A new set of movies was released on Blu-Ray/DVD at your favourite entertainment store yesterday, including Ben Stiller’s Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb! I got to watch this with KitKat and Jay a few nights ago, which made for a hilarious night in. If you’re not familiar with the Night at the Museum trilogy (really, what rock do you call home??,) Ben Stiller, as Larry Daley, is a night watchman for NYC’s Museum of Natural History, where everything literally comes to life at night. With fun characters like Attila the Hun (yep, I did write that,) Teddy Roosevelt, and Dexter the monkey (played by the notable scene stealer Crystal,) every night at the museum is full of epic adventure.

I don’t know if I could say this was my absolute favourite of the three. It’s really difficult to figure out, ’cause there were some truly fabulous moments in final story for the series. As far as a closer goes, this was perfect; truly spot on for tying up loose threads. As a fan of this series, I didn’t feel like anything was left out. I wasn’t left feeling like something was missing, nor were any questions left unanswered.

There were a few breaks here and there that felt sluggish though, which were definitely noticeable with the nephew. Any moment of pure dialogue on the screen, instead of action, and KitKat was off to asking “Why?”… “why?”….”WHY?!” as four year olds are want to do. These moments were fairly necessary to truly appreciate the finality of this movie for the Night at the Museum series, but they also threw you for a loop if you were expecting constant action-comedy throughout the entire film.

What really got me, were the final lines from Robin Williams. This was the second-last movie he made, before passing, and the last one involving live-action (he worked as a voice actor for his final movie.) There were so many surreal moments, where Roosevelt’s lines (especially at the very end) could possibly emulate what might have been Williams’ thoughts near his own end. I’ll admit I had a few tears while watching his scenes, as Williams was someone I admired while growing up (and still do for that matter.)

You really need to see the bonus features to watch what Stiller, Williams et al had to accomplish to make this movie as wonderful as it was. Without getting into too much detail, and ruining the surprises, some of the technology and art created to put this movie together were especially awe-worthy and inspiring. There are even almost as many minutes for the bonus features as there is for the actual movie!

Night at the Museum - Bonus Features

What I hadn’t noticed until inspecting the front cover for all of its great detail, was that this movie came with a digital copy of one of the first two movies! How cool is that? Make sure when you pick up a copy of this DVD that you see the same sticker as below to get this awesome two-movies in one deal as well!
Night at the Museum - Bonus Movies

Have you seen Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb yet? What did you think? How fantastic was it to see Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, and Bill Cobbs again? And how their characters were tied back into this story? So much love for that twist!

And if you haven’t seen it yet, I entirely encourage you to pick up a copy this week, if you’re looking for a satisfyingly heartwarming story of a Dad trying to do what’s right for his son.