Haunted Mansion

➤Rated PG-13
➤ Theaters

A priest, a physicist, and a psychic walk into a haunted house. It sounds like the opening to a bad joke, but it’s actually the setup for Haunted Mansion, the latest Disney movie to be based on one of the company’s popular theme-park attractions.

Haunted Mansion is set in the uncanny environs of New Orleans. Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and her young son Travis (Chase Dillon) move to Gracey Manor outside the city, planning to turn it into a bed-and-breakfast. The house’s ghostly occupants have different plans.

Gabbie enlists the help of a group of so-called spiritual experts to help her rid the house of ghosts. Kent (Owen Wilson) is an affable yet ineffective priest. Harriet (Tiffany Haddish) is a sassy yet ineffective psychic. And Bruce (Danny DeVito) is an enthusiastic yet ineffective historian. The real hero turns out to be Ben (LaKeith Stanfield), an astrophysicist who designed special lenses with which to photograph spectral beings. The group discovers there’s something more sinister lurking in the house than the 999 ghosts. Someone, or something, is looking to add one more to the tally.

The ensemble cast is likable and amusing, but the movie seems like a missed opportunity. The ghosts don’t have any ­personality, which is a shame because they’re the stars of the theme-park ride. The living characters carry their own problems, and banding together brings out the best in each of them.

The language in Haunted Mansion is fairly clean but with a couple misuses of God’s name. And while the movie has plenty of humor, its mild horror elements will be too scary for some children, and it depicts seances conjuring the spirit realm.