Every other year, I visit my in-laws in Michigan and have the opportunity to see my nieces and nephews. This is an opportunity for my wife and I to take the kids to see a movie, and I vociferously encouraged Night at the Museum over Eragon. Because I'm a bitter, jealous author…I mean I thought Eragon would be too intense for the young'uns (six-years-old).

Anyway, off we went. I've tinkered with the idea of a museum coming to life in my own short stories, so I was excited to see a big special effects budget applied to the concept. I was not disappointed.

Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) is having difficulty holding down a job. He's recently suffered a divorce from wife Erica (Kim Raver) and is trying to retain visiting rights to his son Nick (Jake Cherry). If he doesn't find a steady job soon, he may not see his son ever again. Pretty serious stuff for a kid's movie.

Desperate, Larry takes a job as a night watchman at the Museum of Natural History. The current security guards (Dick Van Dyke as Cecil, Mickey Rooney as Gus, and Bill Cobbs as Reginald) are long past their prime, so all three positions are being replaced by just Larry. What they didn't tell Larry was that the museum has been coming to life since the 50s.

This include the perpetually warring miniature dioramas of cowboys led by Jedadiah (Owen Wilson) and Romans led by Octavius (Steve Coogan), the wax models of Sacajawea (Mizuo Peck) and Lewis (Martin Christopher) and Clark (Martin Sims), Teddy Roosevelt on his horse (Robin Williams), an entire Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton, Attila the Hun (Patrick Gallagher), Neanderthals in a perpetual quest for fire, a bronze statue of Christopher Columbus (Pierfrancesco Favino) and a wide range of animals. And oh yeah, a monkey.

Larry's job isn't just to keep people from coming into the museum at night, it's to keep the museum exhibits from escaping. At sunrise, they all turn back to their static forms; if caught outside, they turn to dust. As Larry figures out how to keep everyone straight, he eventually discovers the secret that animates this crazy museum every night: a gold Egyptian tablet that belongs to an interred mummy. Which begs the question: why is it the mummy bellowing in his sarcophagus to be let out, night after night?

Night at the Museum veers wildly from adult-oriented content ("I ain't quittin' you!" shouts the cowboy to the Roman) to kid-oriented slapstick (Larry slaps the crap out of a monkey). These scenes range from being hilarious to a little awkward. In an era when Rosie O'Donnell gets chastised for imitating the Chinese language with nonsense sounds, it's a little shocking to see Stiller do the same to Attila the Hun (and be understood!). At one point, Roosevelt gets cut in half by a wagon wheel…although he's only wax, so it's okay. There's even a semi-icky romance between good ole' Teddy and Sacajawea.

I was entertained by the movie, especially the image of Stiller being attacked by the miniature dioramas (there's even an obligatory Asian shouting and pointing at a rampaging Godz-Stiller). That's my adult take on the movie. But who cares what I think, what did my nieces and nephews think?

My twelve-year-old nephew liked it. He found the slapstick amusing and the animation was interesting enough to keep his attention. My seven-year-old niece was ambivalent, but endorsed the movie anyway. My nine-year-old nephew got up to use the bathroom at least three times, and it was clear it didn't hold his interest. My youngest niece, the six-year-old, at one point was frightened (I think the T-Rex scared her, although it's really not that bad) and said she wanted to leave, but she stuck it out.

Night at the Museum tries to cater to everybody and stumbles along the way. And yet, it endorses everyone from different cultures getting along. I'm still not entirely convinced that the Museum of Natural History looks like it does in the movie, so I'm planning to visit soon. Maybe that's the point: Any movie that encourages children and adults to visit a museum and learn about history is okay in my book.