Night at the Museum
June 2007 Reviewed by: Doug Blackburn Format: Blu-ray	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

Critics haven’t been too kind to this movie, but anyone who wants just a harmless fantasy-adventure with comic overtones will find Night at the Museum a fine way to spend a couple of hours. It’s not deep, it’s not a masterwork, it’s not a laugh riot, but it’s not really aspiring to be those things. It’s a romp with an ensemble cast that all do a pretty good job with what they were given. Ben Stiller, a bumbling, unsuccessful, about-to-be-unemployed divorced dad who is having relationship problems with his son, takes a job as a museum guard. After the doors are closed to the public, all of the museum displays, including the dinosaur skeleton, come to life. The nighttime mayhem actually gets more interesting as the movie progresses. The museum set is remarkable -- very impressive, very convincing -- and makes an eye-pleasing background for most of the movie. The CG work is very well integrated into the live action. The CG animals, miniatures, and surroundings are very convincing. The supporting performances are all very good.

Picture quality is good-to-very-good with many shots being quite impressive. However, the images don’t manage reference-quality levels. Colors are quite attractive even in outside shots of New York City in winter. I never observed any artifacts or anything else I could identify as errors. Film grain is minimal, even during the numerous indoor and nighttime shots. A number of both indoor and outdoor shots have warm golden tones that are extremely well executed and atmospheric. The disc package says the aspect ratio is 2.35:1; however, the movie is presented in 1.78:1 (16:9) so it fills an HDTV screen. The theatrical release was 1.85:1. I could not detect any lost image area.

The only English soundtrack option is DTS-HD Master Audio. Sound quality was fine. I expected a movie like this to have lots of opportunities for active surround and LFE channels, but both have almost nothing going on. The surround channels seem to be limited to room echo and other ambient cues, with occasional support from the music track. The LFE channel does almost nothing. Almost all the bass comes from the front three channels. This doesn’t really make the movie less enjoyable, but I was a little surprised that a film with fantasy-adventure elements like this didn’t make more use of the surrounds and LFE.

Among the disc’s extras, the director commentary alone raised my Packaged Extras rating a full point. The writers’ commentary isn’t nearly as interesting. A trivia option displays color-coded windows with trivia about history, the actors, the museum, or production of the movie. Six movie trailers complete the extras. That’s a slim collection. I really missed not having a blooper/outtakes feature. You’d think there would have been plenty of outtakes and ad libs to pick from with Ricky Gervais, Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, Owen Wilson, and Robin Williams all interacting with Ben Stiller. The movie allows turning on a commentary track and the trivia option at the same time. Pop-up menus can be selected while the movie or special feature is playing.

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