49
Metascore
22 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 75Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertLike The Flintstones and The Addams Family, Casper is an attempt to bring cartoons to life while incorporating them with real actors and sets. As a technical achievement, it's impressive, and entertaining.
- 75San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleSan Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleA better- than-average children's film, dolled up with some high-priced art direction and extraordinary special effects.
- 60The New York TimesCaryn JamesThe New York TimesCaryn JamesCasper is not the kind of smartly written movie that works on children's and adult levels at once. But with its lively pace, smashing visual tricks and one of the cutest heroes on screen, it is an engaging fantasy for very small children.
- 60TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineLet's face it, it's about a dead boy who falls in love with a real live girl. The high-tech animation is completely persuasive; nothing else is.
- 60Time Out LondonTime Out LondonAn intimate and likeable picture. As a part-animated live-action movie, it harks back to less frenetic kids' fare from the '60s like Bedknobs and Broomsticks, rather than, say, the 'toon-laden Roger Rabbit.
- 50Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanEntertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanWhat’s depressing about the current Hollywood mania to literalize old cartoon series isn’t that a show like Casper is such bad source material. It’s that the movie version is like the cartoon without innocence — a fairy tale with the soul of a rerun.
- 50VarietyBrian LowryVarietyBrian LowryAnother demonstration of the hazards involved turning a six-minute animated short into a big budget movie, Casper will doubtless spur nostalgic recognition among grown-ups but skews so heavily toward children that it offers little to divert anyone over the age of 8.
- 50San Francisco ExaminerBarbara ShulgasserSan Francisco ExaminerBarbara ShulgasserAlthough most of the stars of this movie are real, live actors, Casper is mostly just a big cartoon in which those live actors must interact with some devilishly clever spectral animation.
- 30Los Angeles TimesPeter RainerLos Angeles TimesPeter RainerDirector Brad Silberling and screenwriters Sherri Stoner and Deanna Oliver can't figure out how to play a lot of this material. They pour on the sentiment and then they pour on the dopiness. The ghosts in this movie aren't the only ones who lack resolution. So do the filmmakers.