Blu-ray Movie Reviews

What a fun surprise this turned out to be! Night at the Museum stars Ben Stiller as Larry, a wannabe entreprenuer who just can't make it happen for himself. His ex-wife is remarried, and Larry's son Nick now wants to be a straight business man like his step-Dad. Seeking to impress Nick that he's a reliable Dad, Larry grabs a job as the night watchman at the Museum of Natural History. There's something immediately off about the orientation given to Larry by the outgoing trio of watchmen (led by Dick Van Dyke in an inspired turn), not to mention the oddly thick packet of hand written job instructions they hand him.

Of course, what happens is that all the museum's exhibits and inhabitants come to raucous life each and every night. The catch is that none of them can get out of the museum, and they all have to be back in their places by morning.

This movie is a ton of fun, the kind that makes me wish I got out to the theater more often- this would have been a blast on the big, big screen. And Stiller, Robin Williams and Owen Wilson are terrific. The father-son elements are just enough to add some emotional weight to the movie, and never enough to drag it down. It's a clever blend of heart, action, comedy and special effects, sort of like a live action Pixar flick, which is a high compliment.

The image here is 1080p compressed with MPEG-2, at an average of 19Mbps according to the ever informative disc packaging from Fox. One note- while the packaging indicates a 2.35:1 aspect ratio it's actually 1.85:1, so don't freak out when you don't see scope. The image quality here is somewhat mixed. The photogrpahy is rich and very warmly hued, and the colors are sumptuously textured. In some of the outdoor sequences and closer shots the image quality is very sharp and dimensional, but still natural and film-like. There are many sequences in this movie that look exceptional in every way. But the medium and longer shots soften noticeably, and many of the darker interior sequences look just a tad compressed in dynamic range and lacking in shadow detail. Also, a couple of special effects sequences are very bright and completely inconsistent with the look of the rest of the film. This is most noticeable in the sequence in which the Wild West gang ties Larry to the railroad tracks. This could be intentional, as this scene moves from the Museum's interior to the bright lights of the exhibit itself, but it's still a jarring transition from the warm tones of the museum.

I must note that Night at the Museum is encoded on a 25GB single-layer BD. Although this movie is only 110 minutes in length,I can't help but wonder if some of the issues with the image are related. It's not excessively soft overall, but the sequences that look sharp here do stand out significantly from the scenes that aren't.

As per Fox standard operating procedure, the only English language track here is the DTS-HD Master Audio track, which was played back using the "core" DTS stream at 1.5Mbps. The sound design here is a bit too subdued for my taste. Although it becomes aggressive, exciting and enveloping when the museum inhabitants run amok, the rest of the time it's too plain vanilla. An example is when Ben Stiller's Larry pulls an American Karaoke over the intercom in the museum. The sound design doesn't really draw the museum's space the way the best soundtracks do. Still, the music sounds fabulous, the dialog is always clear and intelligible, and there is terrific bass impact and dynamic swing when it's called on by the filmmakers.

The supplements are clearly a casualty of the choice by Fox to use a single-layer BD. All that's here is an HD trailer, two commentaries and trivia track. That wouldn't be such a stick in the eye, but looking at Amazon a two-disc special edition that's presumably loaded with extras is available on DVD for five bucks less than this BD. This hurts precisely because I enjoyed this movie enough that I wanted to know more about how it was made. I guess I can wait for the special edition BD that's undoubtedly coming someday.

Overall, while this BD is pricey ($27.95 at Amazon after discounts) considering its omission of extras, I highly recommend it for a purchase over a rental. My son is a little young for this, but got through with the sound intensity turned way down, and asks to watch it again about every other day. If you have kids yourselves you know how special it is when a movie's good enough to not be painful on those repeated viewings!

Picture: 7.5 out of 10

Sound: 7 out of 10

Video reviewed on Marantz VP-11S1 1080p DLP projector, 80" wide Stewart Filmscreen Studiotek 130 screen and either Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray Disc player or Toshiba HD-XA2 player via HDMI to Anthem AVM 50. Audio sent as PCM over HDMI to Anthem AVM 50. Ayre MX-R monoblocks and Theta Dreadnaught power amps, and Vandersteen loudspeakers. All video cables by Bettercables, all audio cables by AudioQuest