm fairly certain will be positive), and have a very merry Christmas!