Casper is a film based on the old theatrical shorts produced by Famous Studios. The movie starts out with a widow inheriting
Whipstaff Manor, Casper's home. She doesn't care until she finds a note saying there's pirate treatsure there in the house's documents. The problem being that it's haunted. After an exorcist and ghostbuster failed to rid the house of ghosts, she calls Dr. Harvey, a ghost psychologist. Dr. Harvey's daughter, Kat, is unhappy about moving again and makes her Dad promise that they'll stay if he doesn't find what he's looking for.

The biggest problem with the film is the lack of focus. I think that they try to cover to explore to many subplots in the film, and as a result, don't cover any of them too well. The most glaring example I can think of is the scene's with Popular Girl (the one who offered to have the Halloween party at her place) and Boy Toy.This movie already has villains, move along.

As far as looks, this films is pretty good. I love the sets; they look exactly how I think a haunted mansion should look. Casper and his uncles look more or less like the one's from the Famous Studios shorts. The ghosts that show up later look a bit strange though.

In the end, I decided on two and half stars. It's better than fair, but it isn't quite good enough to warrant three stars, in my opinion.

Casper is a nice little film which I enjoyed when it was originally released, despite only having a fleeting knowledge of the title character, from a scattered bunch of televised shorts. Time has moved on since then and how, after watching quite a few of the spectra’s original shorts and knowing a lot more about him. I can say that this reinvention of Casper is a stronger product than the original, and one that also pays homage to the ghost’s past.

Because he is not, you could say, top tier and therefore not as well known (as opposed to the Looney Tunes). Casper doesn’t suffer so much from the preconceptions that his more famous contemporaries have. It also possibly helps that the executive producer is Steven Spielberg and the head writer of the story is Sherri ‘Slappy Squirrel’ Stoner.

The Ghostly Trio provide much of the real humour of the film, them and their interaction will Bill Pullman’s character marking some of the funniest parts of the movie. Eric Idle too provides some memorable moments as Carrigan’s dimwit lawyer, yet it never feels as if he’s being used to his full effect; mind you he is an ex-python. Yet the heart of the movie is with Casper and Kat developing friendship, which provides the strength the film needs to succeed and it is pull off with a believability that is a rarity with part live-action.

It’s impossible for a film about ghosts to get away from the subject of death and what happens afterward, but here it is dealt with in a way that is logical to the world presented. All the main characters in the film have been touch by the subject in one way or another: from Carrigan getting the manor in a will and the Harvey’s lost and consequential quest to find wife and mother. Casper has a double lost: not only his life but also his identity, which is in some ways the greatest lost of all; whether a ghost or not.

Athena below points out the one real problem in the whole film; just how old is Casper suppose to be? Or rather how old was he when he died seeing as ghosts’ tend to live at that age perpetually (in this film). At times he acts like a young kid, yes seven or eight years old sounds about right and also ties in with his theatrical character. Yet this age does go against some of the perceived feelings he has for Kat; through most of the film you could say this was some kind of puppy love.

Mild Spoiler

Of course near the end of the movie, Casper age is given as a twelve-year-old, which, to be honest, doesn’t gel with his actions through most of the movie, or his general appearance.

Yet in some ways, compared to his theatrical persona, Casper has grown up.

I think I probably saw a couple re-runs of Casper shorts growing up, but nothing that stuck in my mind... so I came to this movie without any real reference to the original short films.

I remember when this came out that I enjoyed it a great deal. It was funny, feel good and even a little touching in places. The animation was very impressive for its day and the live action actors do a good job.

I do however remember being a touch confused trying to figure out how old Casper was supposed to be... his character design doesn't provide any clues, so it was a touch odd when he would flip-flop between seeming very young and innocent... like maybe seven or eight years old... to being romantically jealous of the boy Kat likes... kid-jealous I could get--this is his first friend decades... but the romantic angle seemed a bit odd.

At any rate, that's the only real flaw I found with the story and it's a fairly minor one at that. All in all this was a fun, enjoyable film.