Melon Collie and the Skull-astic Aptitude Test

Night at the Museum (2006)

Rating ... C- (31)

Usually I try to resist the urge to describe movies in terms of other movies, but in the case of Night at the Museum and its conspicuous lack of personality I'll gladly make an exception, since this film is basically National Treasure with no real story, which may not sound like such a bad thing until you realize the narrative was responsible for all of Treasure's hilariously improbable situations, and that Nick Cage desecrating the Declaration of Independence with conveniently on-hand lemon juice or Sean Bean worrying about "being seen" while stranding Cage at the North Pole is essentially the only reason anybody would want to watch this kind of film. That's generalization, of course, since Night at the Museum's silly shenanigans involving Ben Stiller maintaining security at a museum whose nightlife causes its manakins to spring to life and its simplistic, one-size-fits-all solutions to personal problems (Atilla the Hun just needs fatherly attention to soothe his malevolent nature, warring cultures are brothers underneath or similar in some vague manner) are unlikely to overtly displease adults and will probably sail over the heads of kids ensconced in the museum's fancifully hollow CGI creations. To be fair, Night at the Museum is deliberately crafted as harmless, sorta-seasonal entertainment, but even throwaway routines have a particular audience they attempt to appeal to, which makes one wonder the logic behind ditching the childlike curiosity and intrigue out of the history-infused - and obviously adolescent - tale to instead incorporate the grown-up disbelief of Ben Stiller as his usual bewildered everyman, complete with Shrek-ish, self-congratulatory referencing to politics and cinema alike. Unfortunately, though tonal approach may be Night at the Museum's biggest discrepancy it isn't the film's biggest worry, seeing as Museum's story is comprised almost entirely of awfully bland subplots (notably Stiller's activist agenda to become deserving of his son's respect, as well as a few amorous, anonymous pairings), numerous fakeouts (Stiller is "fired" at least twice, and characters "expire" even more frequently) and incontinuities, the most blatant of which occuring when Robin Williams confesses he's not actually Teddy Roosevelt but rather just wax, and can't help Stiller out of his bind, though later Stiller's gal pal gets tips for her thesis from the real Sacagawea. Normally such a fallacy is meaningless, an innocuous inconsistency, but here the distinction makes quite the difference, since when discussing the importance of knowledge, National Treasure's campy earnestness implies a reflexive, interactive perspective on history, merely suggesting how it should be, while Night at the Museum's cozy stances and elastic applicability of emotion settles for simply telling it to kids like it isn't.


The Protector (2006)

Rating ... C- (34)

(Apologies in advance if I seem poorly versed but this Muay Thai thing is new to me - after all, I haven't see Ong-Bak yet - though I must admit that ... ) Watching a movie like the The Protector ignore everything that's supposed to make martial arts films awesome (or at least not awful) by default is basically akin to grilling a waiter on the intricacies of their restaurant's wine list then ordering water. Traditionally martial arts films managed mediocrity or more via the Bond formula - if you kick enough ass with enough technical proficiency and style, your film can only be faulted so much. Not so with The Protector, whose poorly conceived, effects-heavy combat only amplifies its remaining faults (read: the rest of the movie) and nudges its caliber down to that of Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter. Truthfully some of Jaa's acrobatics are pretty amazing, though usually only when he's evading, considering when on the attack most of The Protector falls into the Why Bother Dept. specializing in fake bone breaks, cut scene combat, and sound effects-saturated slaps and kicks. There's no point in following the narrative - via The Protector's lazy rehash of small-town-warrior-in-the-big-city shenanigans and crime syndicate nonsense (this gang steals noble elephants to cook at their exotic restaurant - don't ask) and egregiously absent exposition/transition scenes (possibly a product of Harvey 'Hacksaw' Weinstein's frenzious editing) the story is almost as inscrutable as it is insignificant, while directorial missteps arise at nearly every junction; from lame attempts at awesomeness through slow motion to crappy cinematography (save the film's duo of extended fight sequences - probably the only shots that last longer than a few seconds) to irritating, alternating languages and obvious sound cues (wrestler-like baddies on the prowl-- cue power metal), it's not unusual to find one or more mistakes being made in virtually every scene. Then, of course, there's always some too-pat, fortune-cookie wisdom to be gained from the whole ordeal, since Tony Jaa's numerous flashbacks to the good ol' days taking care of royal elephants at his tribal homeland aren't going to annoyingly show up for no reason... Initially The Protector's thematic territory was pick and choose; my preferred take was that the elephants glorify the great kings of battle (this is SPARTAAAAAAAAA territory, basically) and their pious combat (thus affirming the film's own brand of battle, and also explaining the two laughably pathetic video-game fight sequences that seem to resemble a pallid knock-off of the far superior Dynasty Warriors series) in contrast to today's hifalutin' weaponry, though after concluding narration that blatantly announces the film's intentions it turns out such imagery was simply a vague reprimand of society's negligence of the "old ways" - whatever that means, naturally, since The Protector can't be bothered to fill audiences in on the particulars except that its practitioners are "right" and "just." From whence comes only irony, however, considering that for a film so convinced of the sanctimony of its particular brand of old school martial arts, it sure uses remarkably few of them.