Rating: 
Summary: DECENT MOVIE BUT MORE FOR KIDS
Review: Haunted Mansion is yet another Disney Movie based upon a Disney park attraction. Following on the heels of Pirates of the Caribbean and The Country Bears, Comes the Haunted Mansion, based on my favorite Disney ride.Eddie Murphy continues his transformation into a family actor as he follows up his Dr. Dolittle and Daddy Day Care movies with yet another effort geared towards families. Eddie plays Jim Evers a real estate agent whose ambitions are keeping him from spending time with wife and partner Sara (Marsha Thomason) and kids Michael (Marc John Jefferies) and Megan (Aree Davis). On the way to a long-postponed family weekend, Jim has to stop to case a new listing: a hulking gothic edifice with a cemetery for a backyard. The tear-down potential is great, but "Haunted Mansion" doesn't go that way.It goes inside, of course, where the master of the house, Edward Gracey (Nathaniel Parker), dresses in Dorian gray and seems a little vaporous about the gills. So do the butler, Ramsley (Terence Stamp), the footman (Wallace Shawn), and the housemaid (Dina Waters). I haven't even mentioned the crystal ball in the attic that contains the green, glowing head of Jennifer Tilly. Edward takes one look at Sara and is convinced she is the reincarnation of his long-lost beloved Elizabeth, whom he couldn't marry for reasons the movie is too busy or too graceful to specify. Nor can I blame him, since Thomason, a trained British actress, has a delicate beauty that outclasses everything else here. No matter; Jim and the children have to rush around and find a key that opens a trunk that contains a letter that discloses the true villain of the piece. Like "Pirates of the Caribbean," "Mansion" indulges every cliche of its genre, like the bust on the desk whose movable head opens the door to the secret passageway. That should be part of the fun, but it all feels as rote as Murphy's performance. The fluid editing, Mark Mancina's Danny Elfmanesque score, and some nicely calibrated special effects keep the film moving along, and Disneyland freaks will enjoy ticking off the bits of the ride that have made it on-screen, but there's none of the wild-card energy Depp and Geoffrey Rush brought to "Pirates." With his sepulchral stare and mortician's intonations, Stamp tries -- oh, does he try -- but he can't lift the movie up to his level. Is it scary? In a theme-park sort of way: i.e., lots of "boo!" moments but nothing that really sticks. The only scene that might induce some bed-wetting is when Jim and Megan try to get the key from a mausoleum full of shambling corpses (it's like the "Thriller" video with better effects). But it's worth noting that neither of the kids seem particularly distressed by anything that transpires in "Haunted Mansion." The real star of Mansion however is the house and its inhabitants as created by the famous creature creator Rick Baker. There are secrets in each room and hallway - sliding walls open to reveal lost passageways; tombs cover entrances to elaborate underground caverns filled with zombies; statues and paintings come alive to reap a playful havoc. The heads of one particular group of statues slows down Jim Ever's chicken race by singing entertaining tunes like a barbershop quartet would. The DVD has pretty decent special features which bring its grade up a bit with multiple commentaries, bloopers, deleted scenes, making of documentary, and a few other goodies. Good family horror movie...Not too scary, but scary enough to get the little ones hair standing on end.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Movie, Poor Special Features
Review: "The Haunted Mansion" is a great mystery movie. It tries to be funny, and it is sometimes, but there is never anything hilarious in the film. However, what it lacks in comedy, it makes up for in the drawn out storyline. The storyline is not only great, but easy for most families to relate to. Workaholic Jim Evers(Eddie Murphy) misses his anniversary, so to make up for it, he is taking the whole family for a weekend getaway. However, when he gets the opportunity to sell a mansion, he forces the family to make a pit stop. A flash flood strands them overnight, causing the Evers to get tangled up in the huge mystery hidden within the old, spooky, haunted mansion. Anyone why has ever been to a Disney theme park and ridden the ride will get a big kick out of this movie because there are a lot of references to the ride made throughout the film. The special features are greatly disapointing. The is a behind the scenes featurette which is very short and uninformative. There is only one deleted scene, and to make this fact worse, the commentaries are filled with references to other deleted scenes. The Haunted Mansion virtual tour is boring and won't be able to hold a child's attention for the whole 23 minutes it takes to tour. There is some good in the extras section, though. The anatomy of a scene feature is very informative about how the digital effects where used to make the ghosts, and on the DVD-ROM portion of the disc, there is a history of the attraction. This film takes place at night in a dark mansion filled with ghosts and zombies, so it will definatley scare small children. Other things parents may object to is the use of the "C" word mostly by adults, but once by a 10 year old. Another thing parents should watch out for is the fact that somebody is sucked into hell. That person was bad, but I can see where parents would object to this. All things aside, "The Haunted Mansion" is a very good movie that your family will be able to enjoy for years to come.
Rating: 
Summary: A failed attempt.
Review: This film was a little like The Cat in the Hat, too scary or crude for kids, too bland for teens, and too dorky for adults. This film should have done more like its predecessor The Pirates of the Caribbean, and been set not in modern times but in maybe the 1600s. The acting wasn't that great, and in my opinion Eddie Murphey should've stick to the PG-13 and up films. The story was way too predictable and didn't live up to the ride. In my opinion, you will get more laughs and satisfaction by going to a Disney Theme Park and ride the 2 minute ride, instead of trying to sit through this hour and a half flop.
Rating: 
Summary: Nominated for the WORST Disney Movie EVER!
Review: Only a post-creative Disney would try making a movie out of an amusement park ride - and fail miserably to make it entertaining! This movie has an "I can't stop watching because there might actually be something interesting coming up" feeling to it: -The camera movements along with the special effects make it visually appealing. -The story line is so pale, shoddy, and predictable that it insults the intelligence of not only adults but the children viewers as well. -There are a few one-liners which are adequately funny, but they really should have added "canned laughter" so the audience is tricked into thinking it should be funnier. Had they done so they would have had to change the "cinematic music" as well as adding the movie to a slot on the Disney Channel (where it BELONGS). Overall another Disney failure, complete with state of the art special effects, no plot, and poor acting. Perhaps a PS2 spinoff game would work better? Or maybe they should stick with keeping their amusement parks out of the cinema. Had I read a post like mine beforehand, I would have not allowed myself or any others to have wasted our time seeing this movie at the $1 theatre.
Rating:
Summary: Geee Minus
Review: Eddie Murphy should quit while ...just Quit!. He's not funny like he used to be. Not a well written line nor plot. I kept yawning, although it wasn't a sleeper...You keep hoping something in the movie would thicken or catch your interest. It's just another TV movie...no, wait...TV movies are better.
Rating:
Summary: Ghastly!
Review: This is one of the worst movies in YEARS! A total disappointment for anyone who ever thought there was haunting magic in the theme park attraction(s). This was a perfect opportunity for a truly haunting and spooky tale. What the new Disney delivered is a campy, lackluster, brainless romp through a series of not so special effects. Come on, a seatbelt on the Madam Leota crystal ball? With each passing frame of film the insults are compiled on it's viewer in an unbearably terrible film. The Haunted Mansion is a ghastly movie for all the wrong reasons! (I would have given this a no star rating if given the option.)
Rating: 
Summary: Romance and Mystery
Review: This movie has two main messages.
1-The romance battle that Edward Gracy has since he lost his love so long ago, and the love that Jim Evers has since he has a wife that he doesnt want to lose. This causes him to find the courage to face his fears and save his wfie and children. 2-The basic mystery of the house which leads everyone to wonder what happened and that not everyone is as they see. For example the butler and Madame Leota. And last but not least is the chemistry the actors have with eachother. They act wonderfully together. Especially Eddie Murphy as Jim Evers and Jennifer Tilly as Madame Leota, the disembodied spirit in the crystal ball.
Rating:
Summary: children's movie
Review: This is a Walt Disney movie with Eddie Murphy and in my view a movie for children...but then again the effects are too gruesome for children. So I don't know at what audience this movie is really pointing at. Too scary for children, too boring for adults.
Rating:
Summary: Walt would be sick
Review: This was a bad movie mostily because the plot wasent clearly thoght out too well. If Walt Disney was still living today, he would be sick to his stoumach due to the zommies, the suicide scene, the master wanting to get "jiggy" with Eddie Murphys wife, etc. The jokes were also dumb. The rating was also wrong (it sould have been PG-13, not PG due to the violence, themamic material, some sexual refrences and launguage. The worst part was that at the end, all 999 happy haunts left the mansion. That was stupid because now there cant be a second movie. This would have been better as a TV movie.I hope they make a remake very soon with a better plot. So if your looking for a better movie, stick with pirates of the carrabean
Rating:
Summary: It's a lot of fun, as long as you don't expect "Pirates."
Review: Comparing the Haunted Mansion to Pirates of the Caribbean is pointless, Pirates was easily the superior film. Coming out of the theatre at a screening the week before it's release, I knew that Haunted Mansion wouldn't reach the large numbers that Pirates pulled in. In know that Eddie Murphey's fan base isn't necessarily spilling over, but I don't really believe that this is the reason for this. I really enjoyed the Haunted Mansion, and I will definately be buying this movie on DVD, but that's because the movie literally was tailored to people like me: a huge fan of the ride. Pirates was successful because the movie stands alone as a film. While the movie was based on the ride, the film only made nods to the ride here and there. The film had it's own story, it's own characters, and didn't try to make a story out of an attraction with no real story. In know several people who have never been on the ride, and they absolutely loved this movie (yeah, Johnny Depp helped out a little.) The Haunted Mansion did the opposite. The movie is literally a translation of the ride to the big screen. While this is good for fans of the ride, it isn't so good for those who have never been on the ride. While I really enjoyed watching for the nods to the ride, I also recognize that someone who didn't see the novelty of the film would merely think it was a mediocre rip-off of the 1999 version of The Haunting. I guess what I'm saying is that unlike Pirates, if you haven't been on the ride before, you may not enjoy the movie as much as someone who knows the ride.
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