To be honest prior to being aware of Night at the museums directorial credit I was looking forward to it immensely. The blend of comic actors which included Ben Stiller, Ricky Gervais, Steve Coogan, Owen Wilson and Dick Van Dyke looked to good to be true on paper. Coupled with the huge budget and exciting T-Rex teaser trailer the film offered a shimmer of hope to a Holiday season that even in August smelt like a stinker. As I said however, this was prior to being aware who the director was, because as soon as I found out my expectations dropped pretty deep. Two words, Shaun Levy managed to make me think a supposdly perfect film could actually end up being awful. There's no doubt that Levy is currently one of the worst filmmakers around churning out rubbish like Cheaper by The Dozen, Just married and last years disappointing Pink Panther update on an annual basis. So with these thoughts in mind I went to see Night at the museum on the 27th of December and was well.....entertained. I won't examine the story in great detail after all, this is on IMDb and a great summary is a fingerclick away on this very page, so that would be a waste of my time. However I will hint at the themes that set the story up and they are "fatherhood", "redemption" and generally other preachy nonsense. That may be the film's biggest flaw, an overly saccharine and syrupy story which is more likely to repulse the viewer than attract him. Also coupled with some weak performances from Carla Gugino and Robin Williams the films quality is deeply effected. That said it's far from awful and has several redeeming points. The effects are as good as the trailer promised and some sequences involving the T-Rex and Atilla the Hun are genuinely entertaining. There's also a nice comic sub story between Stiller and a monkey, native to the museum. Stiller himself puts in a comfortable and pleasant performance as does Dick Van Dyke and Ricky Gervais. The stand out's in the cast are Steve Coogan and Owen Wilson who are constantly at war with each other and whilst they learn the error of their ways the Cowboy and Roman (thats who the actors represent) learn to get along, albeit in a very funny manor. As I mentioned before the huge budget has been put to good use with the storys main protaginists coming to life in stunning detail (the T-rex,lions and minatures are the standouts)and there are some great shots of the new york sky line. However what is more important is how Levy's direction comes of. It's far from great but whats more meaningful is how it's far from terrible (the level were he has been squandering in recent years) and that represents improvement. He doesn't always grasp the emotional aspects of the tale well but he handles the comic and effects based set pieces well, something that he didn't seem capable of doing in previous efforts. So Kudos to Mr.Levy for upping his game, but to irradicate Just married from my mind he'll have to up it further still. The final line on Night at the museum is despite it's flaws it remains of higher quality than most of the other seasonal movies of 2006 and represents an adequate Standard in more general terms. So whilst adequate would have disappointed in August, after finding out several other facts about the movie and realising how sugary the story was in later months adequate does just fine.
Review of Night at the Museum
