(The Disneycember logo is shown, before showing clips from Haunted Mansion)
Doug (vo): Man, I can't figure out what's more cursed. The Haunted Mansion itself or the movies based on it? How is it with several attempts to make what should be an easily good movie, the best version we got so far is the one with the Muppets? This has to be, hands-down, one of the most boring movies I've seen all year. Don't get me wrong. Like a lot of you, I didn't see it in theaters, because it just didn't look that interesting. I'm a huge Haunted Mansion fan, but, you know, a part of me still wanted to give it a chance, 'cause I do really like the ride, and a lot of these actors are really, really good. But I literally saw this the day after watching Five Nights at Freddy's, and I'm starting to think this is the year of bizarrely boring horror movies based on exciting, good franchises.
Story[]
Doug (vo): The setup, in all honesty, isn't a bad one. LaKeith Stanfield plays an astrophysicist who, one day, meets the woman of his dreams, but...I guess without going too much into spoilers, something happens to her and he becomes a ghost tour guide, one that does not believe in ghosts. That's actually a pretty funny setup. He gets requested by a priest, played by Owen Wilson, to go to the Haunted Mansion, as he was asked to exorcise it, but isn't having much luck, so he goes to him, because he created a camera that apparently can pick up ghost particles. The owner of the house, played by Rosario Dawson, and her son are scared to be there, but all of them discover they have to stay, because as soon as they leave the house, literal hitchhiking ghosts follow them home and make their lives a living hell, demanding that they return to the mansion. Along the way, they lure in a professor, played by Danny DeVito, a psychic, played by Tiffany Haddish, and they try to discover the mystery of the mansion, which, as I said before, is so uninteresting. It's actually the scariest part of the flick, scarier than the ghosts.
Review[]
Doug (vo): As you might remember, I wasn't exactly the biggest fan of the Eddie Murphy version, but I guess I do remember it. I remember a lot of the bad jokes and corny effects and, well, I guess Terence Stamp's over-the-top performance was a little fun. This one, I know in a few days I'm not gonna remember a thing about. While the setup is promising, everything else about it is so generic and bland.
(Footage focusing on the characters is shown)
Doug (vo): All these actors, I've seen charming in a ton of other stuff. And the fun thing about them is that you kind of hire them to play themselves. Like, you kind of know when you hire Owen Wilson, you're hiring him to play Owen Wilson. When you hire Danny DeVito, you're hiring him to play Danny DeVito. And there's nothing wrong with that if you do it well, and these people do it well. But this script gives them nothing to work with. I don't believe for a second any of these people are who they say they are. Owen Wilson is not a priest, Danny DeVito is not a professor, LaKeith Stanfield is not an astrophysicist. I don't even believe Jamie Lee Curtis as this old, foreign mystic from the past. The only person I could believe was Rosario Dawson as...woman who owns house. That's it. Now, granted, it is revealed later one of these people actually isn't who they say they are, but you kind of wonder why nobody ever figured that out, or, hell, everyone else is so mismatched, I guess it makes perfect sense. But, whatever. They can work with that if they're legit likeable, and this dialogue has no laughs. There's a scene in the kitchen when there are literally three egg puns made, and the scene ends. There's another scene where Stanfield is supposed to talk about why he doesn't like bed and breakfast, and you're kind of waiting there, like, he shudders just hearing it, like, "Okay, this is gonna be a good bit", and then he just sort of talks about how it's weird that people stay in your place, and...and that's it. Then that scene ends.
(Various clips resume showing)
Doug (vo): This movie is just filled with scenes that are built up, end, and add nothing. And part of the reason for that might be is the editing's not that great. Now, this isn't like old-school Michael Bay where there's a cut every two seconds or something like that, it's not quite that bad, but it feels like this movie was really chopped up, and you can tell there's a lot of ADR where the camera cuts away and you hear people saying lines, but you don't see their lips move, it's just other people reacting. And conversations always feel really disjointed and never quite go together, which, again, if it was funny, I'd be okay with it, but they never amount to any laughs or that interesting a story. You keep wondering what happened to the main character's love interest, like, they seem to get along, and then suddenly, it cuts to later where he's doing ghost tours, and it's like, "Okay, well, a little mystery's okay". But when you're building it up this much, like the halfway point is when they finally reveal what happened, it doesn't matter, it's so underwhelming, you're not gonna care. Why was that built up so much? So many moments are like that, where you're just watching, saying, "Why is this being filmed? Why is this being said? Why is any of this going on?"
(Footage focusing on the mansion is shown)
Doug (vo): Even the mansion itself is pretty underwhelming. At first, I kind of liked it was a little darker and hard to see, and it kind of felt like a real place, like, really dingy and brown and not exactly a pretty haunted house to look at, which, in many respects, can make it look uncomfortable. But that's what you get almost the whole time. They never throw in any interesting shots or different colors or neat camera tricks or anything like that. The few times they do, it's very appreciative. In fact, I'd say, maybe every 20 minutes, there's something that's...okay. I remember when they go into the backstory of the place, they do kind of these neat effects that kind of have these cool visuals, and that was unique, that stood out. There's a kind of neat section where the main character goes in-between worlds, and it's pretty much the Haunted Mansion, but under a blacklight. There's even an impressive effect where he lands on the floor, but then suddenly, it's a door and he's running. It's actually really well done. I'm a real sucker for the Haunted Mansion theme, and I do like that the music utilizes it in a couple different ways. It doesn't just do the organ version, it actually kind of plays around with it.
Final thought[]
Doug (vo): But like I said, that's roughly every 20 minutes, and this movie's over two hours long. So that's, what? Six times that a film is passable? Two hours isn't short, but I've sat through three hour movies that felt shorter than this. It just felt like it went on forever. I did not care at all what happened to anybody or what the backstory was or the mystery was. You know what I think the problem is? They keep making it about the people going into the Haunted Mansion. Why don't we have a movie that follows the actual residents of the Haunted Mansion, with the ghosts and how they died and what they do there and how they scare off different people that try to live there? Maybe somebody's trying to tear down the house, so the ghosts keep scaring them away, and then maybe they have to really come to grips with the fact that maybe they have to leave the house, and it's about moving on, you know, kind of like a Pixar story. Is Pixar doing a Haunted Mansion movie? That'd be cool! Oh, except they're kind of sucking now, too. (The poster for Elemental is shown) God, I really don't like Disney this year! I'm sorry, guys. I was really hoping this is a movie that maybe was shat on and didn't deserve to be, 'cause I really do like the Haunted Mansion, I like these people that are in it, but it's another major letdown. I guess if you like the ride enough or these people enough, you might just kind of like seeing them do their thing and the Haunted Mansion kind of just doing its thing with nothing new or interesting added. But with a movie where the ghosts aren't scary or funny, then truly, the most frightening part of the flick is watching great talent wasted.
(The film's final scene, showing everyone, human and ghost alike, having a party in the mansion, is shown)