Eddie Murphy stars as a real estate agent in "The Haunted Mansion," based on a ride at Disney World of the same name. Photo courtesy of movies.com

Eddie Murphy has had a bad couple of years. At one point, he was a very funny guy who expertly honed the wise-ass personality. Yet, with his last couple of duds like the abysmal "The Adventures of Pluto Nash" and "Showtime," Murphy seems to be going into a funk leaving that funny personality behind.

Surprisingly, while "The Haunted Mansion" was not a great film, it was quite an enjoyable time.

The plot, like most Disney related films, is pretty easy to follow. Murphy plays Mr. Evers who, along with his wife, is a real estate agent. He is a work-a-holic and is forced to promise his wife that he will give up one weekend for a trip to the lake with no distractions. He agrees, but his wife immediately gets a business call from a seller of an old and valuable mansion. Murphy, seeing the potential cash values, convinces her they will just do one little detour to the house before heading to the lake.

When they finally get there they are greeted by the house's strange butler, played by Terence Stamp. As if this wasn't odd enough, a storm suddenly comes up and washes out the roads. The Evers are officially stuck, and it is not long before things start going bump in the night.

While I did enjoy this film a lot, there are many problems one has to deal with. The biggest problem is the script. While it is slightly clever in the beginning, as the film goes on things become quite confusing and incoherent. This is very odd as the story itself is pretty basic. Also, the script is just a bit lazy. One can almost hear the gears turning as the various things are set into place for the story to continue forward.

The other problem is Eddie Murphy. As said before, he is a funny man. Yet, he seems to have completely lost that edge by this point. Simply put, Murphy is not funny here. One gets the sense that his idea of funny is to completely ham it up on the screen. Hopefully, one of these days he'll get back to his "Beverly Hills Cop" persona.

However, there are many things this film did right. One has to keep in mind that this film is based on a Disney ride. If anyone has ever been on that ride, they would know that for a kids ride it is surprisingly intense, albeit funny. The same thing goes here and it works great. For a kids' film, this is a very scary movie. There are many intense sequences that I'm surprised the director was able to get away with. Most notably is Murphy's fight with the undead. One has admire the guts this movie had to be able to do this.

Another admirable thing was the production design and directing. The film looks great but the directing had a very distinct tone, something the script lacked. All of the scenes were filmed and paced with assured hands that made the film fly by. The directing alone made this movie a fun trip.

In the end, it's hard to believe this was a good film. It had problems with both script and actors, yet there was a certain energy to it that was hard to deny. To put it simply, this film was better than it had any right to be.

Elon University Pendulum © 2003