‘Haunted Mansion’ ‘All-star cast with nothing to say’

Watching Disney’s latest liveaction theme park adaptation, ‘Haunted Mansion,’ was quite an immersive experience.

I felt like a ghost myself once the credits rolled, after all, the only thing I could say was “Booooooo.”

Take an excellent cast, a weak script, a dash of unfulfilled promise and the smallest sprinkle of whimsy that you can possibly muster. Mix these ingredients up for approximately 2 hours and 4 minutes and the end product should be something close to whatever this film is.

‘Haunted Mansion’ is a movie about a haunted mansion. Despite this, not a lot of time is actually spent in the haunted mansion after the first 30 minutes. When we do spend time there, the mansion is not as haunted as you would think. The characters often talk about how haunted the place is, and we sometimes get to see that the mansion is haunted, but the entertaining antics hardly last. The film soon gives way to a needlessly complicated battle against a very generic, evil ghost.

We are told that this bad guy is evil and must be stopped, but we scarcely get to see him do much of anything until the climax. Granted, Jared Leto plays the antagonist so this may be a blessing in disguise. We are told the protagonist is sad and has a tragic backstory, but we never get to live in it or attach ourselves to his life.

One of the most important rules of storytelling is to show character development rather than telling it to the audience.

When Luke Skywalker realized Darth Vader was his father, he did not go on a long-winded monologue explaining how and why this made him sad, the films showed us Luke’s emotional journey for the remainder of the trilogy. Frodo Baggins did not turn to the camera and say “Climbing Mount Doom is really hard!” We got to experience these characters and their struggles through the events of the story. It hurts that ‘Haunted Mansion’ chooses to develop its characters in such a weak manner, as it makes the heart of the story feel completely artificial.

It’s simply impossible to ignore that the cast deserves so much better than this. Danny DeVito is completely wasted but steals the show every time he speaks. This is likely because ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ solidified DeVito’s career in comedy movies.

Owen Wilson really tries his best to be charming, but, in my opinion, it was not impressive. Lakeith Stanfield is great at looking sad and emotional but never gets to flex his acting muscles beyond facial expressions and a few sweet moments with Rosario Dawson. entertainment.ed@ocolly.com

There are, however, a few things to enjoy about the film. The set design for the mansion is great and there are a few fun moments before the movie gets far too wrapped up in its plot. If we dropped the villain and focused on making a confined, fun, whimsical exploration of a haunted mansion, this could have been a fantastic thrill ride. Instead, the only thrill ride worth engaging with is the ride ‘Haunted Mansion’ is based on.

With a needlessly complicated, poorly written story with nothing to say, an all-star cast with nothing to do, and a general lack of fun and creativity, Disney has once again made another flop that was brimming with potential.