OVER HER DEAD BODY (a review)

OVER HER DEAD BODY (a review)

Eva Longoria, Paul Rudd, Jason Biggs and Lake Bell. Written and directed by Jeff Lowell

The story? A rom-com about a psychic who falls in love with a man whose fiance has died except now the ghost-ex-fiance haunts the psychic to get her to break up with the guy.

Was it good?

So first a confession -- I had a concept almost identical to this. I first thought of the idea as a thought experiment -- what would be the craziest combination of movies I could ever imagine? Something so outrageous no one else would ever think of it? I came up with..."What if you remade SIXTH SENSE as a romantic comedy?" I loved it. It was so out there no one else would think of it. So I had an idea about a guy who falls in love with a girl but it haunted by all her ex-boyfriends. And then I heard about this movie. F*%&%&!!!!!!

Okay, so I have some issues here, but was the movie good anyway?

Not really. But it wasn't entirely horrirble. And I was ready for it to be horrible, and yes, the first ten minutes do suck, but it does pick up after that. What makes it work is Paul Rudd. For once he isn't just an obnoxious smart ass. Here he's a hurt obnoxious smart ass and it makes him much more likable then I've seen before. The fact that there is so much going on that he is completely unaware -- his ex-as a ghost, the girl he likes lying to him, etc -- makes his smart ass routine seem okay. Maybe it turns out he just needs a dose of being clueless to be likable? The other nice thing is that the main story is about these two women...and how often are two women the focus of a movie? Unfortunately, there isn't much to the actual story and everything plays out the way you would expect -- ghost haunts psychic, taunting and teasing and making her miserable until she's ready to give up, the guy discovers the lie and is hurt and dumps her, the ghost realizes she wants the guy to be happy...yada yada yada.

So no surprises. No depth. Nothing unexpected, which is nice because you can probably tell right away if you want to see it or not. If you want too then you will find it at least okay. If not, you probably won't like it. For me, it was kind of okay and kind of blah...

*** NOT RECOMMENDED (but it wasn't horrible) ****