THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 27, 1995 TAG: 9505260053
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
CASPER, the friendly ghost, is still friendly.
With a $50 million budget to make him transparent and hokey at the same time, Universal is betting heavily that he'll be friendly enough to become ``The Flintstones'' of this summer.
The surprising thing about this latest effort to stretch a six-minute cartoon character to feature length is that it is skewed so directly at small children. The most-pleased audience for ``Casper'' will be those under 8 - even if they've never heard of Casper before. The Baby Boomers, who took Casper as their own some 30 years ago, may feel a bit put off.
As with ``The Flintstones,'' there is very little effort to attract a ``crossover'' audience. One would think that the most winning formula would be a lively children's entertainment that also contains enough tongue-in-cheek double-entendres to attract adults. ``Casper,'' for the most part, doesn't play that game.
The result is altogether pleasant, in a cajoling way. But it may wear a bit thin once you get used to seeing ghosts play around with humans.
Casper, with the voice of a 12-year-old boy, is a thoroughly ``nice'' type who is puzzled that ``fleshies'' (live types) find him so scary. He just wants a friend.
Along comes Christina Ricci, the 15-year-old who was so good in ``The Addams Family.'' She's new in town and needs a friend, too. After one scream, they bond. Ricci is delightfully mature. It's as if she knows it's nonsense but is willing to go along with it.
Casper is a good deal more rambunctious than he was in those ancient Paramount cartoons or in the Saturday morning TV version. It's all to the good. He was always a little too sweet to be believed, even for a dead guy.
The plot is paper thin. Cathy Moriarty, with that deeeeep voice at full throttle, is a mean heiress who wants to get the ghosts out of her house so that she can find hidden treasure. She plays it broadly - directly to the kiddies. Her henchman is Monty Python original Eric Idle, who has little to do.
Bill Pullman, another thoroughly decent presence, plays the father, a self-proclaimed ``ghost therapist'' who initially wants to help the dead find an afterlife but listens when Moriarty recruits him to become a ghostbuster instead.
There are numerous celebrity cameos, including Mel Gibson and Dan Aykroyd, another gimmick lifted from ``The Flintstones.''
To the film's credit, there is ample footage of the spirits, including a cantankerous trio of uncles named Stretch, Fatso and Stinkie. More should have been made of them. They have the voices of stand-up comics but are given little material.
There remains the problem of stretching a cartoon-length idea to 90 minutes. ``Casper'' is notably transparent, in more ways than one. Still, small children will like the broad movement and noisy hokum of a kid who can haunt adults. MEMO: MOVIE REVIEW
``Casper''
Cast: Christina Ricci, Bill Pullman, Cathy Moriarty, Eric Idle
Director: Brad Silberling
Screenplay: Sherri Stoner and Deanna Oliver
MPAA rating: PG (moderately scary, some language)
Mal's rating: two and a half stars
Locations: Chesapeake Square, Greenbrier in Chesapeake; Circle 4,
Main Gate in Norfolk; Columbus, Lynnhaven Mall, Surf-N-Sand in Virginia
Beach by CNB