Night at the museum answers the age-old question: What would if everything in the museum came to life? Ok. So maybe it’s not an age-old question, and I’m just being dramatic. But it’s a question the movie asks. The answer? Sheer and utter chaos!
It’s a fun story that’s painfully similar to The Santa Clause. Just switch out Tim Allen for Ben Stiller and the North Pole for The New York Museum of Natural History, add Robin Williams as President Theodore Roosevelt, and you have an extremely similar movie right down to divorced dad, Tim, er, Larry, who struggles to commit to a career in order to support his young son, Charlie, er, Josh.
While these two movies are similar, Night at the Museum is still different enough to be entirely enjoyable.
The highlights of the movie include the aforementioned Robin Williams, (there’s a quick genie reference I caught this time around.), Owen Wilson’s performance as Jedidiah the cowboy, (why the heck wasn’t he officially credited?!), and his enemies to lovers bromance with Steve Coogan’s Roman Centurion Octavius, and Dick Van Dyke as Cecil the villainous ex-night guard. That was the longest run-on sentence I think I’ve ever written. Oops!
This is, in my opinion, one of the best family movies ever made. Plus, it includes the import message of not giving when something is hard or seemingly impossible. It’s a movie worth checking out if you haven’t already. Even if you have watched it before, it’s one worth revisiting.
The gang’s all back for the sequel, but this time around it’s a little different. Larry’s left the museum to start his own company and is basking in the glory of inventing the Glow in the Dark flashlight (Woo). Meanwhile, the New York Museum of Natural History has decided to go digital and send half the exhibits to the Smithsonian while the rest rot in storage. He learns that Akmenrah’s tablet, the artifact that brings the museum to life will also be going.
After a panicked phone call from Jedidiah, Larry takes off for the Smithsonian to rescue his friends from a new threat, Kamunrah (Hank Azaria).
This sequel is almost as good as the first, but not quite. It starts off slow, and has an anti-climatic battle scene at the end, but it’s still a fun movie worth checking out with standout performances from Hank Azaria and Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart. And like the original, it comes with a good reminder to do things “for the fun of it.”
One last night. One last ride, and it’s the most emotional one of the series.
Several years have passed since the sequel. The biggest change is that Nick is all grown and headed to college… Maybe. After taking a gap year which wasn’t what Larry had in mind.
Meanwhile, something strange is happening at the museum. The tablet is corroding and the museum exhibits are acting feral. The gang heads to The British Museum to find answers from Akmenrah’s parents.
This was a hard movie to get through, not because it was bad but because it was released after Robin Williamses death in 2014. You can definitely tell something was going on with him during filming. There’s a heavy kind of sadness that can’t be faked no matter how good of an actor you are, and he was one of the best. 😢
The best performance of the entire movie was a cameo by Hugh Jackman including a fun reference to Wolverine.
A movie with a more serious tone involving themes of growing up and moving on overshadowed by a great actor’s death. This is the most sobering installment of them all.
There’s several different versions of the story of Thumbalina. Most people are familiar with the Don Bluth version, but I’m more familiar with what turns out to be the anime version. Originally an anime series, it was pieced together into a full-length movie that my grandmother had on VHS. I was obsessed with this video for some reason or other. I’ll never know or quite understand considering the darker elements of the story didn’t naturally gel with my anxiety.
In this version, Maya’s mother is desperate for her out-of-control daughter to behave. So desperate, she asks the local witch for help. The witch gives her help in the form of a magical book that sucks in whoever is reading it into the story. Maya has to travel through her mother’s dreamworld and wake her mother up, without falling into the hands of the evil witch Cassandra.
With the help of her sugar fairy sidekick Nobel, she has to navigate obstacles like avoiding an arranged marriage to a frog and being eaten by shapeshifting fox. By the end of her journey, Maya has learned to be brave, respectful, and selfless.
It’s a strange spin on a familiar tale that only the Japanese could come up with, and I mean that as a compliment! This was a fun nostalgia trip! You can find this in thrift stores or in good quality on Youtube which is how I watched it. A fun movie for kids, but some images might be too scary for younger children. Rated: 5 stars. Rated: Couldn’t find one.
2¢ Movie Reviews 