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    • BLU-RAY REVIEW

    Night At The Museum

    Featured In Issue 121, June 2007

    Picture4.5
    SoundNR
    WSR Score3
    Basic Information on new release titles is posted as soon as titles are announced. Once reviewed, additional data is added to the database.
    (Studio/Distributor):
    20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
    (Catalog Number):
    2242099
    (MPAA Rating):
    PG
    (Rating Reason):
    For mild action, language, and brief, rude humor
    (Retail Price):
    $39.98
    (Disc Type):
    Single Side, Single Layer (BD-25)
    (Widescreen Edition):
    Yes
    (Full Screen Edition):
    No
    (Running Time In Minutes):
    109
    (Color Type):
    Color
    (Chaptered/Scene Access):
    Yes
    (Closed Captioned):
    Yes
    (Regional Coding):
    A
    (Theatrical Year):
    2006
    (Theatrical Release):
    Yes
    (Direct-To-Video Release):
    No
    (Disc Release Date):
    04/24/07
    (THX® Digitally Mastered):
    No
    (Director):
    Shawn Levy
    (Screenplay/Written By):
    (Story):
    (Music):
    (Director Of Photography):
    (Production Designer):
    (Visual Effects):
    (Costume Designer):
    (Editor):
    (Supervising Sound Editors):
    (Re-Recording Mixers):
    (Executive Producers):
    (Co-Producers):
    (Producers):
    (Academy Awards):
    (Principal Photography):
    (Theatrical Aspect Ratio):
    (Measured Disc Aspect Ratio):
    (Disc Soundtrack):
    (Theatrical Sound):
    (Theatrical Re-Issue Soundtrack):
    (DTS Bit Rate):
    (Dolby Digital Bit Rate):
    (Additional Languages):
    (French Language):
    (Spanish Language):
    (Chinese Language):
    (Subtitles):
    (Cantonese Language):
    (Mandarin Language):
    (Japanese Language):
    (Italian Language):
    (German Language):
    (Portuguese Language):

    Meandering his way from one menial job to another, Larry Daley (Stiller) reluctantly takes a job at New York's Museum of Natural History as the graveyard-shift security guard, in order to provide a more stable home life for his young son, Nick (Cherry). However, Larry soon finds that when the doors are locked and the lights dimmed, his Night At The Museum is going to be anything but dull. Based on the book by Milan Trenc. (Jack Kelley)

    Special features include two commentary tracks: the first with Director Shawn Levy and the second with Writers Robet Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, a trivia track, the theatrical trailer, and additional Fox Blu-ray Disc trailers.

    The MPEG-2-encoded Blu-ray Disc shows well-saturated colors and good resolution, although fine details are not resolved as well as the best high-definition releases. Still, this is an impressive picture that is a noticeable improvement over the DVD (but still not perfect). (Danny Richelieu)

    The Dolby® Digital and DTS® Digital Surround™ 5.1-channel soundtrack relies heavily on the front three screen channels, with little in the way of surround envelopment. Even when the action moves away from the screen, the majority of the effects are delivered through the front channels, with the surrounds used at much lower relative levels. This makes the soundtrack sound very dimensionless, which is a shame considering how enveloping the sound design could be based on the genre and story. The DTS encoding increases the dynamic range and naturalness of the dialogue slightly, but it also highlights a rubbing distortion that can be heard throughout. While here at WSR we are still not able to hear the full glory of the lossless DTS-HD™ Master Audio encoding found on the Blu-ray Disc, the "core" lossy DTS Digital Surround stream is an improvement over the DVD's DTS encoding, since the core DTS stream in this case has a data rate of 1.5 Mbps (compared to the DVD's 754 kbps), which is especially noticeable in the naturalness of the dialogue, but the rubbing distortion can still be heard. The same deficiencies in the mix are in the Blu-ray Disc version, but the improvement in fidelity is noticeable. (Danny Richelieu)

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    Jon Shimamoto
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