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Back Shelf Beauties
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The Haunted Mansion Lately, Disney has been crowing about its big summer. With Finding Nemo, Pirates of the Caribbean and Freaky Friday, Disney succeeded critically and financially with great movies. However, now it's Thanksgiving and time for the turkey (sometimes they just write themselves, don't they?). Eddie Murphy stars as Jim Evers - a father of two who runs a real estate business with his wife, Sara (Marsha Thomason). He's a real go-getter who has been missing plenty of family events these days, so he agrees to take them on a special weekend. Their plans are disrupted when a mysterious man calls Sara and asks her to sell their mansion, which puts the family in a scary predicament. Who is this mysterious owner? What does he want with Sara? Gobble, gobble toil and trouble, this one is a stinker. Writer David Berenbaum and director Rob Minkoff can't figure out what this movie is supposed to be. On one hand, it's a family friendly Disney film about families learning to love each other with some comedy thrown in. On another hand, it's a scary horror film that isn't appropriate for little kids. The two never seem to meet, which leaves us with a film that has trouble finding its tone and becomes a muddled mess. Sadly, Berenbaum (who also wrote Elf) and Minkoff have the makings of a great horror movie in here, and The Haunted Mansion truly excels when they try to scare us. The special effects are very cool, ghosts chill you to the bone, skeletons chase our heroes and make us want to run, and Terence Stamp provides a wonderful villain that has you shaking in your seat when needed. However, Berenbaum and Minkoff feel a need to indulge Eddie Murphy, who is woefully miscast and takes the film in the wrong direction. I love Eddie Murphy for Raw, Saturday Night Live, Beverly Hills Cop, even Daddy Day Care, but he should not be in this movie. Murphy never seems at ease as he must walk the tightrope between horror and comedy, often getting stuck delivering the one-liners that will make you cringe, and the "special" family moments that will make you sick. Murphy is left mugging for the camera when the material fails him, and can't carry out the dramatic stuff in a serious way. Part of this is his fault, and part is director Minkoff who doesn't know what to do with his lead star. The word ensemble never enters the equation as we continue to follow Jim Evers, even though the movie is only partly about him. The Haunted Mansion shows potential, but gets gutted in a flawed attempt to make it into a family-friendly movie. Pirates of the Caribbean never went for that, and The Haunted Mansion shouldn't have either. 1 Waffle (out of 4) Copyright 2003 - WaffleMovies.com
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