Comic book films can be good, and children's movies can be intelligent, but these are both exceptions to the rule. Combine the two, make them a straight-to-video product, and you can guess how bad it can be. I don't know if it was my committment to finding obscure comic films or my morbid curiosity that kept me watching this, but I did sit through the whole thing.

Wendy and Casper come right off the pages of Harvey Comics, whose most famous character is probably Richie Rich. In this movie, Casper's 3 mean uncles meet Wendy's 3 mean Aunts at a resort (makes sense to me). I won't even bother going into the how's or why's. While all this is going on, an evil Warlock is after Wendy when he finds out she may beat him out as the most powerful witch in the world.

You can't beat this cast - a young Hillary Duff playing Wendy, with Teri Garr and Shelly Duvall playing a couple of her aunts. If you know much animation, you may even recognize the name Jess Harnell who voices one of Casper's uncles (Harnell is most notable to me for his work in Animaniacs [Wakko] and The Tick [Sewer Urchin], but also as a number of additional voices in movies like Scooby-Doo and Lilo & Stitch, and a ton of video games and TV shows, among others). Then, of course, we've got George Hamilton playing the villain (always a sign of a classy movie), and cameos from the likes of Ben Stein, Pauly Shore, and Alan Thicke. I guess you can't ask for much from a straight-to-video comic book kid's movie, but I always hope.

I was surprised at the level of special effects, they were probably the most interesting part - particularly with the CGI ghosts interfacing with the rest of the cast - but that's probably the most notable part of this movie.

© 2004 Jim Manchester