As Dr. Seuss’ Grinch said, “One thing I can’t stand is the noise, noise, noise, noise!”
That’s mostly what Ben Stiller and company have to offer with his latest comedy, “Night at the Museum,” the story of a night watchman dealing with dinosaur skeletons, statues and wax figures that come to life at a museum.
Stretched to greater length than its thin idea merits, the movie mainly is a collection of slapstick vignettes as Stiller battles Attila the Hun, a mischievous monkey, tiny cowboys and Roman soldiers and other figures from museum exhibits.
Other than the basic plot point of inanimate creatures coming alive and some occasionally inventive visual effects, “Night at the Museum” is unimaginative and annoying, as movies by director Shawn Levy (“Cheaper by the Dozen,” “The Pink Panther”) often are.
And did we mention the movie makes a lot of noise?
Stiller is stiffer and blander than usual, and the comic talents of Levy’s decent supporting cast, including Steve Coogan and Ricky Gervais, generally are wasted.
Robin Williams provides a few chuckles as the bullheaded incarnation of a wax figure of Teddy Roosevelt, though the laughs come more from seeing him in Rough Riders costume than from anything in the dopey script by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon.
Stiller plays divorced dad and all-around failure Larry Daley, whose schemes and dreams of making his mark as an entrepreneur have fallen through. Facing eviction and hoping to show his young son Nick (Jake Cherry) that he can be a responsible father, Larry takes a job as night security guard at New York’s Museum of Natural History.
Larry gets his sketchy training from the three old coots he’s replacing — Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney and Bill Cobb, all sorely wasted in a lame subplot.
His first night alone in the museum, Larry is chased by a tyrannosaur skeleton, ticks off Attila (Patrick Gallagher) and encounters Indian guide Sacajawea (Mizuo Peck). He also has a Gulliver-and-the-Lilliputians experience with tiny Mayan warriors, Roman soldiers commanded by Coogan and Old West figures led by Stiller’s buddy Owen Wilson in an uncredited role as a cowboy.
The filmmakers toss in some conflict with the museum’s uptight boss (Gervais) and a budding romance with a doctoral student (Carla Gugino). Stiller’s mom, Anne Meara, also pops up in a brief role.
With Roosevelt as mentor, Larry must learn how to ride herd on his charges and ultimately rally the museum’s denizens to foil a sinister plot that threatens them all.
As with Williams’ 1995 comedy “Jumanji,” the special effects are the real stars of “Night at the Museum,” though they’re not all that special.
Young kids, the main target audience of this adaptation of Milan Trenc’s illustrated children’s book, won’t mind that the effects aren’t up to snuff, and they’ll likely find plenty to laugh at in the action sequences.
Their parents will just have to sit and suffer.
Still, if you’ve ever wanted to see a prehistoric man hurl fire-extinguisher foam in Stiller’s face, this could be your only chance.
Unless, of course, the movie’s a hit, and Stiller makes a sequel.
Oh, the noise, noise, noise, noise!