Review: Haunted Mansion

Haunted Mansion
Cert: 12A / 123 mins / Dir. Justin Simien / Trailer

And so to the House Of Mouse's second-stab at adapting their Haunted Mansion theme park attraction for the big screen. It's an ensemble tale of apparitions and adventure, of chills and chuckles, of ghoulish gags and of grief. The last of these is the cornerstone of Katie Dippold's screenplay, although it never really slows down enough to properly explore the emotions to which it refers (and for Disney that's a criminally-missed opportunity).

All of the central cast here are superbly likeable and perfectly matched to their roles, with particular standout performances from LaKeith Stanfield and Rosario Dawson. The antagonists they're up against, however, don't balance this out with any sense of credible threat. In fact we only really meet one - Jared Leto's 'Hatbox' - a supernatural villain who looks like Tim Burton has re-tooled The Grinch and sounds like a half-arsed impersonation of Darth Vader. Screen-time with this character is all but wasted, then again Leto has proved on more than one occasion that he can easily take an average movie and make it feel far worse. Although the playfully creepy visual effects are every bit as accomplished as you'd expect (given that this is catering to a family audience), the film never manages to evoke the eerie otherworldliness that even Pirates Of The Caribbean managed in its darker moments. Because of this we're never convinced that this is anything other than a ride.

The comedy is executed with more skill than the horror, even if there are plenty of chuckles but no real belly laughs. The scares aim for 'traditional' but still fall short at cliché much of the time. Justin Simien never quite matches the kookiness of Beetlejuice, the adrenaline of Goosebumps or the emotional rawness of Ghostbusters Afterlife. And that's a shame because Haunted Mansion feels like 80% of a great movie, but with its unfulfilled potential and capacity to be something more meaningful the end result is, sadly, forgettable...

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