The Haunted Mansion

The Haunted Mansion was a fine family adventure film based on the theme park ride of the same name from the Disney theme parks, and if that was all that the film was expected to be it would have been fine and good and the review could proceed accordingly. However, Disney happened to release this film after they released the magnificent Johnny Depp led Pirates of the Caribbean. This means that expectations for this film were significantly higher than they should have been. Audiences expected the same dynamic acting, the same full story drawn from a ten minute amusement park ride. Audiences expected a rip-roaring adventure with grade-A special effects and all out over the top acting. They did not get all of that from this movie. As a result the film did only moderately well at the box office and received poor reviews. Poor planning on Disney’s part but not a real loss.

There are two purposes to this film: the first, to present family entertainment in a spooky, but not too spooky setting, the second, to provide a vehicle for the comedy of Eddie Murphy. It achieves both these points but with only moderate success. The movie starts off slowly and the characters are hard to get to know and to like. The ride doesn’t really get going until you get into the beautiful house. The special effects of ghosts and other dead people are good in a non threatening sort of way but they don’t really meld and carry the story as well as the ghost pirates in Pirates of the Caribbean did. Eddie Murphy never really seems to find a rhythm and instead wanders through the movie alternating between smug, scared, and silly.

Eddie Murphy plays Jim Evers a workaholic real estate agent who is smarmy, annoying and not very engaging. Of course as he winds his way through the house he learns that his family is the most important thing in his life, not his career and that takes the edge off, but only a little. His wife Sara receives a phone call to come and visit Gracey Manor as the owner wishes to sell and will work only with her. Sara would rather not, but Jim sees profit and prestige and so he convinces the family to stop there on their way to the beach. It turns out that Sara is the reincarnation of the Gracey Manor heir’s long lost love and that he thinks he can rekindle a romance with her. The husband and kids turn out to be excess baggage so he locks them away and lets them wander around the house at will discovering clues to find out about what really happened to Mr. Gracey and his fiancee so many years ago.

Of course there is the creepy butler; here the butler Ramsley is played by Terence Stamp to great effect as he pops up unexpectedly all over the house. The two children Michael and Megan are quickly shunted to one side and put in numerous dangerous situations that they must escape from or be rescued from. Their only really telling characteristics are that Michael is afraid of spiders, and Megan can read Latin. Otherwise they are the typical two-kid sidekick that gets the hero through many a movie, think Jurassic Park, The Poseidon Adventure, or Jumanji. Jim Evers is the hero of the story as he tries to rescue his wife and kids from a variety of afterlife menaces, many of which are only partially developed and disappear from significance as soon as the gag, or immediate danger, is over.

The film dragged a bit in parts and it ran very long at the end. Everyone knows that once you enter the scary mansion, there is going to be a lot of movie before you ever get out again. So everything before the Evers’ arrive at the house is inconsequential character development of some rather bland characters. There were few things to attract children in the early part of the film and I wondered if restless children would be out the door before the ghosts arrived. I also wondered how much of the romance and murder-suicide that was hinted at in the opening credits children would really understand in this somewhat complicated plot setup.

Overall the film felt like an amusement park ride, not surprising since it was derived from one, and was generally moderate fun. The ending was not really a surprise but it did lead to a question, if a ghost is non corporeal, can it grab your hand to save you from falling? I didn’t fully fall for the movie, it is a pale comparison to the magical Pirates of the Caribbean, but it is a worthwhile film rental on a Friday night.