Techtite DVD Reviews

The Film: Suddenly I feel like Goldilocks when visiting those three bears' house; three Disney rides, made into three Disney movies, in three years...? It's not hard to imagine Goldilocks going to each one and saying, "This one's not too hot...this one's very cool...this one's, um...somewhere in between." Indeed. While The Country Bears was not too hot, Pirates of the Caribbean was totally cool, with The Haunted Mansion decidedly "lukewarm"...as is my review.

To understand why this film is decidedly in the middle, it is necessary to reminisce about the prior two films. The Country Bears was a decided flop, largely because it had nothing to do with the ride at all. It was simply a bunch of Jim Henson style puppetry added to the masks of a bunch of grown men in bear suits. Then there was The Pirates of the Caribbean, which decided not to stray too far from the roots of the ride which inspired it, and yet added a story so engrossing, the film clocked in at well over 2 hours with little problem. This is how it's done, men...if you're planning on making a film based on a theme park ride at all.

The bottom line is, you need to stay true to the original source material, yet add enough additional story to not make the film drag. The Haunted Mansion learns this lesson, if only slightly, by keeping true to the ride and yet adding a pretty meager storyline along the way. Overall, this is a typical tale of a mansion spotted by married real estate agents named Jim and Sara Evers (Eddie Murphy and Marsha Thomason), they attend dinner with the apparent owner when oh no the rain is too strong you'll have to stay the night bw-ha-ha-ha...you probably already know the rest.

Sure, there is additional story here; just not a lot of it. See, Sara looks a lot like the deceased lost love of Master Gracey, the long-dead owner of the mansion, who sees Sara as the reincarnation of his beloved. This sounds like an amusing ghost style love story but it doesn't pan out enough. Instead, too much time in wasted to salute every single facet of the ride imaginable. It is often joked that the ride supposedly contains "999 happy haunts," or so the ride's narrator claims. That's the problem with the film: too much like the ride, too many ghosts, too little story.

Mind you, this is exactly why the film both succeeds, yet holds itself back; this is exactly like the ride. Kids will probably care less though; they will be having too much fun looking at every single live-action and CGI homage to the ride to realize any lack of script depth. There's the ballroom of ghosts, the graveyard of ghosts, the grand foyer, the hallway with floating musical instruments, the head of "Madame Leota" in a crystal ball (brilliantly played by Jennifer Tilly); the works. If you ever wanted the ride to be expanded to over 90 minutes, this is probably the movie you always wanted (I said: probably).

To be fair, it must be noted that most of the gripes you've probably read elsewhere have been deleted. A scene I read about in advance reviews where Eddie Murphy cowardly asks his son to "whack his own darned spider" is either totally unnoticeable, or has been left on the cutting room floor completely. This shows that Disney heeded the gripes of early test screeners, though seeing as how some of these test screeners are apparently online critics, it would've behooved them to inform these critics that the final film was edited (a factor which makes me wonder how worthwhile these online "advance reviews" ever are).

Not that they deleted the arachnophobia-ridden child. Murphy still has a son (Marc John Jefferies) who's scared of spiders, and still has an older daughter (Aree Davis) who is scared of little to nothing. Oh dandy; another retroactively chauvinistic tale of strong little girls and weak little boys. Whatever; the point is that these kids do little else than explore the house so that every facet of the ride can be saluted (like the attic). They don't provide very much else to the ongoing story at all.

However, it is important to remember that this film was made for fans of the ride --if just primarily-- and to this diehard fan, this film was a lot of fun. True, it's not as good as Pirates, although the same can be said of the rides. As for the film itself: this is the best "haunted mansion" movie I've seen in years. Even the Scooby Doo movies could learn a lot from Mansion, with its creepy doors that seem to be bursting with ghoulishness, its fluorescent yet opaque ghosts, and its carriage which would be horseless if not for the skeleton horse in front! True, little of this is scary to anyone over the age of 8, but who cares; this haunted house is still pretty cool!

Overall, this is a simple review for a simple movie. If you like the ride (and who doesn't?), you'll like the film. If you don't like the ride, you won't miss much. Oh, and don't tell me it isn't "scary" enough; that's the whole point! If you want to hear a real scream, watch Cat in the Hat again. Eeeeeek!

The DVD: First, there's the film extras, like "Secrets Revealed," the obligatory behind the scenes featurette. Yet in a film where almost half of every scene is an affect added later, this is hardly boring viewing. You also get to see how they got Jennifer Tilly's head in a crystal ball. Separately, you get to see the "anatomy" of a scene from concept to film, via the ghosts in the graveyard scene.

The "Virtual DVD Ride" of the Haunted Mansion isn't as cool as this fan of the ride thought. This isn't a virtual ride of the ride; it's a virtual ride of the set! Big difference. One allows you to point and click your way through the whole theme park attraction, room by room; the other is just a revisiting of scenes from the film. One is a classic ride; the other, a merely marginal-thumbs-up film. Guess what rating this extra gets.

The sole deleted scene is of "Emma & Ezra." To refresh your memory (as I needed to for these characters), Emma and Ezra are the butler and maid who befriend the two kids in the attic, later helping them escape in a ghostly carriage. Remember them yet? Well, in this deleted scene, you learn more about them, more about "Elisabeth," more about the curse, and more about the fate of the ghosts for 100 years. Apparently, the film editors felt that was too much to know too soon, so snip-snip went the scene. An understandable deletion, but a cute extra.

On to page 2 of the extras. There's a blooper reel, which is funniest in a scene around 90 seconds in, where Eddie Murphy actually breaks one of the props in a scene. Raven also provides a "Superstition" music video. Concluding the DVD-accessible extras are audio commentary tracks from the producer, director, and many of the lead crew members.

It's the PC-accessible DVD-ROM features that are the most eye grabbing. There's a video about the history of the Haunted Mansion ride, a program that morphs your photos to look like ghosts, photo galleries, a virtual mansion tour (PC version), and a bunch of Windows themes, wallpaper, and screen savers. In short: everything a fan of the ride needs...except for more of the ride itself!

	Final Rating : Small Crater. Fans of the ride will like it most of all, if just because...it's almost exactly like the ride! Too bad it didn't enhance the ride experience, though, with...a story?
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The Haunted Mansion

A Techtite Review