by Rianne Hill Soriano

Created on: December 21, 2010

"Night at the Museum" comes to life by utilizing a realistic film style while playing around fantastical elements - keeping a child-like sense of wonder that celebrates life and history through a fun-filled, action-packed, and uplifting film for the entire family. The special effects blend with the story without overpowering the movie's workable character-driven slapstick. This two-hour mainstream romp's escapist demeanor, goofy humor, history-buff in-jokes, and high-speed chase scenes have enough appeal to satisfy the audience.

Given the overall atmosphere of "Night at the Museum," it exudes an aura as if the people behind the making of the actual movie seem to enjoy every bit of their behind-the-scene work. 

Overall, "Night at the Museum" has a cute, workable premise. Director Shawn Levy makes it far less terrifying than "Jumanji," a similar film in terms of theme an concept. 

One weakness of the film is that the first half-hour's pacing is too slow, psychologically tiring, and stressed-filled - a bit tolerable for adults, but not very good for the younger ones. It may be a concern to the generally short attention span of the kids. Yet, as soon as the story takes off, the film redeems itself as it starts to effectively recreate a tone that works on such creative and comedic levels.

Apart from the humor, there is an interesting scary level to the movie: the idea of creatures coming to life at night. It is commendable to say that the CGI and special effects blend seamlessly to the live action parts. The production design successfully creates a fanciful rendition of the Museum of Natural History. The cinematography also keeps up with the props, sets, and characters to make the whole "realistic fantasy experience" work.

The whole ensemble puts on a well-done slapstick. Some really funny scenes include a guillotined Roman soldier in the cowboy’s territory, a bone-lover T-Rex, an Easter Island statue chewing a gum from his "dum dum," and a cute but menacing capuchin monkey named Dexter (acted by a real-life capuchin monkey named Crystal).

The excitement continues with the sights of dinosaurs, cavemen, cowboys, Mayans, Roman soldiers, lions, zebras, monkeys, mummy, sarcophagus, jackal guards, among others historical and cultural treats. Some of them run amok, some of them are quite charming, some of them are comically annoying.

The cast manages to give the delightfully entertaining "Night at the Museum" an escapist feel. The movie becomes a watchable

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