The Museum At Night

All of the media we consume these days has been saturated and influenced by something else. It’s a mysterious and magical era of remakes, franchises about families who drive cars, franchises about cars who are a family, and an endless combination of genre chimeras. Nothing is truly original anymore. But we are still people, we still like to create things. And just because it’s been done already doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. At the end of the day, there is no need to reinvent the wheel- it's a pretty good wheel. And to create something wholly original, all you need to do is add your own unique, demented, and truly unnecessary perspective to a wheel that was doing fine, being a perfectly useful wheel, before you came along. 

  The wheel being put under the microscope today is a film ripe with nostalgia. A movie that- in the last few years- has been promoted to the rank of a classic in its genre. I am of course referring to the feel-good-family-holiday-nice-time-good-time-blockbuster event of 2006,  Night At the Museum. In this shining example of a family comedy, Ben Stiller (remember Ben Stiller?) plays a down-on-his-luck single parent that finds out that his new job as the night watchman at a museum is a little more hands-on than he had expected. The museum is fucking alive. It is light-hearted fun for the whole family, with a playfully romantic outlook on the power of knowledge and the duties of a father- we'll see about that.  By tweaking certain elements of the genre and a few plot points/devices, Ben Stiller goes from a lovable father seeking redemption, to a desperate man on his last leg, slowly descending into madness. And just like that, Night At the Museum is no longer a feel-good-family-holiday-nice-time-good-time-blockbuster event, it is a gritty and bleak psychological thriller. Again, the museum is fucking alive.  

Before we David Fincher the shit out of Night At the Museum, let’s talk about what makes it such an effective family comedy. A by the books family comedy, or fam-com as they’re known to literally nobody, should make you feel like Dame Helen Mirren is draping a weighted blanket over you- the most hungover person on planet Earth- right as the gummy kicks in, in slow motion, as Book of Days by Enya plays (then she gives you a lil kiss on the forehead and makes ya soup). Night At the Museum does this in text book fashion. The film begins with an upbeat score of triumphant trumpets traipsing around our ears, reminding us that we are in fact, having a VERY low key night. This stays steady throughout. The music is used effectively to highlight the tone of each scene, but even in the more climactic moments, we never feel like there is any real danger. The lighting in the film follows suit. The movie is shot primarily at night, but it’s incredibly well lit. Scenes that could have been rendered scary by shadow feel safe and warm because of how well lit each shot is. Famcom often falls into the bigger umbrella of action-adventure blockbuster and Night At the Museum fits into that mold. This means that any adrenaline we get will more closely resemble a roller coaster than a haunted house. The name of the game with famcoms is controlled danger. We get a scene of Ben Stiller being chased by a dinosaur skeleton, but we’re never really afraid that he’s in danger of being maimed by a dinosaur skeleton- it’s just not that kind of dinosaur skeleton. Even the scariest moment in the film, the Pharoah Akhmenrah being let out of his sarcophagus, is deluded by the fact that the mummy is revealed to be a young Rami Malek lookin’ like a damn snack. 

Leading to the next big signifier of a good famcom- an all-star cast of actors who seem very out of place in a kids movie. Famcoms have a daunting requirement that few other genres have. They have to be entertaining to the children the genre is  targeted towards, while also having witty adult banter for the parents to tell their friends about so they don’t have to admit how much they really enjoyed a kids movie. The way you accomplish this is by assembling a cast of well-known and beloved actors- none more important than the shining lead. And in 2006, Ben Stiller could do no wrong. He is fresh off of movies like Zoolander, Dodgeball, Along Came Polly, and Meet the Parents which were all wildly successful. Casting him in Night At the Museum was a no brainer because he isn’t really playing a role- he's just being him. By bringing his universal brand of humor to a kids movie, he can reach two audiences at the same time. The kids love him because he makes funny noises and runs into walls, and the parents love him because he makes funny noises and was in a Farrelly Brothers movie they made out to in the nineties. Throw in some dealer’s choice funny guys for Stiller to Stiller with like Owen WIlson, Robin Williams, Dick Van Dyke, and Steve Coogan, and badabing, we’re cookin’ with gas.

Ok, we’ve established what makes this movie what it is and we’ve verified that we are in fact, cooking with gas. Now let’s forget to turn off the stove and burn down the house. 

To turn this film into a psychological thriller, the music has to be less welcoming. Instead of a full orchestra score playing bombastic and reliable muzak that sews each scene together and creates a sense of safety and order, let's go with just a piano. Just one piano, playing individual notes and chords, sometimes out of key, sometimes out of scene. The music should create a sense of dread and melancholy throughout the film, increasing in intensity and pitch as the film slowly builds to a harrowing finale. As far as lighting, it needs to be low-key to build on that ensuing drama. As our lead trudges slowly towards madness, so should the way it’s  shot. Clear closeups of a distraught man in the early points of the film will help show the pain and volatility in his eyes. As the movie progresses, the shots become more abstract and get farther away from our lead to show the distance he is creating between not just us, but also his own sanity. 

As far as casting, I still like Ben Stiller, but in a very different way. If Night At the Museum showcases Ben Stiller at his most Ben Stiller-y, highlighting all of his greatest hits, this new version(which I have named The Museum At Night) will bring out a more mature side of the actor which we seldom see. Ben Stiller’s character in Night At the Museum is a man we root for. We want him to win. We want him to come to the realization at the end that he didn’t just save the museum, the museum saved HIM. We want  his son to say things like “That’s My Dad!” and for him to be making eyes with Carla Gugino in the last scene because it's a kids movie and they didn’t have enough moments together on screen so it would be weird if they were just making out at the end and even just being able to make eyes with Carla Gugino is more than anybody deserves. In The Museum At Night, nobody gets to make eyes with Carla Gugino. We want Stiller unhinged, unlikable, and barely hanging on right from the get go. Think Christian Bale in the Machinist mixed with Christian Bale on the set of Terminator 4.  And it will only get worse.

  As Stiller navigates his way through a lonely night job, he’ll  continue to descend into complete and total insanity. Each iconic historical figure he encounters throughout the night will be firmly inlaid subconscious personifications of his deepest fears, regrets, and hated personality traits. Attila the Hun represents his hatred and anger towards himself. Teddy Roosevelt is the relationship he never got with his father, and the father he wishes to be for his son but never can be. Sacagawea represents his infinite search for the truth in a web of endless lies. The dinosaur skeleton chasing him is the skeletons of his past catching up to him. And Pharaoh Akmenrah trapped screaming in the tomb is his own burgeoning insanity, violently pushing itself out.  As far as the funny supporting actors go (Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Dick Van Dyke, and Steve Coogan respectively) let’s make it spicy and cast them all as the same actor. And because she’s on my mind and hasn’t won an Oscar since The Queen, I like  Dame Helen Mirren for the role. Why not? To really showcase her chops and range, for the first half of the movie she will be indistinguishable as Helen Mirren. But as the walls of Stiller’s reality slowly crumble as the movie creeps forward, so does the airtight disguises of our Lady of Distinguished Intensity. 

The beauty of the Museum At Night (outside of Helen Mirren’s stunning performance) is that not much of the script has to be modified from the original. Most of the changes simply will have to do with Stiller’s interactions with all the other characters- the human ones, not the museum exhibits. The movie starts the same: he gets a boot on his car, loses his job, is about to be evicted. But instead of us rooting for him because he really is trying, we watch these things start to erode his psyche as he begins to boil. Instead of having a working relationship with his ex-wife and a son who just wants to see his dad succeed, we see a cautious, untrustworthy relationship on its last legs from both mother and son. Stiller finds the night watchman job by chance, kind of. He drunkenly breaks into the Museum of Natural  History and screams wildly into the ether, arousing a sleepy Dick Van Dyke who is secretly Helen Mirren. She sees an opportunity to retire and offers to let him off the hook for the B&E if he takes the job. Mirren gets to retire, an unemployed alcoholic insomniac gets a job, it's seemingly a win-win. But as we all know, nobody really wins in this movie. 

After that, the movie plays out in a fairly similar fashion to the original. The narrative unfolds and we are led to truly believe that this deadbeat Ben has stumbled on something fantastical and now has a meaning to live. His drinking gets better, he’s eating kale, he’s keeping up with current events, the one piano is playing major chord progressions instead of sporadic cacophonous noise. He’s really starting to feel like the gaggle of secret Helen Mirren’s he looks after are in his corner. So much so that he takes Teddy Roosevelt Robin Williams Hellen Mirren’s advice about inviting his son to come with him to work. Oh Teddy Roosevelt Robin Williams Helen Mirren, what have you done?  On a calm snowy winter night, he sneaks to the fire escape of his son's room and convinces him to join him at work for the night. As the two arrive, Carla Gugino says farewell, but Stiller tells her to stay because as he says “the museum comes alive at night”. She shrugs him off, leaves, and when she gets outside we see she is making a phone call. As he takes his son through the museum, the veil begins to fall, the piano begins to noise, the Helens begin to Mirren. As Stiller introduces his boy to the various exhibits (who at this point just look like Helen Mirren in cosplay), his son looks on in horror. Up to this point, we have only seen Stiller interacting with the alive versions of the exhibits and now we get those same shots cut together with shots of him from the son's point of view- babbling wildly to mannequins in an empty museum.  The son has finally seen enough and runs crying to the door into the arms of Carla Gugino who has called the police.Close shot of Stiller as he realizes the weight of his insanity and his eyes change from confident to deranged. He takes flight. Slow motion shots of Stiller being chased through the museum screaming wildly as the piano plays full chords again and the police tail behind him. The voices of a thousand Helen Mirren’s are shouting “STILLER!  STILLER!” (His name is Stiller in the movie) as he runs through every hall of the museum. He reaches the tomb of Ackmenrah, the coffin vibrating like it’s about to explode. He thrusts open the coffin, to find a still mummy. He takes it out and crashes to the floor sobbing and the final shot is of him staring up, screaming and crying, holding a mummy, as the police tackle him down to the ground. The screen goes black and the credits fade in: Written and Directed by Helen Mirren.