Night At The Museum

Drawn from a children’s book by Croatian illustrator Milan Trenc, this fantasy isn’t exactly heavy, but its ideological implications are interesting nevertheless. A poorly educated, professionally challenged father (Ben Stiller) lands a job as a security guard at New York’s Museum of Natural History, where the historical mannequins come to life every night, most of them speaking perfect contemporary English and behaving like sitcom characters. They mostly fight among themselves until the guard brings all of global history into benign, all-American colonial harmony, even launching a romance between Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams) and the Native American guide Sacajawea (Mizuo Peck). As mindless spectacle, this is reasonably entertaining. Shawn Levy directed; with Carla Gugino, Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, Bill Cobbs, Ricky Gervais, and Steve Coogan. PG, 108 min. (JR)

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