Haunted Mansion (Blu-ray)

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"The Haunted Mansion" is a great family movie, but that doesn't mean that every member of the family will think it's great.

My eight-year-old son liked it as much as "Monster House" and pronounced it somewhere in the 9-10 range. My five-year-old daughter agreed, though she thought some parts so scary that she had to cover her own eyes, as well as those of her teddy bear. My wife, meanwhile, thought it came together well enough for a family movie and gave it a 7. As for me, it struck me as being pretty faithful in tone to the theme park attraction that inspired the film—not too frightening and more amusing than laugh-out-loud funny. I felt that the most noteworthy thing about the movie, as with the theme park ride, were the visual effects. And boy, do they look great in Blu-ray.

But the second thing that's worth noting is that "The Haunted Mansion" isn't "Dr. Doolittle" or "The Nutty Professor." It's not a stupid film aimed at family members that have the intelligence of the pet goldfish, with silly slapstick and a disappointing story treatment. There's no sag in this effort from Rob Minkoff ("The Lion King," "Stuart Little"), and Eddie Murphy's performance is thankfully more understated—like Adam Sandler in "The Wedding Singer," "50 First Dates," or "Spanglish," rather than Adam Sandler in anything else. If you consider the premise, "The Haunted Mansion" isn't nearly as inventive or fun as that other theme-park-ride movie, "Pirates of the Caribbean," but I think it's gotten a bad rap. All things considered, it is an entertaining family movie.

Murphy and Marsha Thomason star as Jim and Sara Evers, a husband-wife team of realtors who have a smart-alecky 13-year-old girl (Aree Davis, as Megan) and a 10-year-old boy (Marc John Jeffries, as Michael) whom dad berates for not being manly enough. When a spider's in his room, the boy's the one to get weirded-out, not the girl, who calmly walks over and thwacks it with a rolled-up magazine. Of course, that little fear of spiders will come into play later in the film—even the kids can see it—and the rest of the premise seems just as strained or obvious. Sara gets a phone request to sell a nearby mansion, but is asked to come alone. Of course, that wouldn't make for a very fun film, and so Jim and the kids tag along en route to a family mini-vacation.

At Gracey Manor, which looks a bit like the Addams Family house from the outside, a creepy, ashen-faced butler lets them in. As Ramsley (Terrence Stamp) opens the door, the fun begins, with fans of the theme-park attraction all but invited to notice elements from the ride in this film. The talking and singing busts are here, and, appropriately, the barbershop quartet singing that they engage in is dubbed by The Dapper Dans, the quartet that regularly strolls Main Street in Disney World, Orlando. Those hitchhiking ghosts you see in the mirror sittng next to you in your car? They're alluded to at one point in the film, as are many other elements from the Liberty Square attraction.

As for the plot, it's quite different from what the Disney guidebooks have been saying all these years. According to theme-park literature, what happened was that a couple was to be married, but when the man of the manor caught his bride-to-be with the tailor's arms around her (never mind that it was probably part of her fitting) he killed the tailor in a fit of rage and, so upset by her intended's actions, she threw herself out of the window. The wedding dress remains in the attic, as it does in this film. But the story here, which we're given in the title credits (so pay attention) is that another triangle is implied, with the bride-to-be poisoning herself on her wedding night and the groom-to-be hanging himself in despair. Set near New Orleans, there's plenty of Spanish moss to offset the cobwebs and other spooky things, but it's interesting that in this land that produced writer Kate Chopin screenwriter David Berenbaum decided to include one of Chopin's themes—an intense social outrage over the mixing of blood from two different races. Yep, the race card is played here, but in such subtle fashion that most viewers won't even catch it.