NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM

In the tradition of JUMANJI and ZATHURA comes another similar-themed tale of beasts, warriors and other items of interest coming to life and chasing main characters around a set piece for nearly two hours. But what the first two movies lacked was pure in-your-face comedy- the kind provided by the likes of Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson and Robin Williams (oh wait...Sir Robin was also in JUMANJI). Now to MUSEUM: the plot, in a nutshell, is Ben becomes the night watchman at a Natural History Museum in New York City where, after midnight, all the displays come to life until sunrise. Mixing themes of father/son bonding, getting the girl, making peace between display items such as cowboys and Romans with high-concept adventure, MUSEUM takes a bit of time to draw you in, but once it does the movie gets better and better exponentially up until the very end. Oh, and Dick Van Dyke gives his best performance in years (not that he's exactly been much since MATLOCK)...but what a treat it must be for him to see himself doing Matrix-like fight moves with Stiller in the finale. As movies go, NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM doesn't achieve anything brilliant, not that it's even attempting to. Instead, looked at as pure Xmas escapism, the movie's a blast. B