Night at the Museum

As is apparent from the movie trailers, Night at the Museum is based on the fanciful premise that everything in a museum comes to life at night. As is often the case, hilarity ensues when the new night guard, played by Ben Stiller, takes the job without any warning about the museum's occupants. As the poster suggests, there are entertaining sequences with a tyrannosaurus skeleton, a mannequin of Theodore Roosevelt, and large dioramas full of hostile Lilliputian figures.

This movie really should have been immensely entertaining, but I found it profoundly disappointing. It's a kids movie, and it never rises above the level of a few good sight gags. Yes, it's amusing to watch Ben Stiller get chased by lions or Attila the Hun. But I got tired of the same jokes after the first half hour. There was also a shoddily constructed story line about Ben Stiller's character proving himself to his son, but it was so weak as to be distracting rather than fulfilling. Night at the Museum used up all its imagination in the premise and left none for the story.
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