“Night at the Museum” might not be a classic family movie, but star casting, special effects and a lack of competition helped it become this winter season’s top family film.

Based on a 32-page illustrated children’s book, “Night at the Museum” taps into the fascination everyone should have with natural history museums but naturally doesn’t. Luckily, the film requires a lot less imagination than the usually less-than-sensational museum visits demand.

However, since the movie’s release, visitors to New York’s American Museum of Natural History have increased almost 20 percent, credited to the movie.

Any movie attempting to show that museums and history can be fun to kids – and succeeds – deserves to be applauded, even if it relies on fantastic mystery plots and outrageous effects.

In fact, a good museum attempts to do that same thing. With “Night at the Museum,” director Shawn Levy simply did what any good child with an imagination does in a museum – dream big. Really big. He just did it with a Hollywood-sized budget.

A father desperate for work, played by Ben Stiller, takes a job as a night watchman in New York’s American Museum of Natural History. Chaos ensues as Stiller attempts to contain a collection of history’s most fascinating creatures and figures that magically come to life every night.

The unexpected relationships between historical characters become the meat of the movie’s humor: the improbable movie world where Teddy Roosevelt can have an impotent crush on Sacajawea, a cowboy can war with a Roman and Mickey Rooney can elbow-drop Stiller.

“Night at the Museum” has been rightfully getting comparisons to the 1995 blockbuster movie “Jumanji.” Both movies come from mid-90s fantasy children’s stories, both contain wild animals, both contain wild stunts, both contain Robin Williams and enough on-screen running that the young audience is exhausted by the end of the film.

While Stiller’s performance is not as outstanding as Williams’ was in “Jumanji,” his reactions to the mixed cast of characters and his fear while being chased by a computer-generated dinosaur are surprisingly real. This is likely due to the director’s creative coaching techniques – such as chasing Stiller, roaring and running like a T-Rex himself down the halls of the studio museum set during the shooting.

It’s also surprising that the entire movie – museum exhibits, ancient artifacts, giant marble halls, everything except the exterior shots of the museum – was made and set in a studio.

But this movie is all about the imagination. No harm done.