Haunted Mansion

My friend who used to work at a movie theatre and who I hadn't seen in a while expressed interest in watching this one so I decided to oblige him on this point. I expected some laughs and innocent scares but while I was impressed with the visual effects, I didn't think there were many funny scenes or lines unless they were said by Danny DeVito. Still, I liked it fine most of the time and so did my friend. Nice to see all the familiar New Orleans landmarks since I and my friend only live a two-hour drive from there. This friend said he liked it better than the Eddie Murphy version which I've yet to watch. In summary, we both say give this Haunted Mansion a look. P. S. I personally thought it was a shame there was no scene of DeVito with his former "Taxi" co-star Marilu Henner who seemed wasted as a NO tourist.

Haunted Mansion is needlessly convoluted and feels its length but for a Disney theme park ride adaptation it's really impressive how ready this film is to have some genuinely moving and open conversations about grief and how painful it can be to move on.

Lakeith Stanfield is the main reason any of this works. For a remake of a film based on a theme park ride he's way better than he needed to be. Any scene where he opens up about his pain is incredibly engaging and unexpectedly real.

Overall this is an undeniably talented cast who've all been really funny in the past so even if they're not as funny here as they definitely could've been they're all still good at getting a fair few chuckles out of the material throughout. Tiffany Haddish wins simply by having the best joke.

The most baffling casting here is Jared Leto as the Hatbox Ghost. It's a completely forgettable role and whilst it's kinda a relief he doesn't ruin the film it's so weird to see one of the most committed actors currently working (for better and worse) take a role that is 100% stunt casting.

Justin Simien's direction is pretty good, a lot of the geometry distorting set pieces are basically just CG that looks fine but there's still fun to be had with them and it's only in the third when the CG overload threatens to derail it like it did Jungle Cruise, but this recovers.

Pacing is all off here, this film could have done with at least 20-30 minutes trimmed off. It sagged in the middle, can't really fault the actors here, they all did their bit. They were just dealing with a baggy script.. The effects were fine, the set was appropriately eerie and atmospheric. I would have liked to seen a bit more menace with the ghosts, gave them a bit more edge which would have avoided all the characters seen as safe and untouchable but still have the light hearted approach, along the lines of the Frighteners (directed by Peter Jackson). I know it's a 12a but the kids would have coped with it for sure.

I was hoping they learned from mistakes they made with the last Haunted Mansion movie. The story was much better than I expected, but they executed it poorly. They tried too hard with their overly silly jokes, cheesy ghost visuals, and painfully obvious shout outs to the ride. They tried to cater their jokes to kids, but in a theater full of children and preteens, the only chuckles I heard came from their elderly grandparents. My seven year old even thought it was too cheesy and was hoping for it to be a little more scary. HM is my favorite ride at Disney but I hated their use of obvious references to cater to the fans. Especially their use of the ride's original script. That was unforgivable.

It wanted to score too easy, was way to slow and the jokes were to predictable all the times. Sorry to see they hurried the history plot line so much, which (on itself) would make a more than fine script. Also sorry to see that many of the beloved characters where also 'just there to be there'; if you blinked your eyes you could have mist it.

Nice to see the decor that makes the entourage of the attraction. But that's about it I'm afraid. The acting was almost on amateur level, the lines and the plot to thin. It made me even long for the previous version. Which also had a lot of things to comment on.