‘Haunted Mansion’: How Much Disney Dreck Can Audiences Put Up With?
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There are roughly 47,000—oh, wait, a new Netflix Original just dropped; make that 47,001—TV shows and movies coming out each week. At Obsessed, we consider it our social duty to help you see the best and skip the rest.
We’ve already got a variety of in-depth, exclusive coverage on all of your streaming favorites and new releases, but sometimes what you’re looking for is a simple Do or Don’t. That’s why we created See/Skip, to tell you exactly what our writers think you should See and what you can Skip from the past week’s crowded entertainment landscape.
Skip: Haunted Mansion
Haunted Mansion is so god-awful that you’re left to wonder exactly why Disney thought it would be a smart move to remake a film that was already dreadful enough 20 years ago. Why stop at abbreviating 2003’s The Haunted Mansion? Exorcise the whole damn thing.
Here’s Nick Schager’s take:
“Twenty years after Eddie Murphy flailed his way through The Haunted Mansion, Disney performs an IP double-dip with Haunted Mansion, yet another mirthless and fright-free film based on their popular theme park attraction. It may abbreviate its predecessor’s title, but Haunted Mansion (in theaters July 28) is just as busy, corny, and predictable as its 2003 iteration—as well as destined to swiftly pass into the cinematic afterlife that is both convenience store bargain bins and cluttered streaming platform libraries.
The Only Scary Thing About the New ‘Haunted Mansion’ Movie Is How Bad It Is
One week after Barbie demonstrated that established properties can be cleverly translated to the screen when auteurs take bold chances with their material, Haunted Mansion proves that such inspired efforts remain anomalies. Written by Katie Dippold with the same humorlessness as her 2016 Ghostbusters script, Justin Simien’s horror-comedy bears no plot relation to its ancestor, which would be welcome news if not for the fact that the story it concocts is equally groan-worthy.”
Rose Byrne.
See: Physical Season 3
Physical’s final season isn’t just the show’s strongest indictment of ’80s fitness culture, but a gratifying end to a story that often felt as frazzled as its overwrought main character—who finds hope (and plenty of sharp laughs) on the road to recovery
Here’s Coleman Spilde’s take:
“When we last left Sheila Rubin—the sharp-witted but self-loathing San Diego housewife-turned-fitness guru at the center of Apple TV+’s Physical—she had just been to hell and back. Not literally, of course, unless your picture of hell is hitting a mental rock bottom and severe relapse. In that case, Sheila got about as close to the fire as possible.
The Final Season of ‘Physical’ Is Blood, Sweat, and Cheers
At the end of its second season, Physical saw Sheila (played by a note-perfect Rose Byrne) coming to terms with her lifelong patterns of disordered eating. But alongside seeking recovery, Sheila also sought revenge. The combination of bingeing, purging, and obsessive-compulsive behavior ruined her marriage, alienated her mentors in the fitness world, and made her a pariah to everyone but her best friend and business partner Greta (Dierdre Friel). But that isolation only drove her taste for annihilation and control, and Season 2 closed with Sheila setting her sights on another competitor, finally becoming the ruthless ’80s aerobics industry kingpin that the show promised from its start.”
Skip: Zoey 102
Zoey 102 is a bleak reminder that no pleasant childhood memory is safe from cultural rehash, this time in the form of a superficial continuation movie that brings Britney Spears’ estranged sister back to rewrite history, taking all of our Y2K dreams along with it.
Here’s Kyndall Cunningham’s take:
“One of the pleasures of watching Nickelodeon’s Zoey 101 as a tween was the series’ idealization of independence. Set at the fictional boarding school Pacific Coast Academy, the Dan Scheinder-produced show centered on a confident, precocious teen named Zoey Brooks (Jamie Lynn Spears) and her rotating door of roommates (R.I.P. Dana), friends, and boyfriends as they navigated their teenage years away from their homes.
In ‘Zoey 102,’ Jamie Lynn Spears Admits She Peaked in High School
It gave college hopefuls a glimpse of living in a dorm and kids, who simply wanted to escape the reign of the parents, an extremely comfortable portrait of adult-like freedom. As with many children’s programs, the kids’ financial stability was a given. It’s only appropriate, then, that a reboot set in the adult world would flip this fantasy on its head. In the new sequel film Zoey 102 (now on Paramount+), the former most popular girl at PCA appears to have seemingly peaked in high school.”
Henry Cavill.
See: The Witcher Season 3, Part 2
The Witcher Season 3, Part 2 sends star Henry Cavill off with a boot to his perfectly pert butt, not even nodding at the fact that the actor built this silly fantasy series on the back of his unrelenting commitment. Good luck, Liam Hemsworth! You’ll need it.
Here’s Laura Bradley’s take:
“When news broke that Liam Hemsworth would be replacing Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher after Season 3, fans were understandably skeptical. Netflix’s fantasy series might be an ensemble, but Cavill, with his DC bona fides and his instantly recognizable growl, has always been its selling point.
‘The Witcher’ Sends Henry Cavill Off With a Whimper
Those who expected Cavill to go out in a final blaze of glory will be sorely disappointed. Although there is something elegant about the way Cavill goes out (and he also makes a meal out of his forced bedrest in the woods) the actor’s exit feels like a whimper next to the gonzo legacy he’s built on this gripping, often delightfully weird fantasy series. Can Liam Hemsworth really fill these boots?”
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