Night at the Museum is based on the 1993 children’s book by Milan Trenc. This film follows Larry (Ben Stiller), a divorced New Yorker who is frantically trying to find a job that will allow him to keep his current apartment and create some stability so his son Nick – a place for his son Nick (Jake Cherry) can visit and not be subjected to anymore failures by his father. Larry lands a job as the night watchman at the local Natural History museum. Larry reluctantly accepts the job after Cecil (Dick Van Dyke) exp…ains it?s an overnight security job. Larry is given a list of instructions by Cecil and the other two security guards and left to fend for himself for the night. Several hours in to his first shift the exhibits of the museum come to life – the dinosaur bones, the miniature cowboys and Roman army, the jungle animals, and Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams) – causing Larry quite a lot of stress, not only to himself, but also in trying to keep the peace among them. All’s well when dawn cracks, provided no one has come in to the museum or escaped. This nightly pattern continues throughout the movie with the relationships between Larry and members of the museum growing stronger each night.

I personally enjoyed this film and think it is a great watch for any family out there. It has some nice life lessons and sends a nice message to children, especially those from divorced homes.

Night at the Museum was released theatrically on December 22, 2006 and has been a huge success for 20th Century Fox, already accumulating 250 Million dollars in the domestic box office. NATM was also nominated for ?Best Fantasy Film? at the Saturn Awards.

Video

For this 1.85:1 transfer, Fox went with a Blu-ray 25 GB disc (BD25) and an MPEG 2 encode averaging around 19-22 Mbps. This transfer is nothing short of great. The quality of this transfer very much reminded me of the recent Blu-ray release of ?Rocky Balboa.? This film exhibited virtually no film grain and the transfer was absent of any type of film debris. Much of this film involves dark or night scenes, all of which look superb as well. Flesh tones were spot-on and detail was excellent. This transfer also presented no noise to my eye, a welcomed attribute for several bright scenes in the film. Colors were absolutely stunning and vibrant with this transfer. Overall this Blu-ray transfer is welcomed success and proves once again that when authored correctly, MPEG2 can be just as stunning as MPEG4 or VC-1.

Audio

Audio is an additional area where this transfer excels. I watched this film using the DTS-HD sound format at a bit rate of 1.5 Mbps. The overall sound of the film is very clear, powerful and encompassing. Dialog is where this film excels. I felt this transfer made the best use of the center channel speaker in any Blu-ray/HD DVD I have ever viewed. This transfer also makes excellent use of both LFE and surrounds. In the early part of this film, Larry plays fetch with a skeletal T-Rex inside the museum. As they are playing fetch, as expected, the T-Rex is smashing in to things and creating a mess of the museum. This particular scene makes excellent use of the LFE and surround channels and gives your receiver a very nice workout. This release easily enters my list of the Top 5 best in audio for HD discs.

Special Features

This release of NATM follows in Fox?s current pattern of Blu-ray releases; little to no extras. With this release you can play the film with a commentary track on, featuring the Director, Shawn Levy. There is a Theatrical Trailer in HD of the film. Also there is a commentary track by writers Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon. Finally there is a trivia track which pop?s-up trivia questions throughout the film. It was similar to what can be found in Rambo: First Blood.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, I am very happy with this release. Fox did a very good job with both the video and the audio. The overall presentation was solid and it delivered a solid punch. The storyline was also good and is meant for family viewing or viewing by children. My only complaint is the lack of extras – I felt this film had a lot of possibilities for some very neat extras. This shortcoming however does not take away from the overall positive experience of this film. I highly recommend this purchase.

Special Features List

• Director’s Commentary
• Writers Commentary
• Theatrical Trailer
• Pop-up trivia track