Someday, someone should make an epic about T.R.’s pre-presidential adventures with the Rough Riders. Until then, we’ll have to settle for Williams’ Teddy, who isn’t even the real Roosevelt, just a statue of the conservationist president that comes to life at night with the rest of the exhibits at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He’s full of inspirational words for security guard Larry Daley (Ben Stiller), charged with keeping a lid on the nocturnal chaos at the museum.
Yet the wax Teddy lacks the courage to approach the wax Sacajawea, on whom he harbors a secret crush. Later, however, T.R. will save the Native American guide by pushing her out of the way of an oncoming stagecoach, getting sliced in half for his trouble. (With disarming understatement, he calls the situation “problematic.”) Once patched up, he continues to offer helpful advice to Larry, even in the sequel, when most of the exhibits have been shipped off to Washington. Once Larry recovers the purloined ancient Egyptian tablet that makes the exhibits come alive, he restores Teddy and the others to their rightful place at the New York museum, where they come to life each night as supposedly animatronic tour guides.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTPPlmQ0mjM]