Over Her Dead Body (2007/New Line DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: D Feature: C-
Romantic
comedies tend to be an oxymoron and when they are high concept works, you
usually get some of the worst filmmaking around, on the level of the worst TV
sitcoms. Writer/director Jeff Lowell’s Over Her Dead Body (2007) is so bad, it
is the kind of film that drove Warner Bros. to fold New Line and reminds us of
how badly the final years of the mini-studio were squandered on so much junk.
Eva
Longoria Parker, already a star from the semi-comic Desperate Housewives, is cast as a woman about to get married until
a human-sized ice sculpture of a woman falls on her and kills her… or does
it? Instead, she goes to a version of
heaven that looks like it is out of a margarine commercial and (in the worst
possible style) goes back to earth (albeit as a ghost) to interfere with her
fiancée (Paul Rudd) and his new romance with a psychic (Lake Bell) in a plot
that comes across like Ghost for
morons. Yes, Ghost, the far-from-classic sleeper hit.
Jason
Biggs also shows up in a condescending way to remind us that this is a comedy
and it is supposed to be funny, but it just goes on and on and on for 95
minutes. What were they thinking? I guess Longoria-Parker decided to pick up a
paycheck on her series break, but it is her fans who are cashed out this
bankrupt attempt at a funny romp. And
how many times can she do the same phony “surprised” look?
As a
total film, this is one dog that will never go to heaven.
The anamorphically
enhanced 2.35 X 1 image is poor, with odd color, a likely bad HD shoot and the
1.33 X 1 version is even worse, proving how TV-intended this mess is. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is barely better
than the 2.0 Stereo and neither sound as good as a typical Housewives episode.
Unsurprisingly, there are no extras.
- Nicholas Sheffo
