Night at the Museum Review
I wasn’t expecting to much from this little cinematic expedition, in fact I was expecting so very much less than that, don’t ask me why, I had barely heard anything about the film, but my head was telling me only bad things would happen. So when I came out of the cinema without ranting till I was blue in the face came as some what of a surprise….
The concept of the film is thus, Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) is in need of a job. If he doesn’t get one he wont be able to see his ten year old son, which is a bad thing, obviously. So he sets about finding employment and comes across a position working the late night security shift at the Museum of Natural History. On his first shift things go just a little bit crazy as all the exhibits come to life, and hilarity ensues. Things get a little bit more complicated when you factor in an evil Dick van Dyke, Egyptian curses and the obligatory crazy monkey.
The film takes about an hour to get interesting and even then it only just manages to hold your interest, everything that is going on in the film has been done before and most notably done better. Ironically when you consider the involvement of Robin Williams and Chris Columbus, Jumanji is a prime example of this.
The cast involved is a pretty star studded affair, as already mentioned you have Ben Stiller, Dick van Dyke and Robin Williams but add to that Ricky Gervais, Owen Wilson, Mickey Rooney and Steve Coogan. So it only adds to the disappointment when you realise that none of these actors come anywhere near to reaching the levels we know they can. Gervais is the biggest let down as he basically plays himself for about 5 minutes on screen, and is given only one gag to play with (oh the hilarity, we cant finish sentences). You know the only reason that he involved himself in this film is because he and Stiller are bosom buddies after working on Extras. Only the pairing of Coogan and Wilson really got me giggling, but it wasn’t enough to stop this film well below average.
So what we have here is a comedy/action/adventure type film ,that isn’t very funny and the action adventure bits have been done much better many times before.
But ignoring that, Alix liked it and she said she would hit me if I didn’t say something nice about it so…………….it had dinosaurs in it, and everyone knows they are cool!!
Matt/mapooo
The concept of the film is thus, Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) is in need of a job. If he doesn’t get one he wont be able to see his ten year old son, which is a bad thing, obviously. So he sets about finding employment and comes across a position working the late night security shift at the Museum of Natural History. On his first shift things go just a little bit crazy as all the exhibits come to life, and hilarity ensues. Things get a little bit more complicated when you factor in an evil Dick van Dyke, Egyptian curses and the obligatory crazy monkey.
The film takes about an hour to get interesting and even then it only just manages to hold your interest, everything that is going on in the film has been done before and most notably done better. Ironically when you consider the involvement of Robin Williams and Chris Columbus, Jumanji is a prime example of this.
The cast involved is a pretty star studded affair, as already mentioned you have Ben Stiller, Dick van Dyke and Robin Williams but add to that Ricky Gervais, Owen Wilson, Mickey Rooney and Steve Coogan. So it only adds to the disappointment when you realise that none of these actors come anywhere near to reaching the levels we know they can. Gervais is the biggest let down as he basically plays himself for about 5 minutes on screen, and is given only one gag to play with (oh the hilarity, we cant finish sentences). You know the only reason that he involved himself in this film is because he and Stiller are bosom buddies after working on Extras. Only the pairing of Coogan and Wilson really got me giggling, but it wasn’t enough to stop this film well below average.
So what we have here is a comedy/action/adventure type film ,that isn’t very funny and the action adventure bits have been done much better many times before.
But ignoring that, Alix liked it and she said she would hit me if I didn’t say something nice about it so…………….it had dinosaurs in it, and everyone knows they are cool!!
Matt/mapooo
