Chaos reigns at the natural history museum when night watchman Larry Daley accidentally stirs up an ancient curse, awakening Attila the Hun, an army of gladiators, a Tyrannosaurus rex and other exhibits.
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Reviews
The Worst Film Ever
Powerful
It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
How does this have 6.4 stars? It's way better than IMDb people say it is! Alright, a lot of movies on IMDb are better than the ratings. But this should be in the range of 7 stars. Sure, there are some gross or dumb jokes. Sure, it's not like a Marvel movie with an action or leveled plot. Sure, it has a cliché my-parents-are-divorced-so-I-don't- trust-my-dad thing. But just ignore that and you'll enjoy it! The CGI, acting, and characters make it a great movie.
This 2006 film by 20th Century Fox is a fantasy that has a little education and history. I don't know that children (and older) will retain much, but the scenes of different museum windows provide the occasions for some science and history to take hold. What one might enjoy the most in this film is the masterful camera work and special effects as the clay or model characters come to life. The film has some light humor as well as mildly scary scenes with a T-Rex dinosaur on the rampage. Ben Stiller is OK as the main character, Larry Daley. The rest of the cast are good in their roles. It's light entertainment, but nothing worth going out of one's way to watch. Most kids would probably enjoy it. It might be a good baby-sitter movie.
A Night At The Museum stars Ben Stiller, Carla Gugino, Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, Bill Cobbs, Jake Cherry, Ricky Gervais, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, and Robin Williams with varying screen time and success. Plot In A Paragraph: Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) is divorced, unable to keep a stable job, and has failed at his many business ventures. His ex-wife (Kim Raver) believes that he is a bad example to their ten-year-old son Nicky (Jake Cherry), and Larry fears that Nick respects his future stepfather, bond trader Don (Paul Rudd), more than him. He gets a job as a night watchman at New York City's American Museum of Natural History and subsequently discovers that the exhibits, animated by a magical Egyptian artifact, come to life at night.Stiller does his usual Ben Stiller routine. Owen Wilson is basically his character from "Shanghai Noon" simply replacing Jackie Chan with Steve Coogan. Ricky Gervais is incredibly annoying as he over acts. However Robin Williams steals the show as Theodore Roosevelt.Carla Gugino is awfully under used!! Not quite a love interest, but someone we should care about being upset, without really knowing her. A total waste of her considerable talents. Likewise Paul Rudd, who is neither the evil step father, nor the dastardly new husband of the main characters ex wife. Instead he turns up once looking like a douche, and once more looking like a good guy. A total waste. Both characters should have been expanded or wrote out!! Speaking of being wrote out. The kid could have been wrote out too!! A pointless character, except to give Stiller's character a reason to get a "real job" I did enjoy eating this movie with my 9 year old son. If he wants to watch it again I will not mind, as it was an easy 90 minutes or so.
Ben Stiller plays Larry Daley, an unemployed father to son Nick (Jake Cherry). He's not been very successful in previous jobs and is about to start a new life in Queens. However, before Larry leaves he makes one last attempt to find a job. Larry ends up securing employment as a night watchmen at a local museum - but this is no ordinary museum and Larry discovers that the statues and museum pieces come to life between sunset and sunrise due to an ancient tablet that has been placed in the museum. This means that Larry's evenings at work are 'eventful' to say the least.This to me is much more than just a special effects extravaganza. It's actually very funny and also contains some great acting performances. There are occasional cheap sight gags and once or twice it does get a bit crude, but these elements aren't over-done and a lot of the jokes are actually clean and tasteful - Larry's feud with the monkey Dexter was a personal highlight for me. There are a few gags that are a bit crude and there is some very minor violence in this film so it's probably not suitable for younger children (although teenagers should be OK with this).It's not just the animals that come to life, but many of the cast do as well - Rooney for me was the scene stealer and was a blast in this. Stiller was excellent and gave the film a nice manic edge when required. Stiller is well-supported by an excellent cast including Bill Cobbs, Dick Van Dyke, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan. In fact, all the cast were great apart from one person......RICKY GERVAIS; I'm sorry but whenever I saw him on screen I didn't see a Museum Director in a New York Museum - what I actually saw was a camp David Brent playing a Museum Director in a New York Museum. Anyone who has seen the UK version of The Office will know what I'm talking about. His mannerisms and the way he speaks just reminded me of David Brent. This would have been OK if his character would have been funny, like his David Brent character was in The Office, but the writers probably gave Gervais the weakest material to work with and for me he was a pointless character in the film. I can just imagine him repeating "Assistant to the museum director" if he'd had an assistant. I'm probably being a bit harsh, but it did bother me slightly when watching this film. Thankfully, Gervais isn't given much screen time so it wasn't a huge problem.Although I had an issue with the casting of Gervais, this is still an absolute laugh riot from start to finish. The script is mostly sharp and funny and it very rarely loses momentum. In summary, it's a very funny film and highly enjoyable.