Review: 'Haunted Mansion' delivers frisky, family fun

It could have been worse, but that's no excuse.

As a classic Disney theme-park ride, Haunted Mansion is a winner. But the 2003 film version starring a never-worse Eddie Murphy was an epic fail. In 2023, "Haunted Mansion," now in theaters, at least delivers as frisky PG-13 family fun.

It's understandable to want more. Look at the jackpot success of the film franchise based on Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean" park attraction, starring an Oscar-nominated Johnny Depp as Capt. Jack Sparrow. Don't expect the fitfully funny and rarely scary "Haunted Mansion" to match that, but at least it's more than a lazy brand extension.

The overqualified ensemble of actors is led by the reliably compelling Rosario Dawson as Gabbie, a widow who moves into Gracey Manor, a decrepit New Orleans mansion she found on Zillow, with her 9-year-old son Travis (Chase Dillon), who is missing his dad.

The movie doubles up on sadness by casting LaKeith Stanfield ("Judas and the Black Messiah") as Ben Matthias, an astrophysicist mourning the death of his wife (Charity Jordan) in a car accident by taking over her tour of local ghost spots and drowning himself in the bottle.

The grief connection between Ben and Gabbie is uncommon and welcome in this kind of formulaic, comic scarefest. Sadly, the script by Katie Dippold (2016's "Ghostbusters") lacks the heft to develop themes of race, loss and isolation, leaving director Justin Simien, the skilled satirist behind "Dear White People" and "Bad Hair," to sneak in what subversive elements he can.

When Gabbie seeks help from Father Kent (a shaggily amusing Owen Wilson) to rid her house of 999 ghosts, he turns to skeptical Ben who had earlier invented a camera capable of seeing into the spirit world. And so we're off into a world where reality keeps crashing into the afterlife. Unfortunately, once you leave the mansion, the ghosts follow you home until you return.

To keep things light, Simien brings in a team of comic all-stars, including Tiffany Haddish as a nutso medium, Danny DeVito as a professor and newly minted Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis as Madame Leota, a disembodied head in a crystal ball with a knack for cracking wise.

Jared Leto, another Oscar winner, plays the pivotal role of the Hatbox Ghost, whose spirit can only be released when someone willingly agrees to become the 1000th ghost in the mansion. Good luck recognizing the star of "The Dallas Buyers Club," what with all the computer effects that render the actor nearly invisible.

"Haunted Mansion" is certainly an improvement on the 2003 version, but its weaknesses cannot be overlooked, starting with the fact that an exciting nine-minute ride has been stretched into an overlong 122 minutes that soon wear out their welcome.

How interesting to think what Guillermo del Toro, who once considered directing, would have made of this material about how the dead haunt the living who desperately need to refind the joy that comes with a fully engaged existence.

This "Haunted Mansion" runs from risk in favor of going down easy. For all its merits as escapist entertainment, it's not haunting at all.