Night at the Museum

By: The Dude

Director: Shawn Levy
Cast: Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Robin Williams, Ricky Gervais
Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Tell me this, someone, please: How can someone balls up a premise like Night at the Museum? I mean this thing is a lock, yeah? A dude takes a job at a funky museum where everything comes to life at night. I mean this is a gimme of the highest order, folks! No one should be able to mess this one up. It’s got dinosaur skeletons coming to life and CGI little cowboys and Romans, and everything. But ballsed up it is.

The T-Rex is a puppy, the monkey is annoying, the lions eat nothin’, Teddy Roosevelt is a nerd, and Stiller is a flog throughout.

Me thinks the money Shawn Levy musta shelled out on CGI and the cast, meant there wasn’t much coin left for a decent writer. They shoulda got The Dude in there to throw a few sentences at a scrap of paper. Hell, my shopping list woulda made a better for a plot. The problem is it’s a family movie. In that market this thing rocks! But for anyone who walked out on The Tigger Movie on account of the poor acting and unrealistic plot, NATM is too cute.

The worrying thing is that The Dude will be purchasing this one on DVD. The sight of Ricky Gervais stuttering through the blooper reel is enough incentive. So sad.

PS: Mickey Rooney is the funniest thing in the movie, even though he looks like he should be in a museum. Respect.

Extras: The blooper reel rocks. Gervais and Stiller provide the funniest thing in this so-called comedy. The rest is pretty much a distraction for the kiddies.

Verbatim:
Ricky Gervais: "Oh, haha - look at me, the comedy night guard. Do you want to get into a battle of humor? Do you?"
Ben Stiller: "Um, no. No I don't want to get into a battle of humor."
Ricky Gervais: "That's right, because it would be a bloodbath."

In a word: Family-friendly