Under Wraps

Marshall loves horror movies. His best friend Gilbert does not. It's Halloween coming up. Marshall challenges Gilbert to ding dong ditch and it goes badly. There is something strange going on in that house. Amy is the new girl at school. Her two dads had split up and she can't wait to get out of town. She's an aspiring writer and recruits the two best friends in an investigation into the house with a suspected mummy.

This is a preteen children's horror comedy and a remake of a 1997 Disney movie. I've never seen the original. The kids are a newbie, a Disney veteran, and a voice over actor. The production is similarly a mixed bag. It's a kiddie movie with a kiddie mummy. There's limited CGI and nothing that flashy. Some of it is basically home-made. I like it, sort of. I like the amateurism of the kids. I like the silliness and campiness of the mummy although there could be less of him in one scene. I like the general sense of the group. The bad guys could be scarier. I'm guessing that they dial down the horror aspect for the little kids. Non of this is anything scary. It's fine for younger ones.

My GF told me "under wraps is coming to Disney plus!" Actually surprised, I reinstated my membership just to watch this throwback. Sure as s*** it's some new teeny-bopper version of it. In dismay, I watched this new version, and to no surprise I wasn't thrilled. The original movie was in part spooky, part funny, and mystery. This movie I feel tries too hard to make the mummy modern? Or humanized even though he is a human? The actors in this are also god awe full, and the mummy looks like some human/dog hybrid in a lab. Definitely did not do the original justice, and if this is what we can expect for Haunted Mansion, they can keep all of it lol.

I didn't really watch the original Under Wraps when it came out in the 90s, but having watched both the 1997 version and the 2021 version in the last couple weeks, I think the original is better. This remake doesn't really bring anything new to the table, and I don't think the child actors are as good. In fact, one of them seemed to be doing a quasi-Steve Urkel impersonation which was more irritating than entertaining. Little kids would probably like this, since it's a non-scary Halloween movie, but if my family and I are going to watch a silly mummy movie, we'll watch the original Under Wraps.

We all know Disney is more corny than anything but it seems in the last decade, the shows have produced mediocre acting, directing and writing. Under wraps, the original, was a classic of the older Disney made movies for tv that had a better story line. This new version, while still Disney, is a very sad attempt to recreate the original. The costumes for the mummies themselves are laughable and not even close to being slightly realistic; i.e. Makeup still on the mummy's eye lids (uh yeah that would have been gone a long time ago), the fact that the mummy was directly exposed to direct air and humans with no protective barrier...etc.... Disney write's and costume designers got very sloppy and lazy and honestly should be ashamed of this movie. The dialogue is juvenile and lacking and shows Disney's lack of understanding true kids of today.

You can't really expect anything amazing about this movie but kids will love it and who doesn't love Halloween? (well, you know what i mean)