Psycho's Movie Reviews #175: Night At The Museum (2006)

Night at the Museum is a 2006 fantasy comedy film directed by Shawn Levy and written by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon. It is based on the 1993 children's book The Night at the Museum by Croatian illustrator Milan Trenc. The film stars Ben Stiller in the lead role, Carla Gugino, Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, Bill Cobbs, and Robin Williams. It tells the story of a divorced father who applies for a job as a night watchman at New York City's American Museum of Natural History and subsequently discovers that the exhibits, animated by a magical Egyptian artefact, come to life at night. 20th Century Fox released the film on December 22, 2006, and it grossed $574.5 million worldwide, becoming the 5th highest-grossing film of 2006, but received mixed reviews from critics.

Two sequels were released: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian in 2009, and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb in 2014. A remake is also in development for the streaming service Disney+.

Plot

Larry Daley is a Brooklyn divorcee whose unstable work history causes his ex-wife Erica to believe that he is a bad example to their ten-year-old son Nick (who plays junior hockey), and Larry fears that Nick respects her boyfriend Don more than him. Cecil Fredricks, an elderly security guard about to retire from the American Museum of Natural History, hires Larry despite his unpromising résumé. The museum, which is rapidly losing money, plans to replace Cecil and his two colleagues Gus and Reginald with one guard. Cecil gives Larry an instruction booklet on how to handle museum security, advises Larry to leave some lights on that night, and warns him not to let anything "in... or out".

Once night falls, Larry discovers that the exhibits come to life, including a playful Tyrannosaurus skeleton nicknamed "Rexy" who behaves like a dog; a mischievous stuffed capuchin monkey named Dexter who develops a habit of stealing his keys; various other African animals; rival miniature civilizations portraying the Old West, Ancient Rome, and Ancient Maya; an Easter Island Moai obsessed with chewing gum; and wax models of various historical figures, including the violent Attila the Hun who desires to tear the limbs off his victims; four pyromaniacal Neanderthals; Sacagawea, who is locked in a glass case unlike the other exhibits; and Teddy Roosevelt, who rescues Larry from the miniature leaders Jedediah and Octavius, from the Old West and Roman dioramas respectively. Teddy explains that since an ancient Egyptian artefact — the Golden Tablet of Pharaoh Ahkmenrah — came to the museum in 1952, for the last 54 years all of the exhibits have come to life each night. If the exhibits are outside the museum when the sun rises, they turn to dust. Teddy helps Larry by restoring order, but only for one night. In the process, Larry finds out that Teddy has a crush on Sacagawea, but without the confidence to go talk to her through her glass display. Cecil, Reginald, and Gus return to check on Larry, but Larry quits. Until Nick and Don show up on their way to school to congratulate him on his new job. This motivates him to reconsider his night guard duties for the sake of his own son. Glad to see him back, Cecil advises him to do research on various histories to prepare for his next night shift.

The next night, Larry uses what he has learned to better control the exhibits, but four Neanderthals set fire to their display, and Dexter once again escapes with Larry's keys. While Larry is dealing with the fire, Dexter unlocks and opens a window. As Larry deals with Dexter and the warring miniatures, one of the Neanderthals notices a trash fire through the open window and leaps out. Larry, frustrated with everything going wrong, gives the keys to Roosevelt and once again decides to quit, but as he walks out, a metal statue of Christopher Columbus gestures to the open window where a Neanderthal has escaped. Larry runs outside to rescue him, but the sun rises and he disintegrates into a pile of dust; his remains are then swept up by a mechanical street sweeper. The next morning, museum director Dr. McPhee almost fires Larry after what had happened to the Neanderthal exhibit until Larry begs him to reconsider. Larry then offers Rebecca a meeting with Sacagawea, but she believes that he is mocking her.

Larry brings Nick to the museum to show him the exhibits, but none of them come to life. They find Cecil, Gus, and Reginald stealing the tablet and other valuable objects. Like the exhibits, the guards receive enhanced vitality from the artefact and plan to frame Larry for the thefts. They have also disabled the tablet to stop the exhibits from interfering. With his father's encouragement, Nick reactivates the tablet and runs away with the artefact. After a chase throughout the museum, Cecil locks up Nick and his father in the Egyptian room and steals back the tablet. After being attacked by the massive Anubis statues, Larry releases Ahkmenrah's mummy from his sarcophagus. The pharaoh speaks English from many years as an exhibit at Cambridge and helps Larry and Nick escape. The three find the other exhibits fighting with each other. After helping Attila deal with past trauma causing him to act out tearfully, Larry comforts him by singing him a lullaby and then convinces the exhibits to work together to catch the guards and recover the tablet.

The Civil War soldiers, Neanderthals, and Christopher Columbus capture Gus and Reginald without much difficulty, but Cecil escapes by stagecoach. He almost runs Sacagawea over, but instead runs Teddy over and slices him in half when he shoves her out of the way. Larry, Nick, Ahkmenrah, Jed, Octavius, Rexy, and Attila pursue Cecil to Central Park, where they stop him and regain the tablet. Jed and Octavius crash their remote-controlled Hummer at one point, but return heroically and surprisingly unharmed. Teddy is fixed by Sacagawea with warm wax. Rebecca sees the exhibits return to the museum before sunrise and realizes that Larry was telling the truth; he introduces her to Sacagawea. McPhee initially fires Larry again after seeing news reports of the strange events around the museum — such as cave paintings in the museum's subway station, dinosaur footprints in Central Park, and cavemen sightings. However, upon seeing how much these events raised museum attendance, he restores Larry to his night-guard position; allowing him to continue his job. Larry, Nick, and the exhibits celebrate the following night with a huge party.

During the credits, Cecil, Gus and Reginald are now working as janitors at the museum as punishment for their crimes.

Production

The building featured in the film, which was constructed on a sound stage in Burnaby, British Columbia, is based on the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, external shots of which were used in the movie.

Trainers spent several weeks training Crystal, who plays the troublemaking monkey Dexter, to slap and bite Stiller in the film.

Director Shawn Levy credited Ben Stiller for the ensemble cast: "When actors hear that Ben Stiller is in a movie they want to work with him. It's a high-water mark and it absolutely draws actors in and I'm convinced that's a big part of why we got this cast."

Alan Silvestri replaced John Ottman as score composer. Silvestri's score was used for the teaser trailer of Horton Hears a Who!

Release/Reception/Box Office

Night at the Museum had its premiere in New York City on December 17, 2006. It was later released on December 22, 2006 in the United States, December 26, 2006 in UK, January 12, 2007 in Brazil, on February 14, 2007 in China and on March 17, 2007 in Japan.

As of October 2020, on Rotten Tomatoes the film had an approval rating of 43% based on 138 reviews and an average rating of 5.26/10. The site's critical consensus read, "Parents might call this either a spectacle-filled adventure or a shallow and vapid CG-fest, depending on whether they choose to embrace this on the same level as their kids". As of October 2020, on Metacritic, the film had a score of 48 out of 100 based on 28 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". CinemaScore polls conducted during the opening weekend, cinema audiences gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.

Justin Chang of Variety magazine wrote: "This rambunctious, "Jumanji"-style extravaganza is a gallery of special effects in search of a story; rarely has so much production value yielded so little in terms of audience engagement." James Berardinelli of Reelviews gave it 2 stars out of 4, and commented on Stiller's performance by stating "It might be fair to give Ben Stiller an 'A' for effort, but to call what he does in this movie 'acting' is a misnomer. He does a lot of running around, occasionally falling down or bumping into things." One positive review by William Arnold of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, gave it a B-, and stated that the film was "Out to impress and delight a family audience with the pageantry of human and natural history, and that's a surprisingly worthy ambition for a Hollywood comedy."

Museum officials at the American Museum of Natural History have credited the film for increasing the number of visitors during the holiday season by almost 20%. According to a museum official, between December 22, 2006, and January 2, 2007, there were 50,000 more visitors than during the same period the prior year.

At the end of its box office run, Night at the Museum earned a gross of $250.9 million in the US and Canada and $323.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $574.5 million. It was the fifth highest-grossing film of 2006 and also the highest-grossing film worldwide of the trilogy.

It was the highest-grossing film in its opening weekend, grossing $30.8 million and playing in 3,685 theatres, with a $8,258 per-theatre average. For the four-day Christmas holiday weekend, it took in $42.2 million. The movie was also released in IMAX large screen format, often on site at museums of science or natural history such as the Pacific Science Centre in Seattle.

In its second weekend, Night at the Museum expanded into 83 more theatres for a total of 3,768, and took in approximately $36.7 million, out-grossing its opening weekend. It maintained the top position in its third week, with an additional $23.7 million.

During its international opening weekend of December 22, 2006, the film grossed a figure of estimated $5 million, with the highest debut coming from South Korea ($5.04 million). The biggest market in the other territories were the UK, Japan, South Korea, and Germany, where it grossed $40.8 million, $30 million, $25.7 million, $22.9 million.

Budget $110 million

Box office $574.5 million

My Review

I have to admit that I had extremely low expectations for this film, from the trailer, it looked ridicules and probably like a flop. My friends saw it in the theatre and told me that it was a fun movie, so I rented it and my mom and I just watched it together tonight and I couldn't believe that I was actually laughing so much during this movie. Despite some silly moments, it still was so much fun, the effects were kinda cheesy, but it worked really well for a family film. I definitely enjoyed the actors and how well it seemed that they got along. It looked like it was a blast making this film.

Larry has a problem, he can't seem to hold a job for too long, it's disappointing to his son, but he wants to turn things around and gets hired as a security job at the museum of natural history, but little does he know when the former security guard tells him to watch out for the museum at night and gives him interesting directions, well, you know the saying that museums can bring history to life? Well, that's exactly what this museum does, it's cursed by ancient Egyptians, and every night everything in the museum comes to life and Larry has to figure out a way to deal with it.

My favourite scene without a doubt was when Dexter, the monkey, starts slapping Larry and they start slapping each other back and forth. Well, there are tons of funny moments, this movie is just perfect for not only the family but an afternoon, I'm sure you'll realize your money has been well spent when you see it. It had a great cast, fun jokes, and great effects that were not too over the top. It's just a great movie, please watch it and enjoy.

True, it is overlong, some parts are a tad slow particularly the beginning, and it was let down by bad marketing, but on the whole Night At The Museum is a fun and entertaining family film. Some of it is very, very funny, not hilarious, just funny, and Ben Stiller gives a very good account of himself as Larry. The museum characters are very well designed, and it was when they came to life when the film let itself go. Dick Van Dyke and Mickey Rooney are great fun in their roles, but my favourite has to be Robin Williams as Theodore Roosevelt, in one of his more entertaining "recent" films. Plus the story is imaginative and fresh.

All in all, I've said this more than once already, a fun and entertaining film, flawed it is, but very enjoyable family viewing. 7.7/10

{The theme is iconic. Alan Silvestri did amazing... Avengers (2012) that's what you'll know him off - as in he composed the music for it}