Overrated

An Exercise In Nonsense

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

This is a movie I am not recommending if you are an adult. Kids will probably like it more than I did. If you are a kid, tune this out. The movie stars Eddie Murphy as real estate agent who is a workaholic. On a weekend he's supposed to spend with his family, he has to stop at a house to look over. It's not until he gets there that he finds out it's actually a...you guessed it, a haunted mansion. They then get stuck there and must escape. For a movie starring a man who dropped 230 F-bombs in a 75 ish minute time period 16 years before, this is a pretty tame movie. it's fun for the kids, yet grown ups may not be as entertained. Some movies, like I said in my "Spy Kids 3" review, are best left for the kids. It's not "Eddie Murphy Raw", but it's not "Shrek" either. I only saw about half of this movie. The 3/5 stars I rated the movie does not apply to the whole movie, just the first half of the movie. Does it improve? I don't know, and don't really care to. Just leave it to the kids to decide, and if you want to see it, be my guest. Before I finish, I'd like to say Roger Ebert gave it 2.5 stars, and Common Sense Media gives it 1 star, and both people saw it all. It has a 4.9 on IMDB. I give it 6. There's not many people who can say they liked it. It's still your choice, but I'm just saying...

There's one thing that people should be very clear on, and that's that Eddie Murphy does not care in the slightest what people think of his acting career. And that's good, because this film is unspeakably bad and is only viable as a tool for wantonly consuming 90 minutes from your life that you will never get back. Yes, this is an Eddie Murphy project that functions better as a fourth-dimensional black hole than anything else.What audiences have here is a project in which Eddie Murphy plays real estate agent Jim Evers, who hopes to transform a dilapidated mansion in New Orleans into financial success. Before venturing out in search of a buyer for wreck, he and the family he's been somewhat neglectful towards visit the house for an inspection. They discover there is more going on with the property than they could have ever anticipated.Eddie Murphy's character is hapless, with little awareness of what is going on outside of his real estate duties. Terrance Stampis, confusingly, in this movie as one of the 999 ghosts that reside in this mansion, even though his acting career easily and understandably puts the film "beneath him." Jennifer Tilly is present in the film in a significant role as a disembodied medium and adviser to Jim Evers. Despite the quality of the film overall, their talents are put to good use, considering what little they're working with.The acting is stiff and contrived. Murphy turns in a performance that is completely alien to the talent that brought him success throughout the 1980s. The relationship between Evers and his wife appears unnatural and difficult to believe within the context of the film. The film might have had greater success with an increased focus on the efforts made by the home's original owner, a ghost, to reunite with his long-lost wife. Certain contradictions were apparent in the film as well, such as what physical objects ghosts were capable of manipulating. Sometimes they were able to move objects. Other times they were relegated simply to phasing through them. The visuals of the film are quire colourful. The effects, both special and practical, are top-notch and clearly show a great deal of effort had been put into producing them.This film is mainstream pabulum of the highest order. Murphy delivers a performance that's typical Murphy schtick — frantic, energized inanity with a dull edge and inarticulate delivery, devoid of any nuance or subtlety. Murphy's more sophisticated and impressive roles, not nearly as upsetting, are not easily remembered. Everyone can remember his Saturday Night Live origins, his work in 48 Hours, Trading Places, Coming to America, The Golden Child, Bowfinger, the Beverly Hills Cop series, and Dreamgirls. People often want to remember these, but seldom do they wish to recall the likes ofMeet Dave, Norbit, Daddy Day Care, Nutty Professor, Dr. Dolittle, and the infamous Pluto Nash. People can find themselves anxious with the likes of Ben Affleck because they remember roles he's "phoned in," such as with Jersey Girl, because they know he can produce absolutely amazing work like he did in The Town. People know he can do better, so they become, understandably, disappointed. That perspective we have for Murphy has inflated to such proportions that you can't help but see anything else. The Haunted Mansion is a good vehicle of work to add to the pile of problems movie- going audiences have with his intentions. It's good that a man that has done ten Shrek-related jobs since the first Shrek doesn't care what audiences think of him, otherwise this might all seriously effect him on an emotional level.Former Village Voice writer Rob Minkoff may have put it best when he said, "Rob Minkoff has directed a movie that's nearly laughless and nowhere near as frightening as what's happened to Eddie Murphy's career." Even famed film reviewer Richard Roeper simply described The Haunted Mansion as "dreadful." While Disney proved, earlier in 2003, with Pirates of the Caribbean that a film based on an amusement park ride can be successful, Eddie Murphy proved that substantial talent is a significant portion of the equation required to project the success of such a film.You'd get more for your dollar if you were to visit the actual Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland rather than engaging with The Haunted Mansion. There's no particular reason this film should exist. The world is worse off it now that it exists. Rather than waste your time with this cinematic detritus, you would be better off sitting somewhere and reading a book for 90 minutes.

Jim Evers (Eddie Murphy) is a hard-working real estate agent who doesn't have time for his family. After missing their wedding anniversary, he proposes to go down to the lake. His wife Sara (Marsha Thomason) gets a call from Gracey Manor looking to sell. Sara is reluctant to go but Jim drags her and the kids to meet Edward Gracey (Nathaniel Parker). A storm floods out the road and the Evers are forced to stay. Ramsley (Terence Stamp) is the stiff creepy butler. The manor is web-filled and Gothic with a vast cemetery in the back. Jim stumbles onto a secret passage and encounters Madame Leota (Jennifer Tilly), a gypsy ghost locked in a crystal ball. The kids follow a spectral orb up to the attic and finds a portrait that looks exactly like their mother where they meet house staff Emma (Dina Spybey) and Ezra (Wallace Shawn) who are actually ghosts.Eddie Murphy is pushing too hard to be a jerk. It's no surprise that he succeeds. His character is a jerk and doesn't come off well. Eddie isn't funny anymore. This movie is not scary. It's PG and has no edge to it. Marsha Thomason seems sweet but not very compelling. I do like the kids. This movie needed to work on their level. Essentially, it needed to be their movie if the PG rating needs to stick. The scares are always heightened when the audience sees it through children's eyes. The only fun part is when Eddie and the kids are looking for the key in the cemetery. The kids battle some scary stuff. I just wish the rest of the movie is more like that.

I have a personal history of hatred and contempt for this piece of crap Eddie Murphy apparently calls a movie. Once every few years this movie has come to hunt me back, twice at school and thrice on TV. Even when I was 8 I hated this, six years have passed and the situation isn't much better. The biggest flaw of this movie is its humor, which practically non- existent. Eddie Murphy just wobbled around the haunted mansion and blurts out supposedly funny. Another huge flaw is that the characters are mostly uninteresting, and when they aren't they are simply walking comedic atrocities, with unfunny jokes and annoying voices galore! However, it's not all bad. The actors playing the various roles are not bad (except for of course the big Eddie), and the sets are so delightfully corny. However, decent acting and sets is not enough to make up for a terrible screenplay and atrocious humor.In the end, I give this movie a 2 out of ten, because at least it is not Mr. Popper's penguins...another film that has haunted me from the day I saw it.