We may deplore the long wait till the next instalment of Harry Potter and Narnia all we want, but the kids in our lives still demand to be taken to the movies during the holiday season. What is Christmas without a family movie, after all? But in this climate of cinematic mediocrity, the choice is best left to the kids. Our nephews and nieces picked Night at the Museum, and me and my husband heroically steeled ourselves to staring at Ben Stiller’s mug, blown up several storeys high, for nigh on two hours.

Larry Daley (Stiller) is a divorced dad, an irresponsible dreamer who bounces from job to job. When he’s threatened with eviction yet again, his ex-wife declares their son cannot deal with any more disappointment. So Larry buckles down and takes on the graveyard shift at the New York Museum of Natural History where he assumes the mantle of security guard in place of three old-timers (Dick van Dyke, Mickey Rooney and Bill Cobbs)—a down-sizing due to the museum being in financial straits.

Little does Larry know (but he’s to find out on his very first night on the job) that the museum exhibits spring to life every nightfall, and has done so for some time now, ever since the arrival of an ancient Egyptian artifact. While Larry tries to keep order and prevent bloodshed (or would that be wax-melt?) between miniature cowboys and Roman centurians in neighboring diorama, Neanderthals in a nearby exhibit threaten to burn themselves in their quest for fire, while a frisky T. Rex demands to be appeased. All this, while staying one up on a thieving capuchin monkey.

Taking pity on Larry, a mounted Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams) who spends his time making ox-eyes at Lewis and Clark’s Native American guide, the beautiful Sagajawea (Mizuo Peck), gives him some advice: Only when we know our past are we best prepared for the future. So Larry starts to read up on various historical figures. However, his best intentions lead to even more chaos and he’s almost fired. Will he lose his son’s respect and affection? (yawn) And who’s behind the theft of the ancient Egyptian artifact? (duh) Let’s face it, there’s no taxing your brain cells here. That’s not the intent of this movie. Its intent is to entertain, and that it manages to do in spades.

Some of the funniest scenes include the feuding between Jedediah (Owen Wilson) and Octavius (Steve Coogan), leader of the cowboys and leader of the Roman centurions respectively, as well as a hilarious scene featuring Larry’s attempt to placate Attila the Hun. The museum’s director, a laughably inarticulate Ricky Gervais, subtly steals a few scenes from the po-faced Stiller (why, for pity’s sake, is he a box-office draw?). There is also a love interest in the form of museum docent played by the beautiful Carla Gugino, stuck in her 900-page thesis on Sagajawea.

Production designer Claude Pare has re-created New York’s Museum of Natural History (via the one in Vancouver, btw) into a surreal place, where lions roar, monkeys swing from jungle vines, and anachronisms abound—Roman centurions battling with cowboys from the Wild West, a terracotta soldier and a jade lion roaming the corridors through which Teddy Roosevelt gallops, Neanderthals rubbing shoulders with courtiers from the time of Christopher Columbus. It’s chaos, but it’s controlled, and it’s done with humor and good cheer.

The important thing is that the kids will enjoy it, and adults will find that the seamless CGI effects and the humor are enough to make up for the blatant sentimentality and the fact that Stiller is present in almost every scene. Light-hearted, fun to watch, it’s the perfect way to entertain the kids for a couple of hours over the holidays. Plus, they might even learn the lesson—history’s not boring at all, quite the contrary. It’s alive with magic and mayhem, and the people who shaped the world as we know it now, live and breathe in its hallowed pages.


Recommended:
Yes

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up Ages 8