A stocking full of gags

By Stephen Holden
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, NEW YORK
Friday, Dec 29, 2006, Page 16

PHOTOS COURTESY OF FOX

IN Night at the Museum, gigantism rules. This season's answer to Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, it's an overstuffed grab bag in which lumps of coal are glued together with melted candy.

Yes, the bag does hold some clever robotic toys, but many are broken. If you were to line up the niftiest thingamajigs created for this tale of a would-be inventor-turned-night-watchman, you might have something resembling Jumanji Meets The Wizard of Oz with a dash of Home Alone. But the fable arrives smothered in an uneasy blend of wisecracks and pallid inspirational blather.

A self-described action-adventure comedy, Night at the Museum is exactly that: It wants to be all things to all people under a certain age. Shawn Levy (the Cheaper by the Dozen movies, the Pink Panther remake), who directed from Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon's adaptation of a book by Milan Trenc, subscribes enthusiastically to the current Hollywood philosophy that coherence doesn't matter if enough stuff is thrown onto the screen. Contributing to the bulk is a score (by Alan Silvestri) that rivals the Star Wars soundtracks in pounding grandiosity.

It's fair to say that Night at the Museum is better than the insufferable Jim Carrey Grinch, a landmark of holiday film excess. It knows how to build excitement by steadily accelerating the pace and widening the spectacle. Almost in spite of itself, it sets off occasional little bursts of cinematic magic.

The movie begins as a droopy family comedy about the divorced, unemployed Larry Daley (Ben Stiller, ably going through the motions), who is so down and out he may have to move from Manhattan to (gasp!) Queens. It quickly builds to a CGI (computer generated imagery) extravaganza in the halls of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. There (where the movie wasn't actually filmed, except for exteriors), its hapless protagonist takes a job as the museum's night watchman.

Film Notes: Night at the Museum Directed by: Shawn Levy Starring: Ben Stiller (Larry Daley), Carla Gugino (Rebecca), Dick Van Dyke (Cecil Fredricks), Mickey Rooney (Gus), Bill Cobbs (Reginald), Robin Williams (Teddy Roosevelt), Jake Cherry (Nick), Ricky Gervais (Dr. McPhee), Kim Raver (Erica Daley), Patrick Gallagher (Attila the Hun), Rami Malek (Ahkmenrah), Mizuo Peck (Sacajawea), Steve Coogan (Octavius), Anne Meara (Debbie) and Owen Wilson (Jedediah) Running time: 108 minutes Taiwan release: On general release

Larry, oblivious to the strange looks on the faces of the three guards he's replacing — Cecil (Dick Van Dyke), Gus (Mickey Rooney) and Reginald (Bill Cobbs) — has no idea what's awaiting him. No sooner have they departed, handing him the keys with strict instructions that nothing leave the museum, than the place stirs to life. In no time Larry is playing frightened ringmaster to a rampaging circus of exhibits that have come to life through the magic of a priceless Egyptian tablet.

A Tyrannosaurus rex hops off its pedestal and like a famished zombie begins clumping after Larry, who discovers that if he throws it a bone, it fetches like a dog. Cute. A stone head from Easter Island demands bubble gum. And a cheeky monkey named Dexter steals Larry's keys, tears up his instructions and engages him in a face-slapping routine.

At first it seems as though the menacing wild animals (both prehistoric and contemporary) will be Larry's nemeses. But Night at the Museum squeezes the most juice from its historical figures, some life-sized, others miniature, some in dioramas and others on pedestals. The most amusing image is of Stiller, wide-eyed and floppy-eared, besieged by bands of tiny, finger-sized warriors furiously hurling spears and darts at him.

Of the historical figures, Robin Williams' Teddy Roosevelt is the noisiest. Once this statue steps off his equestrian roost, he behaves like a bossy, slogan-dispensing drill instructor, whipping Larry into moral shape. But beneath his bluster, the facsimile of the 26th president is an emotional basket case, who admits in a weak moment that he is a synthetic product manufactured in Poughkeepsie. For most of the film, he pines silently after Sacajawea (Mizuo Peck), the famous Indian tracker locked inside the glass case of a Lewis and Clark diorama.

Profitable screen time is devoted to the continuing territorial squabble between tiny figurines of Octavius (Steve Coogan), the Roman general, and Jedediah (Owen Wilson, uncredited), a rootin'-tootin' American cowboy. Bizarrely, the movie gives their dispute a gay subtext. In a slip of the tongue, Octavius addresses Larry as Mary, and Jedediah, quoting from Brokeback Mountain, tells Octavius, "I can't quit you." I guess it means that nowadays such smidgens of South Park humor are thrown into family movies to make everybody feel terribly knowing.

But when Night at the Museum returns to Larry's personal life, it dies. The movie doesn't even make a pretense of being interested in the scenes between Larry and Nick (Jake Cherry), the 10-year-old son whose respect he is losing. And its cynical lack of concern for giving the characters human feelings is a grave drawback for a movie that wants to engage children.