Film Review: Casper (1995) C-

Date Viewed: 2/1/08
Venue: HDNet

When someone refers to a movie as "eh, just a kid's movie" in a derogatory tone, they're talking about Casper, a loud, special-effects laden comedy aimed at kids that isn't very interested in making a lot of sense or thinking things through.

Based on the famous cartoon show, our story follows lonely Casper, the friendly ghost, as he suffers his three bullying ghost uncles in an abandoned mansion in New England. The property is inherited by a snooty rich bitch (Cathy Moriarty), who believes there to be treasure (yes, treasure) in the mansion's walls, and will stop at nothing to drive the scary ghosts out. She hires ghost 'expert' Dr. Harvey (Bill Pullman. Was he in every movie between 1994-1996?) to help the ghosts 'move on.' Dr. Harvey moves in with his pubescent daughter Kat (a developing Christina Ricci) and while Harvey works on taming the mischievous uncle ghosts, Kat befriends lonesome Casper (well voiced by Malachi Pearson). Of course our intrepid family winds up siding with the ghosts against snooty rich bitch, and conflict ensues. However, the story really stumbles when trying to resolve this conflict, disregarding it's own 'rules' about the ghosts as soon as it can invent them.

While the comedy in Casper falls too broadly to be consistently funny (there's some gross, semi-crude humor, and Dan Akroyd has an embarrassing Ray Stantz Ghostbuster cameo, for goodnessakes), some of the overall adolescent themes of fitting-in and loneliness are well played. And those successful themes make some of the sloppy story points a bit more palpable.

Casper is a movie a kid with less discriminating tastes would eat up. It's outlandish, the sets and effects are great (imagine Who Framed Roger Rabbit? done seven years better), the comedy is big and in-your-face, and really its main characters are kids (Ricci and the Casper the ghost) themselves. As an adult, however, it's impossible to overlook lame humor and shoddy storytelling.