YMMV / Night at the Museum

The first movie provides examples of:

• Adaptation Displacement: Before the film was made, there was actually a picture book by Croatian artist Milan Trenc.
• Awesome Music: In the UK release, the end credits feature McFly's "Friday Night". And they even shot a music video for the song spoofing the movie. Alan Silvestri's scores for the series are worth a listen as well.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Jed and Octavius originally had minor roles in the first film, but after test screenings they proved so popular reshoots gave them a larger presence.
  • Ahkmenrah for being a gorgeous looking Nice Guy especially to Larry as well as for being snarky and hilarious and being played by Rami Malek (who is ethnically Egyptian).
  • Gus, the temperamental old night guard played by Mickey Rooney, is considered the most popular of the three old night guards for his cranky attitude towards Larry and his constant nicknaming.
  • The Easter Island Head may be an immobile character, but he is also quite popular for his funny mannerisms and loud voice.
• Fountain of Memes: All of Gus' nicknames for Larry (like "snackshack", "butterscotch", and "cupcake") are very quotable throughout the first movie.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The Teddy mannequin is based on the real Equestrian Statue of Theodore Roosevelt that stood outside the real American Museum of Natural History from 1940-2022. The reason the statue was removed was due to controversy in the midst of the George Floyd protests in 2020, since the Equestrian statue depicted Roosevelt on horseback with a shirtless Native American and African American on foot beside him. See Heartwarming in Hindsight below for the flip side of this story.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: The Teddy mannequin was based on a statue that was outside the real American Museum of Natural History, so had no real connection to the exhibits indoors. In 2012, a new memorial was created in the lobby of the museum, so that Theodore Roosevelt is inside with the other exhibits, like he was in the film.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • This isn't the last time where Pioneer Founders are having conflict against the Roman Legion.
  • Patrick Gallagher played Attila the Hun who is mostly antagonistic to Larry in the first half of the film; 15 years later, he voiced Khotun Khan in Ghost of Tsushima.
  • Paul Rudd has a minor role as the stably-employed stepfather to the struggling protagonist's kid. Then in 2015, he made his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in Ant-Man, where he plays the struggling protagonist dealing with his own kid's more stably-employed stepfather.
  • And speaking of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a neanderthal ends up outside the museum during sunrise and disintegrates to dust. Looks like Thanos snapped him into dust, too.
  • A night guard is forced to contend with the exhibits he is tasked with watching come to life, some of which try to attack him, and uncovers a plot from someone with an intimate history with the institute he now works at regarding what makes these characters come to life. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
• Ho Yay: A lot of characters, but most noticeable with Jedediah and Octavius - lampshaded with a Shout-Out to Brokeback Mountain.
  Jedediah: "I ain't quittin' you!"
  • In the sequel - no, they weren't really going to kiss, but yeah...
  • It didn't help when the sand in the hourglass was suffocating Jedidiah, and he was trying to tell Octavius about how their relationship progressed "from enemies to friends and some stuff that will make you cry." Subtle.
  • Octavius' "Just stay alive! I Will Find You!" before running to get help for Jedediah.
    Steve Coogan: (who plays Octavius) There was a certain kind of subtext, what those of a discerning view might read as a subtle homoerotic subtext. If those people read that into it I certainly wouldn't argue with it... Yes, Octavius has a certain fascination with Jedediah because, of course, he wouldn't meet people as irreverent as that in the world of the Roman Empire. I think people were a bit more formal in their behavior, so that slightly gauche, throwaway attitude that goes with being a cowboy fascinates Octavius, and he finds it quite alluring.
  • Another less than subtle thing about the hourglass, is that the entire scenario mirrors when Jasmine is trapped in an hourglass in Aladdin. Octavius frees Jed by breaking the glass just as Aladdin did, and the hole forms a heart we see as the head into battle.
  • Then in the third film, when the tablet is corroding and the exhibits are dying, Jedidiah and Octavius attempt to die whilst Holding Hands.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: Fans like to refer to the Jedediah/Octavius ship as "Jedtavius".
• Questionable Casting: Theodore Roosevelt is played by Robin Williams? Hey, it worked.
• Retroactive Recognition: Rami Malek, best known for his role as Elliot in Mr. Robot, plays Ahkmenrah. This trope became amplified even more after Malek played Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody and won a Best Actor Oscar for his performance in that film. The comments section for this video compilation of Ahk's scenes shows a few people living this trope out.

The first sequel Battle of the Smithsonian provides examples of:

• Awesome Music: The Jonas Brothers' "Come Fly With Me" in the end credits is a bop.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: Let's be honest, this movie is mostly remembered for Amy Adams' fine ass in Painted-On Pants as Amelia Earhart.
• Critical Dissonance: While not hated, the films elicited a ho-hum from critics while audiences loved them.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The sailor from V-J Day in Times Square is remembered fondly despite appearing for less than a minute solely because he was immediately willing to defend Larry after hearing he was from Brooklyn.
• Memetic Mutation: A few memes have come out of this movie at different points.
  • "Boom! Boom! Fiya powa!"^note This quote by the Thinker was present in every trailer for the film, making it a very widespread joke.
  • Custer mispronouncing Sacagawea's name over and over.^note As Custer tried to plan out an escape, he struggled to learn Sacagawea's name.
  • "We're Americans! We don't plan, We do!"^note A boast spoken by General Custer, showing his pride in not thinking through stuff.
  • "That's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, we like it!"^note The Bobblehead Einsteins quote KC and the Sunshine Band as they talk to Larry and Amelia about how they do things, which is another funny quote spoken in the film.
  • "ITT, bro? Intent To Touch?"^note Jonah Hill's cameo as day guard Brandon sees him criticizing Larry for trying to touch the exhibits, which Larry exploits to steal his badge.
  • I am ______, and I have come BACK! TO LIFE!^note Kahmunrah announcing his return is often replaced with other characters declaring they are alive again.
  • "It was shorter in Egyptian."^note A remark made by Kahmunrah to Larry about his title "Kahmunrah the Bloodthirsty", a lengthy phrase in English, being shorter in the native Egyptian language.
• Nightmare Fuel: The Scenery Dissonance of the museum exhibits frozen mid-battle with Kahmunrah and his henchmen.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Oscar the Grouch and Darth Vader in the scene where they're turned down by Kahmunrah.
  • Also Brundon.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: Fans refer to the relationship between Larry Daley and Amelia Earhart as "LarMelia".
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Joey Motorola, the helpful sailor who Amelia and Larry run into in the picture of V-J Day in Times Square; after star turns in Fanboys, Tropic Thunder, How to Train Your Dragon and She's Out of My League, you probably know who Jay Baruchel is by now.
  • Jon Bernthal as Al Capone, approximately one year before his Star-Making Role in The Walking Dead.
• Strangled by the Red String: Larry and Amelia. Amelia screwed around with most of the other exhibits while Jedidiah's life was at stake while Larry looked like an idiot in comparison and everyone around the complex just said that they were a cute couple. Which is even weirder when you consider that Amelia is a mannequin.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • A lot of people have said that Brundon deserved more screen time. He could easily have been a Foil to Larry, taking roughly the same role that the latter had in the first film.
  • A lot of people wished the security in general is more active as antagonists trying to arrest Larry and noticing the exhibits coming to life.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Copyright aside, the movie would've been a hell of a lot funnier and awesome if the pop culture exhibits of the Smithsonian, aforementioned One-Scene Wonder included, had been incorporated into the fun.

The second sequel Secret of the Tomb provides examples of:

• Base-Breaking Character: The nightguard played by Rebel Wilson is seen as either hilarious or plain annoying and ruining the movie, depending on who you ask.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Teddy losing the ability to properly move himself (due to his body becoming wax again), is eerily similar to Robin's diagnosis of Parkinson's disease (which he hadn't disclosed to the public, but was likely aware of during filming).
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Teddy Roosevelt saying goodbye to Larry is lent a ton of extra poignancy from being Robin Williams' last onscreen appearance.
  Smile my boy; it's sunrise.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: One of the scenes in the film has Jedediah (played by Owen Wilson) and Octavius running away from the Pompeii volcano diorama that has come to life. Years later, Owen Wilson would find himself in a similar situation in Loki (2021), time-traveling with Loki to Pompeii just before the volcano erupts.
• Nightmare Fuel: The Greco-Roman statues shambling around with missing limbs are quite frightening, as the scene seems to have been taken straight out of a zombie movie. So is Ahkmenrah rapidly reverting into an undead human-mummy-zombie hybrid near the end.
• One-Scene Wonder: Alice Eve and especially Hugh Jackman as themselves.
• Tear Jerker: The fact that this was among the final films of both Mickey Rooney and Robin Williams. Both actors received a dedication in the film proper.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The Relativity fight sequence has a lot put into it for replicating the painting's Deliberate Monochrome appearance and the chaotic stairways within the painting, creating a very three-dimensional fight as Larry and Teddy deal with Lancelot.

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