Haunted Mansion, The
Catch it on HBO with Snacks
Well, it's no Pirates of the Caribbeam. I am glad Pirates came out first because it gave that movie its own fighting chance. This film is definitely a huge visual and plot homage to Disney's Haunted Mansion ride, designed very carefully around the attention spans and plot analysis skills of the 8-12 set. This is not to say that Haunted Mansion sucks, per se. It is just a middling film with some genuine bright spots. Following the plot of the ride, as well as littering the screen with visual homages big and small, the film has less wiggle room to really come alive on its own
The interspersal of ride plot and new plot elements is smooth but, clearly, in the beginning, the writers had a more complex and rewarding Poe-like plot in mind. You can almost see the erase-marks where the minutiae were removed to keep it simple for the kiddies. Don't try too hard to figure it out - it will defy all in-depth narrative logic. Bookending the film, we get a quick and dirty exposition and a disappointingly wacky ending, but the middle part has some great moments, super spookiness, and Terence Stamp in spook drag looking deader than dead and not even bothering to try and appear normal, trustworthy, or mortal. Nathanial Parker playing Master Gracey (and looking like Ciaran Hinds) is also blatantly "um, no nothing spooky going on here!" Adults can gloat over their superior film vocabulary and best each other at pointing out ride elements.
The minute we step foot in that gorgeous, fantastic mansion, it is really, genuinely old-school spooky. Like, terrifically so. The score uses the ride's excellent music to good advantage. They manage to capture the in-person flavor of the classic (and beautifully designed) ride and eliminate the Chatty Dubious Park Guest factor altogether. Casting Eddie Murphy as a grinning workaholic real estate agent who must overcome his own self-absorption in order to win against the titular Mansion's evil forces was very wise - he has the perfect comedic charm to carry the day when it flags.
With his cheesy grin, ability to smarm and his wide-eyed full-plunge approach to comedy, Murphy is also totally believable as a reformed butthead. Marsha Thomason is also perfect as his wife, beautiful and ethnically ambiguous enough to work with the plot device of which she is a victim. Finally, Jennifer Tilly as Madame Leota has that theme-park-cast-member-who's-about-to-be-fired-for-not-having-magic-in-her-attitude
attitude down pat. I suspect this is not purposeful but it does lend laughs when the disembodied head gags run out.
Casting any character actors as comic relief in an Eddie Murphy film where the star is actually a house is unfair to all the parties involved; I suspect servants Wallace Shawn and Dina Spybey/Waters had much more to do in the mythical "better plot" than they do here, to all our losses. It's cute, it's diverting, but it won't change your life.
-- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ These reviews (c) 2003 Karina Montgomery. Please feel free to forward but credit the reviewer in the text. Thanks. You can check out previous reviews at: http://www.cinerina.com and http://ofcs.rottentomatoes.com - the Online Film Critics Society http://www.hsbr.net/reviews/karina/listing.hsbr - Hollywood Stock Exchange Brokerage Resource
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