Joel Siegel on 'Haunted Mansion'

Dec. 1 -- Now in theaters: The Haunted Mansion, Bad Santa, The Missing, The Cooler, and In America.

The Haunted Mansion

This is the third film based on a Disney theme park ride, and if this one is a hit, next year we can expect Tram to Tomorrowland: The Motion Picture.

I don't think we have to worry, though. Haunted Mansion is a much more literal translation of its ride than last summer's terrific Pirates of the Caribbean. This film also lacks a charismatic star like Johnny Depp. The star here plays like the ghost of Eddie Murphy phoned his part in from the great beyond.

Even the special effects are cheesy. The best of them are borrowed from the ride, so they're not original. Neither are the jokes, which play like they died 100 years ago.

Now we know what the "E" in Disney's E-ticket stands for: Ehhh! Grade: C.

Bad Santa

At last, a Christmas movie for the inner Scrooge in all of us: Bad Santa is hysterically, hurt-yourself funny.

Billy Bob Thornton is mean, miserable, a drunk and a misogynist who works as a department store Santa as a setup so he and his black dwarf cohort (actually, the ringleader of the outfit, the very funny Tony Cox) can steal the department store blind after closing on Christmas Eve.

The film is foul, filthy, blasphemous, definitely not for children and Billy Bob is perfectly cast, though I'm not sure that's a compliment. (Check out Billy Bob in Love Actually and Bad Santa — he's a good, good actor.)

Director Terry Zwigoff's documentary Crumb is brilliant, must-see video and he followed that with Ghost World, a gem of a film. He'll embarrass you by making you laugh hard at things you know you shouldn't be laughing at. Bad Santa is one of the rare films I can recommend without qualification to people of a certain age with a certain twisted sensibility who are also known as … my oldest friends. Grade: A-

The Missing

I was expecting something good, but I wasn't expecting this something good. Ron Howard, proving himself one of Hollywood's great directors, has made the best western since Unforgiven.