My Movie Review on Casper (1995)
Greetings and salutations, my friends.
This is your friendly film, TV show, and episode reporter once again here with another film review.
And today, for my 1st installment of my "Spook Spectacular" series, I'll be reviewing "Casper (1995)".
Here's the rundown of it:
Casper is a young and friendly ghost who lives with his eccentric and rather cruel uncles, Stretch, Stinkie, and Fatso. He yearns to have a friend or two in his life, but every time someone sees him, they get scared and run away.
However, when ghost therapist Dr. James Harvey, and his daughter Kathleen "Kat", move into the house after being told the house was haunted, Casper sees it as his chance to finally make friends.
Unaware to any of them, though, a greedy woman named Catherine "Carrigan" Crittenden and her assistant Paul "Dibs" Plutzker intend on exploiting the house after discovering that it contains a treasure.
Will Casper and the others keep the no-goods from accomplishing their goals? And more importantly, who was Casper before he died?
In reference to the rather mixed reputation that the movie has, I'd like to start with the negatives of it.
Truthfully, the film felt like it had a multitude of stories crammed into one. It was like writers Sherri Stoner and Deanna Oliver, and director Brad Silberling, were so desperate to make the film intriguing, they were forgetting that the prime focus of the film was mainly supposed to be on the Harveys and the ghosts. Something that not even the uncredited contributions by J.J. Abrams was able to save the film from. Many of the characters outside of the ghosts and the Harveys likewise seemed to be taking the film in too many directions.
In my opinion, the film's most unnecessary of subplots came from the scheme by Amber Whitmire to crash the Halloween party at Kat's house, mainly because of it proving to be rather pointless in the long run.
Additionally, Catherine and Paul were rather cringy antagonists at the most, particularly due to their lack of intelligence and their childish behaviors. Cathy Moriarty and Eric Idle likewise didn't give what I'd like to call the most award-winning performances, and that's even coming from a guy who hasn't seen many of their works. Their performances seemed exaggerated, and they looked so flustered as they portrayed their characters, like they had no idea what they were doing and if their characters were necessary at all.
Along with that, there were some cuss words in the film that honestly shouldn't have been said due to it being a PG film.
Despite these setbacks I just mentioned, though, I didn't think the film was a complete waste.
The film isn't without emotion and heart, and the definite boosters of them come from that of the growing bonds between Casper, Kat, Dr. Harvey, and Casper's uncles. The jokes that the film had were likewise solid and fun, hitting the nail on the head every step of the way. In fact, I can't recall a single moment in the film that wasn't funny.
Outside of Moriarty and Idle, and the villains, the performances of the rest of the film's ensemble and their characters were outstanding!
Portraying the characters of Dr. James Harvey and Kathleen, Bill Pullman and Christina Ricci were able to give the most powerful, lovable, and realistic performances of the human-visible cast members. As a plus, their characters were fun to hang with and were instantly worthy of rooting for.
Joe Nipote, Joe Alaskey, and Brad Garrett incorporated awesomely hilarious comedic-timings and personality voicing Stretch, Stinkie, and Fatso; and Malachi Pearson...oh man, through his voice alone, he gave the character of Casper such lovable warmth and innocence.
The CGI used with the ghosts was great too. I mean, sure, it isn't the most groundbreaking to ever be seen by the human eye, but I don't think it was the production team's intention either. It's fun in its own way, and I think that's all that matters.
In the end, I find that the film isn't exactly a flawless accomplishment, but there are several elements in it that I believe will make your time with it the opposite of wasted.
So, I rate "Casper (1995)" 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.
