Genre: Action / Comedy / Family / Fantasy
Director: Shaun Levy
Language: English
Cast: Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Carla Gugino, Kim Raver, Mickey Rooney, Dick Van Dyke, Bill Cobbs, Ricky Gervais, Rami Malek, Paul Rudd, Steve Coogan, Owen Wilson.

Night at the Museum was based on a children's book, which probably accounts for the lack of depth and several holes in the logic. But don't get me wrong. This is still a very fun movie for everyone as long as you don't over-analyze it.

Larry (Ben Stiller) takes a job as the night watchman at the Museum of Natural History. He didn't have a choice - he is about to get evicted from his house, and his ex-wife and his son think that it's about time he stops playing around with useless projects and get a real job.

He meets the current batch of watchmen consisting of Gus (Mickey Rooney), Reginald (Bill Cobbs), and led by Cecil (Dick Van Dyke). Cecil informs him that there's been cutbacks because the museum is not getting a lot of visitors. Larry is left to his first night in the museum with a tattered instructions manual, which he conveniently doesn't read until things go wrong.

The first thing to go wrong is that he wakes up from a nap to discover that the tyrannosaurus rex skeleton is missing. As shown in the trailer, Larry finds Rexy in a corridor somewhere taking a long drink from the water cooler. Chaos ensues.

So it turns out that everything in the museum comes to life in the night. Larry finds a friend and mentor in Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams), who dispenses fatherly advice and moons over Sacajawea (Mizuo Peck) over in the Lewis and Clark exhibit.

He also finds himself locking heads with a toothpick-size Jed (Owen Wilson) from the western frontier diorama and equally tiny Octavius (Steve Coogan) from the Roman Empire diorama. Additional slapstick value comes in the shape of Dexter, the key-stealing Capuchin monkey.

The old guards abruptly announce their retirement and take off, leaving Larry to fend for himself.

I'm not a big fan of Ben Stiller, but never mind. The scenes where he is trying to make is son proud of him borders on cheesy, but I suppose it's inevitable. I'm more interested in watching the Western frontier battle it out with the Roman civilization. Where else can that happen?