Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

(Aka: Search for the Jewel of Polaris: Mysterious Museum, Aka: The Search for the Jewel of Polaris, Aka: Night at the Mysterious Museum, Aka: Night at the Magic Museum, and many more!)

A Non-review by Professor Popinjay

(1999)

I like to do a bit of research about films before writing about them but there’s just very little info about this one. All I could learn was that the guy who directed this (David Schmoeller) also directed the horror film Puppet Master (1989). That’s about it. He has a handful of films mostly produced and distributed by Full Moon Features and Empire Pictures. Mostly campy horror from what I can tell.

The filmography for Full Moon Features is rather impressive with such awe inspiring titles as Evil Bong (2006) about a sentient bong who traps users in a psychedelic dream world, Evil Bong 2: King Bong (2009), Evil Bong 3D: The Wrath of Bong (2011), Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong (2013) a franchise crossover, Evil Bong 420 (2015), Evil Bong: High 5 (2016), Evil Bong 666 (2017), Evil Bong 777 (2018), Evil Bong 888: Infinity High (2022), oh and we can’t forget Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama 2 (2022), and a soon to be released film called Barbenheimer which I assume actually IS a mix of the Barbie movie and Oppenheimer. Stellar.

Mysterious Museum is not remotely like anything in that previous list, I’m sure. It’s obviously trying to be a kids film and has a fairly low budget. I’m inclined to be kind to such productions. I’m not sure what inspires them but I can’t help but wonder (I’ve said this before), did Dad get ahold of a camera and know a museum curator and decided to make a cute movie with his kids? Maybe he’s trying to get his kids into show business or maybe he just wants a fun project to do with them. It doesn’t usually translate into the greatest movie ever made but being a small-time production starring a bunch of people who are just having fun making a cute movie, how can I be excruciatingly critical?

They had a decent enough cast, decent enough sets, decent enough script, tolerable music, passable effects. They had some jokes. It’s not Marvel or Star Wars. It’s not Scorsese or Ridley Scott. It was a perfectly serviceable film about some kids who get sucked into painting and thwart a tyrant with the help of an anachronistic baseball-cap-wearing wizard.

I particularly liked when the wizard conjured up some really nice modern-day sneakers for Michael Lee Gogin’s character. He was just so happy to have them. It wasn’t really a necessary scene but it made me happy. I wonder if Gogin was just having a hard time running and they needed an excuse to let him wear regular shoes instead of medieval fantasy shoes. I like when a director takes care of their actors that way. James Cameron, take note.

Granted, the film is not something I’d pay a lot of money to see. It was part of a 6 film collection of “fantasy” movies and I got it at a garage sale at the local Elks lodge for practically nothing. It half occupied my brain for 38.5 minutes (regular runtime 77mins but I watched at x2 speed.) Not bad at that price. Plus it gave me something to write about.

I do take issue with calling it “Night at the Mysterious Museum” as this title is clearly meant to trick grandmas into purchasing this for their grandchildren, thinking it’s “Night at the Museum.” It always feels deceptive when they (gnomes) do that.

Also, calling it “The Search for the Jewel of Polaris: Mysterious Museum” is clunkety and weird. If they had flipped that title around the colon, it might flow better. I apologize for that imagery.

Really, I think why they end up giving low-budget films multiple titles is so people will accidentally buy it twice thinking it’s two different films. Got to get everything you can when you know very few are going to buy it in the first place.

I’m sure most people won’t waste their time with this film but I paid for it so I’m watching it at twice the speed. Don’t judge me.

And don’t be too harsh with these little films. Just imagine it’s a story being told by grandpa. He doesn’t quite get all the details right, doesn’t describe things very well, and sometimes he and his audience fall asleep before the third act. But he starts out excited to tell it, and he’s happy to have your attention for a little while, and we love grandpa. Just imagine David Schmoeller is your grandpa.

If it’s any consolation, I sometimes have to think of Ridley Scott and James Cameron as my grandpa. So many plot holes!

Box art! (I have NO recollection of who that giant old guy is. I don’t believe he was even in the movie. Actually, upon closer examination, I think that’s David Schmoeller!