I'm making a huge mistake doing so many Halloween-themed reviews, given my limited scope and sticking to movies less-trotted. Casper: A Spirited Beginning is floating around on the web, but somewhere along the line, I feared I'd relegate myself to defending it, for details that'll be implied soon. I had seen four of the Casper movies in some way, so I decided to do a personal ranking, and give my perspective on each.
I haven't seen Casper Meets Wendy, so that's out for the time being.
Casper (1995)
I had seen this movie as a kid (it was a frequent rental from back in the day.), and given my love of dark comedy nowadays, I can imagine myself seeing this now. My exposure to this afterwards was the review by the Nostalgia Critic (let's be real, YouTube has entered the decades, old channels can be considered retro at this point), and no matter my perspective on the movie, the review holds up poorly for me.
What saves this movie for me is it trying something different, to give Casper just a little extra bite to it, the darkness feels balanced as we get an implication for how Casper died as well as many of the jokes present. Heck, Caddicarus, the man notorious for his not so new opinion on child schlock actually considers the movie to be alright.
So, with a lack of reservations on revisiting this and the belief that some bigger figures may like it to, that's why I put this movie at the top.
Casper's Scare School
I have a feeling this isn't a beloved series, I didn't even know a show spawned from this, but I did see the movie plenty of times. I went into it thinking it'd be neutered crap, but I rewatched it again, and I honestly enjoyed it.
The CG animation is hit or miss, along with most of the new flock of characters, but at the very least I like the dynamic between Casper and his uncles, Kibosh is balanced between being imposing but reasonable, what's expected to be corny is executed well enough to the point you can resonate with it. For better or worse there's one or two partial musical numbers so we're already down one fatal piece of corniness.
However you feel about it, this is the definitive computer-animated Casper movie.
Casper: A Spirited Beginning
My first exposure to this movie came from an old PC game I played as a kid. I had no idea this was based on a different movie nor what said movie was.
It's not so much that it's cheesy, but that it's inconsistent. Not to mention undoing the emotional weight of Casper becoming a ghost by not showing it and him not knowing he died. The effects are okay for made-for-TV standards, there may be some enjoyment to have, albeit ironic enjoyment, but the only reason I'd go back to it is for Steve Guttenberg.
Casper's Haunted Christmas
With a ranking entry in mind, I went into this knowing exactly what'd be at the bottom.
I saw this movie twice on television. I had revisited this and was off-put by people bitching about the animation, and that still upsets me, because the animation is the least of this movie's problems.
For perspective, I tried watching the movie twice, each time I got further than the last but no matter what, I couldn't make it through the whole thing. It felt too sugary and forced in many areas (and the movie is so negligible it leaves me at a loss on memorizing specifics), characters take one trait and stick with it to the bitter end, even the corny jokes feel soulless.
I'd go as far as to consider this the worst Mainframe Entertainment movie (Boom Boom Sabotage is so bad it's good.)
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