Mansión encantada (Haunted Mansion)

Haunted Mansion is Disney's second attempt at making a movie based on the titled ride. The 2003 version starring Eddie Murphy was critically not well received and flopped at the box office. However, it has a cult following nowadays and honestly, it's a decently fun movie. Does this second attempt deliver more or is it just another failed attempt at turning another ride into the next Pirates of the Caribbean?

One of the biggest things you will get out of this film is how amazing Lakeith Stanfield is as the main lead. He delivers a standout performance with some genuinely strong emotional performance from him. This is thanks to how his character is written. It is surprising to see Disney have an adult character dealing with loss and still grieving from it. He is also an introverted character with anxiety issues which is not something you see a lot from main characters in big IPs. His character is the heart and most engaging element. His character development is a wonderful thing to watch. The exploration of grief is well-done and it's a meaningful theme to explore in a family film.

The cast also all have decent chemistry. Owen Wilson just steals a lot of the scene with his charisma. Danny Devito is a bundle of joy as usual. Tiffany Haddish is good during the more serious and emotional stuff but her comedy is a mixed bag. Rosario Dawson is mostly serious but it works fine. It is at its most enjoyable when the cast is bouncing off each other. Jamie Lee Curtis has a minor role as Madame Leota but she does great with her small screen time. The first act started strong with some decent horror and tension. Some of the scares are pretty surprising for a movie that is also aimed at kids. There are also some great visual sequences. For example, the door opening to a sea or the hallways becoming longer or the pictures starting to move behind the character's back.

Unfortunately, it becomes pretty bland after the initial strong start. The second and third act start ditching any of the horror energy and becomes an adventure movie. It becomes reliant on jump scares but none of them are really that effective. The plot is also very standard and forgettable. There isn't any interesting character development for other characters nor is there any great twist or revelations in the plot. It doesn't help that this movie tries to be a PG13 horror but also a comedy and is not good at either. There are so many silly jokes and dialogue that just don't land. It didn't even give me a chuckle.

The movie is 2 hours and that is too long. There are many moments where the pacing is just slow or where scenes drag on longer than necessary or there is a pointless padding scene. 20 minutes could have been easily cut out of this film which would no doubt help the pacing. I'm also saddened by how reliant this movie is on CGI. A lot of the ghosts are CGI and the effects are CGI, all of which are very noticeable. It's a shame as most of these could have been done practically and look way better for it. It baffles me that the main antagonist is CGI. Could they not get Jared Leto in prosthetics or something? Also, there are so many noticeable product placements as well. There are so many dialogues where characters randomly mention products for no reason. For example, a character mentions getting a mansion from Zillow or getting stuff from Costco. The biggest offender was during a serious moment and the character mentions Baskin Robbins which took me out of the moment.

Overall, Haunted Mansion 2023 is a decent second attempt. It's not amazing or that memorable and it's not better or worse than the 2003 version. It's an okay movie but I definitely expected better from a movie with Disney money. I do want to see what ride they adapt into a movie next, Expedition Everest perhaps?

This is a frustrating one for me. I saw so many good ideas on display and committed performances from a game cast, but it all just felt kind of...wasted in the end.

And it's because it really felt like the cast and crew were working on a short leash. Everything about the narrative and visual presentation felt safe, sanitised, by-the-numbers, undercooked, and dull.

The film never gets silly enough to be memorable, even if it does get its share of decent laughs. And it also never gets scary or edgy enough to be memorable either.

There's no distinct style or vision here. It's like store-brand vanilla ice cream. There isn't even anything particularly wrong with it; it's just so bland that it's not going to be remembered for anything at all.

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.