RUTHERFORD ON FILM: ‘Night at the Museum’: A Superficial Toy Land Town Comes to Life Fantasy
By Tony RutherfordHuntington News Network Critic
Huntington, WV (HNN) -- Have you played “fetch” with dinosaur bones?
Born from the mind of the late Rod Sterling where mannequins come alive “After Hours” in a large department store, “Night at the Museum” applies the concept to the Museum of Natural History where admissions have been declining. Enter Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) as a candidate for the supposedly tame night shift that requires much more than the flashlight, keys, and instruction manual handed him by old timers played by Mickey Rooney and Dick Van Dyke. He’ll need the latter to tame the beasts, statues, and miniatures who rumble in the museum until the sun rises.
Aside from the dazzling special effects (a T-Rex skeleton chasing a bone) and instant imaginative appeal, “Museum” maintains sugar plum dancing fantasies which means mostly toy land town coming alive around the tree scenarios and few relics with which teens and adults identify.
Stiller graciously interacts with the nightly bones and plastic mayhem makers --- who routinely trash the stately structure --- then somehow return it to “normal” by the time doors open for business. Unable to resist the “history comes alive” phrase, Stiller musters slight giggles mainly by adding modern inventions to the Lewis & Clark and stone age exhibits as well as a mischievous monkey.
Despite historic icons aplenty, the script settles for the mundane never rising beyond the mindset of a boy’s war games with G.I. Joe type toy soldiers. The adults simply spar in a routine custody battle, holding a job woes, and a hint of feminine attraction from an intellectual docent.
Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams) juts occasional confident words from his white steed, and, you can easily attest to the wrap without a need to sound the horn for any rough riders. It’s an imaginative romp for tykes, but the rest of us deserve something beyond this superficial do good fantasy.