It's much easier to break something than it is to make it. Criticism is a cinch to hand out, but in the case of Night at the Museum, it's well worth it.
The amount of money that must have been spent on this film may be enough to fund a town in Africa for a long time. In some aspects of Night at the Museum the budget was well spent. The general design and special effects in particular were both beautiful and imaginative. The money paid to the various high-profile actors would have been substantial, and it's a credit to the producers of this film that they were able to assemble such a high-profile cast.
But no matter how much of a budget is available, it's still impossible to create a successful, satisfying end product without a good set of fundamentals. The plot of Night at the Museum was lame at best. Characters were some of the most predictable, unimaginative and one-dimensional that I have ever encountered. (Attila the Hun for example). This was particularly disappointing in that much of Night of the Museum purports to be about the importance of learning, whereas the audience are treated like a bunch of ignoramuses. The intended audience of children is no excuse: the most successful children's films are those who actually treat their audiences with respect, not purely dishing up half-baked intellectually-vacant crash-bang as is the case with so much of this film. There's nothing wrong with a lot of action, but it needs to be underpinned by more substance that was in the case here.
The stellar cast alluded to earlier was largely wasted. There was a strong sense of the actors 'going through the motions' - particularly Owen Wilson and Robin Williams: the latter of whom needs to be advised that he's done enough pseudo-deep-and-emotional roles now. However the plot was so bad that one can hardly blame them for delivering shallow performances. Even a comic genius such as Ben Stiller was trying hard, but his heart just wasn't in it.
To top it off, the myriad of cutesy, saccharine interactions between Ben Stiller and his fictional son were positively vomit-inducing. (Suspension of disbelief aside, do children and their parents in the US actually communicate like this? Are children to be negotiated with as if they are little adults?) But this was purely symptomatic of the general malaise and laziness of so much of Night at the Museum. The only positive thing from this two hours of my life is that I fell asleep for half of it.
The amount of money that must have been spent on this film may be enough to fund a town in Africa for a long time. In some aspects of Night at the Museum the budget was well spent. The general design and special effects in particular were both beautiful and imaginative. The money paid to the various high-profile actors would have been substantial, and it's a credit to the producers of this film that they were able to assemble such a high-profile cast.
But no matter how much of a budget is available, it's still impossible to create a successful, satisfying end product without a good set of fundamentals. The plot of Night at the Museum was lame at best. Characters were some of the most predictable, unimaginative and one-dimensional that I have ever encountered. (Attila the Hun for example). This was particularly disappointing in that much of Night of the Museum purports to be about the importance of learning, whereas the audience are treated like a bunch of ignoramuses. The intended audience of children is no excuse: the most successful children's films are those who actually treat their audiences with respect, not purely dishing up half-baked intellectually-vacant crash-bang as is the case with so much of this film. There's nothing wrong with a lot of action, but it needs to be underpinned by more substance that was in the case here.
The stellar cast alluded to earlier was largely wasted. There was a strong sense of the actors 'going through the motions' - particularly Owen Wilson and Robin Williams: the latter of whom needs to be advised that he's done enough pseudo-deep-and-emotional roles now. However the plot was so bad that one can hardly blame them for delivering shallow performances. Even a comic genius such as Ben Stiller was trying hard, but his heart just wasn't in it.
To top it off, the myriad of cutesy, saccharine interactions between Ben Stiller and his fictional son were positively vomit-inducing. (Suspension of disbelief aside, do children and their parents in the US actually communicate like this? Are children to be negotiated with as if they are little adults?) But this was purely symptomatic of the general malaise and laziness of so much of Night at the Museum. The only positive thing from this two hours of my life is that I fell asleep for half of it.