rated PG 

In the fall of 1970 my parents took my brother and me on a trip to New York City. We visited most of the cultural landmarks, including the Museum of Natural History. Memory may have failed me, but I remember the place as being dim and drab—almost like a mausoleum. There was hardly anybody there and after looking at a few of the dioramas I think we had all made the decision to leave. The place was truly lifeless.

Things have obviously changed, if Ben Stiller’s latest, um, comedy, “A Night at the Museum,” is any indication. The Museum of Natural History is not only bright and colorful in this movie, everything at night actually comes to life. Atilla the Hun and Christopher Columbus and Sakajawea and Octavius and President Theodore Roosevelt—plus mastodons and zebras and Egyptian jackals and thousands of tiny wax figures from throughout the expanse of time—all come magically alive as soon as the sun goes down. What this does for the moviegoer, of course, is create a truly magical, wondrous cinematic experience almost unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.

Well, no. Not even close.

If you’ve seen “Jumanji” or “The Mummy” remakes or the Will Smith remake of “The Wild, Wild West” or “Home Alone” or countless other films, you have seen this before. The entire premise is so tired and clichéd that the film almost seems like a toss-away, like a movie that was put together by a bunch of folks who were really waiting around for something better to do.

“A Night at the Museum” barely even sets itself up. We meet Larry Daly (Stiller)—another pathetic version of today’s modern man. He’s the new Ralph Kramden, always underachieving yet full of big dreams. His ex-wife Erica (Kim Raver) is disgusted with him—so much so she has decided to set up house with another modern-day cliché, the emasculated male who embodies today’s yuppie or guppie or whatever it is they are called. Don’s a stockbroker, and even though he’s portrayed as a joke (by Paul Rudd, in a seriously idiotic role), he’s probably a better father figure to Larry’s son, Nicky (Jake Cherry) than Larry ever will be.

Erica doesn’t want Larry around any more until he gets a steady job. Not wanting to lose contact with his son, Larry goes to an employment agency. Larry is not qualified to do anything, apparently, and in a desperate attempt to get her to give him some kind of job, any job, Larry says to the job counselor: “Did you feel a connection when I walked in? I felt a connection.” Is this a joke? An ironic take on a joke? Since the job counselor is played by Anne Meara, Stiller’s own real-life mother, the line seemed especially grim. I don’t think the audience got the joke, either, because the joint was as quiet as a church.

So he gets the job as the night watchman at the Museum of Natural History (apparently that is an $11.50 an hour job needing no prior experience), where he meets a docent, Rebecca, played by the adorably sexy Carla Gugino. We also meet the museum director, Mr. McPhee (Ricky Gervais, providing the only hint of whimsy and humor in this debacle).

Given that the Museum is losing money (an important plot element, that!), Larry is replacing three guards, who are played by Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney and Bill Cobbs. You’d think between these three there would be a hint of cleverness, but director Shawn Levy (he helmed two recent remakes, “Cheaper By the Dozen” and “The Pink Panther”—is this the new face of American movie comedy?) is so bumbling and hapless here that nothing comes together.

It was, at least for me, a welcome thing to see Van Dyke in a theatrical film, but the fact that the screenplay, by Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon (they both wrote “Herbie Fully Loaded”), turns Van Dyke, Rooney and Cobbs into thieves shows you how misguided all this comedy is.

The whole thing ends in car chases (miniature remote-controlled cars) and explosions, and slapstick and knockabout comedy. The docent Rebecca even gets to meet her muse, Sakajawea; Rebecca has been trying to write her dissertation on the Indian scout for four years. When this doctoral candidate is finally introduced by Larry to the temporarily-alive Sakajawea, Rebecca says what any self-respecting academic would say: “You rock! I’m such a big fan!” I am not making this up.

The best that can be said for Robin Williams is that he looks remarkably like Teddy Roosevelt. Williams—along with a many of the other characters—gets to spout some Dr. Phil-like affirmations about life and its meaning. Larry, for instance, thinks that the reason Atilla the Hun is so angry is that he was hurt as a child. Again, whether this was supposed to be funny, or if these were meant to be the serious parts of the movie, is hard to determine. The whole enterprise is tone-deaf.

Come to think of it, if this movie is any sad indication, not much has changed in the Museum of Natural History since I visited it more than 35 years ago. In “A Night at the Museum,” at any rate, it’s as lifeless as ever.