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Haunted Mansion

by Hope Madden

My favorite thing to read when I was a child was Disney’s Haunted Mansion. I had the book with the 45 record and fold out, suitcase-looking record player. I listened to it relentlessly, and could recite it still today.

The Disney theme park ride is still my favorite ever.

But The Mouse has had a time trying to figure out how to turn that ride into anything worth watching. Rob Minkoff’s 2003 film stunk up the place, and even 2021’s Muppet version was only mildly entertaining. And it starred Muppets!

Still, I held out hope for the latest adaptation for a number of reasons, starting with the cast. LaKeith Stanfield is a remarkable actor. Tiffany Haddish is funny as hell. Rosario Dawson, Owen Wilson, Jamie Lee Curtis and Danny DeVito – while often in bad movies – never let you down themselves.

But mainly it was director Justin Simien I trusted. The director behind 2014’s Dear White People and 2020’s Bad Hair has yet to let me down.

Had yet to.

Stanfield plays Ben Matthias, a nonbelieving scientist convinced by Father Kent (Wilson) to bring his equipment and help a mom (Dawson) and her young son (Chase Dillon) clear their new mansion of ghosts. Out of their depth, the pair eventually enlist the aid of a medium (Haddish) and haunted house expert (DeVito).

Katie Dippold’s screenplay picks up on some of the most memorable elements of the ride – ghosts that follow you home, for instance – but most of the spooky fun gets little more than glimpsed. Worse still, the filmmakers miss what makes a haunted house movie compelling – namely that you can’t leave. Everybody keeps leaving. They come back, but this traveling breaks any spell the film begins to cast and leads to a disjointed, sprawling storyline. Unimpressive ghost FX don’t help the film regain its sense of spooky wonder.

Stanfield gives his all, delivering a tender hearted, emotional performance that honestly feels out of place surrounded by such superficial camp. Curtis lacks the comedic timing her character requires – especially disappointing in scenes with Haddish (funny as ever).

Owen Wilson is Owen Wilson, but watching him give a pep talk to a bunch of poorly designed but nonetheless impressionable ghosts is one of the film’s high points. The other is a surprise cameo from Winona Ryder. But it’s not enough.

I cannot figure out why it’s so hard to mine the dozens of ghosts mentioned in this ride and book for a decent haunted house story, but I’ve definitely learned to stop getting my hopes up. If Justin Simien can’t do it and the Muppets can’t do it, it’s probably time to give up.

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Have I Seen You Somewhere Before?

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The Heat

by Hope Madden

It’s interesting how a film can be so familiar and so unusual at the same time. Take The Heat. Pairing an A-list movie star with a proven comic talent for a buddy cop comedy is hardly a fresh idea. 48 Hours, Rush Hour, The Other Guys – it’s been done, and it doesn’t always work. Still, it is a well-worn concept that often delivers enough laughs to merit a couple of hours.

Now, thanks mostly to the deserved popularity of Bridesmaids, it has finally occurred to someone in Hollywood that women can shoulder an R-rated comedy. So, bro-mance is not a requirement for this odd couple caper, in which both cops are women – specifically,  Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy.

Bullock is the uptight Ashburn to McCarthy’s loose cannon Mullins, the Felix to her Oscar, the Danny Glover to her Mel Gibson. They’ve been paired against their wills to ferret out a Boston drug lord. Maybe they’ll exploit each other’s foibles in the process, maybe even find an unexpected friend. (I’ll give them this – at no time does either detective say she is getting too old for this shit.)

The two leads fill the requisite roles quite well, Bullock’s angular, anal-retentive is the perfect foil for McCarthy’s unkempt profanity volcano. Bullock keeps pace admirably, but McCarthy is such an inexhaustible comedy explosion that the rest of the cast doesn’t have to work too hard. Her every line feels improvised, giving Katie Dippold’s otherwise predictable script much needed vitality.

McCarthy’s riotous performance honestly outshines everything about a film that’s content to coast on the novelty of female casting. Nothing else about The Heat bears remark – clichéd comedy trappings familiarly staged and directed, with Sandra Bullock relying on her Miss Congeniality stylings. It’s not terrible, but certainly nothing to write home about.

But there is nothing stale about McCarthy. Her talent for physical gags, her impeccable timing, and her bottomless well of one-liners gives every scene, however tired, the opportunity for a laugh.

 

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