Review of Casper (1995) by Jacob B — 02 Jun 2018

As far as live-action movies based off of cartoons go, this one is one of the better entries even if that's not saying much. Like the 1990 Ninja Turtles and the Speed Racer movie, this movie had effort put into it and the filmmakers seemed to genuinely attempt to make a good movie.

The performances both live-action and animated are enjoyable, the CGI still stands the test of time and its cartoony rendering makes it all the more entertaining to watch and some of the jokes hit. There are also a few cool sets.

It has dramatic moments including Casper's backstory from before he died. But there are still a couple of bad qualities. The Ghostly Trio can be annoying to the point Christina Ricci calls them out on it, more than half of the jokes miss and it's even somewhat creepy.

Surely the titular character saying "Can I keep you?" is the most suitable romantic advice for kids. Hell, he gives off a bad first impression with the fact that him behaving in a stalker-like manner (he reacts in glee when she goes to sleep in his bed.

..reminiscent of anything?) is indirectly the reason why there's any conflict in the first place. I also should point out the profanity in this movie. There's nothing wrong with expressing your current mood through expletives but they have a habit of calling attention to themselves and are clearly only there to bump its rating up to PG.

At least the dialogue is a lot more colourful than Shadow the Hedgehog. Casper is worth checking out since more effort was put into it than other live-action movies based off of cartoons but it's still just an "eh" movie.