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Rated: PG-13
Starring: Paul Rudd, Eva Longoria Parker, Lake Bell, Jason Biggs, Lindsay Sloane
Directed by: Jeff Lowell
Even Eva Longoria Parker can"t save this small film that just doesn"t have the spunk to keep it from taking a nosedive. Not heaven sent, Over Her Dead Body"s goofy plotline, along with the feeble special effects, just didn"t work for me. That said, the audience that may like it most would be the ladies between the ages of 13 and 15.
On her fateful wedding day, Kate (Longoria Parker) gets
killed in a freak accident by an ice-carved angel. After a heated confrontation with the
admitting angel at the ‘pearly gates', Kate’s fate takes a turn for the
worse. Meantime, her lost husband-to-be,
Henry (Rudd), has taken a downward spiral over her death.
Nagged by his sister
Chloe (Sloane), Henry goes to see Ashley (Bell),
a fledgling psychic, for a chance to communicate with his dead fiancée. When he becomes more involved with Ashley
than on a professional basis, however, the broken-hearted Kate comes back from
her grave to meddle in their affairs.
Jason Biggs
plays (Dan) a cook in Ashley’s catering side business, and thanks to his
performance, the film was bearable. His
love for Kate is unrealized by her as she thinks he is gay. Their interaction at times is totally off-the-wall, especially during a very funny kitchen scene.
Unfortunately for Jason, he’s becoming a
stereotype, and he needs to concentrate on some dramatic roles to get noticed
for the potentially A-list actor he could be. His American Pie trilogy was
brilliant, but since then he has accepted roles that have not been so becoming,
choosing bit parts in 8 Below, the flop Jersey Girl and some
other unproductive, failed films.
Eva did
have some good moments in the film, and for that I have to give her a tip of
the hat. Her scene at the ‘Gates of
Heaven’ is down right hilarious. But beyond that, the special effects that
supposedly make her a comical ghost, just don’t work. At one point Ashley opens the medicine
cabinet to see Kate staring back at her.
Instead of an apparition, it looks like they cut a hole in the wall and
had Eva just stand there. Her levitation
is very corny, much like the TV sitcom I Dream of Genie. It’s too formulaic and an obvious wire
lift.
I don’t think Eva is to blame here
for her off-kilter performance, but you do not have to look too far as to where
the fault lies. First-time director,
Lowell, and the budget ramrod should take all the heat for this ho-hum
film. If more of the budget were spent
on special effects and a better blue screen, the main ghost theme would have
worked a lot better.
Lowell seems to let his
actors turn some scenes into ad-lib fests, causing them to loose control of
their characters.
FINAL ANALYSIS: Over Her Dead Body is a funny-at-times
little film that should appeal to a younger female audience or I
Dream Of Genie fans.
This Reviewer's Rating:   2 / 5
its a well good film love it xx |
