Night at the Museum Film analysis

The movie ‘Night at the Museum’ opens with an establishing shot of the city in which the movie is set in. It looks like a big American city, makes me think of New York City because of all the sky scrapers and tall buildings. There is a slow panning shot which pans down showing off the museum where the movie is mostly in. The credits ‘Night at the Museum’ come up and the light from inside the museum shines behind the words. This could be used to represent that there is much more than just sculptures inside the museum and that the monuments coming to life is shown by the light of life being emitted from inside the museum. The opening credits are shown in front of all different monuments of the museum, the music changes depending in what is shown too. For example when the totem pole is shown the music goes low and deep, almost like tribal music. When the sad monkey is shown there is lighter music. The dinosaur has scary and eerie music, this is because dinosaurs are big, scary animals so the music sets the mood for the audience as dinosaurs are seen as gigantic and frightful animals. This is effective as it shows all the different monuments in the museum which will be involved in the movie at a later date. These different shots also give the audience the different views all around the museum and what kinds of things to expect throughout the movie.

It then fades to outside the museum and there is sounds of the city, the cars, birds and people talking. There is non-diegetic music in the background too. This is the first time we see Ben Stiller, the protagonist of the movie. He is always in comedy films and is mostly seen as similar kinds of characters in his movies. This is good for audiences as they can get a thought for the type of movie they are watching just from seeing Ben Stiller and that he acts similarly as he usually does. The first scene is set in his ex-wife’s house which shows how he is living. Although he is seeing his ex-wife he doesn’t live with her and his son Nicky. He takes his son to a hockey game and is seen as a supportive father even though he doesn’t live with his dad.