THE HOUSE OF MAGIC
★★☆
(G) General release (85 minutes)
The House Of Magic, directed by Jeremy Degruson and Ben Stassen, from a story by Stassen, is an effective but never inspiring kids' animation, set in Boston and made by a Belgian animation outfit.
Its central character is a perky ginger cat (voiced by Murray Blue) abandoned at the beginning of the movie by his owners. Cast adrift, he stumbles into what looks like the neighbourhood haunted house which turns out to be the a tumbledown mansion inhabited by an elderly magician and his toys.
A grumpy rabbit and his mouse sidekick (George Babbit and Shanelle Gray) have also taken up residence there, and they resent the arrival of an interloper. The old magician, Lawrence (Doug Stone) welcomes him, however and insists that he stay. A turf war – cat versus rabbit and mouse – is an ongoing element of the story.
Lawrence conducts magic shows in the children's ward at the local hospital. His shtick involves hats and rabbits and money found behind people's ears. His array of magic toys are rather like the household implements brought to life in Beauty and the Beast; they have less of a role to play in his relationship with the outside world. Unlike the animals, they don't talk.
Lawrence has a nephew, Daniel (Grant George), a real estate agent who would like to sell his uncle's house and get him into a retirement home. Daniel is deeply allergic to cats, which means that he can scarcely remain in the same room as one – it gives the ginger cat leverage in the Darwinian struggle that begins to unfold.
Danny brings prospective buyers to Lawrence's house and the toys and animals join forces – in a slightly messy, competitive way – to try to drive them away.
The House Of Magic is bright and buzzy and a little repetitive. Its musical choices (the Cure's Love Cats, Madness's House Of Fun) are a little laboured, and some of its characterisations are pretty stereotyped. There are, however, some exuberantly chaotic set pieces of chaos, as the cat and his allies set about driving Daniel and his clients away from the house. The inspiration, in the booby-trapping and undermining of prospective purchasers-cum-invaders, could come from Home Alone, perhaps, or Mousehunt (that wonderful, antic comedy about a mouse who sabotages two brothers' attempts to sell the house where he has set up residence). The figure of Daniel even looks a lot like Nathan Lane, who plays one of the brothers.
The film is based, apparently, on a haunted house thrill ride, and, although a story has been created around this, its antecedents are apparent. The film screens in both 2D and 3D – its roller coaster, cat's-eye-view, thrills'n'spills sequences are clearly designed for 3D, but work well enough without it.
