Movie: Night at the Museum

	Studios:	20th Century Fox
	Release:	December 22, 2006
	Genre:	Comedy, Kids/Family and Adaptation
	MPAA Rating:	PG for mild action, language and brief rude humor.

For a movie that has Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson, whose other PG rated films have really rude humor and sexual innuendos, Night at the Museum is surprisingly more kid oriented than teen/young adult oriented. Which is actually nice.

As already shown in the trailer, the museum characters come to life at night ... and although it is a heart-stopping, terrifying realization for anyone to witness for the first time, especially when the Huns start running after you, this does not turn into a horror movie like those others that feature wax museums.

The war between the cowboys and the Romans was hilarious and Robin Williams as Teddy Roosevelt was fun, although I'm not buying the romance he develops for Sacajawea (didn't feel sparks there). Didn't like the monkey much either. The monkey antics were plain annoying.

Stiller does a nice job of playing the down on his luck dad trying to keep things together and retain his rights over his kid. In this movie, he plays the straight guy to whom the funny things happen, not the comic.

The movie has a MySpace account: http://www.myspace.com/nightatthemuseum

Movie: Deja Vu

	Studios:	Touchstone Pictures
	Release:	November 22, 2006
	Genre:	Action/Adventure, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy and Thriller
	MPAA Rating:	PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and terror, disturbing images and some sensuality.

Truth: I went to see this movie because Denzel Washington is in it. The trailer I saw before gave me little to work on apart from knowing it's an action/thriller movie.

Surprise, surprise. They threw in a bit of science fiction to the story.

Terrorists have detonated a bomb, killing hundreds. No one knows the whereabouts of the people who did the act. The only lead is the dead body of a woman found at the scene but who had died hours earlier than the bomb explosion.

There is an existing technology that opens a window in time - allowing the government scientists to watch - live - the events that led to explosion. ATF agent Doug Carlin has been invited to join the investigation, believing that the scenes he is watching are from film recorded from satellite cameras. Later, he finds out that he is watching the last 24 hours all over again... as they happen.

Carlin deduces correctly that the same machine can propel him back in time... allowing him to stop the bomb and save the woman with whom he has fallen in love with while watching her live her last few hours on earth. Worse, he realizes that he had actually attempted to do that before and tried to leave clues to his present self ... and had he done some things differently and heeded the clues, he could have stopped the bomb from exploding.

Overriding protests from the team, Carlin gets into the machine and jumps back in time to once again try to be the hero. He succeeds this time, saving hudreds including the woman he has fallen in love with. The price however is his life.

As the woman is fished out of the water, this time alive, she meets the present Carlin who does not know her but feels as if he has seen her before.

Movie: Eragon

	Studios:	Fox 2000
	Release:	December 15, 2006
	Genre:	Action/Adventure, Drama, Kids/Family, Science Fiction/Fantasy and Adaptation
	MPAA Rating:	PG for fantasy violence, intense battle sequences and some frightening images

It's bad enough that the novel this movie is based on has chapters that sound like something from Lord of the Rings and other older fantasy novels. The worst thing this movie did was include scenes that remind you of the Star Wars and the Lord of the Rings movies. To cite one example: In a scene where Eragon wishes he could leave the farm and looks into the distance - the shot they used looked like Luke Skywalker on the desert of Tatooine watching the moons set down. Another example: The scene where Durza is addressing his minions looks like the scene from LOTR: Two Towers where Saruman is addressing his army from Orthanc.

Scenes like those will brand this movie a Star Wars/Lord of the Rings wannabe instead of a movie with its own merit.

The movie is enjoyable, and should be treated separately from the novel it was ADAPTED from. The writers changed so many things that I wonder if they messed up any "continuity" if a movie based on the second novel of the series will be made. The only change I hated was that the dragon Saphira in this movie did more "following" ... like an overgrown pet. In the novel, dragon and rider were equals.