Night at the Museum

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.