‘OVER Her Dead Body,” billed as a romantic com edy fantasy, is in reality a mystery: The Case of the Missing Jokes.
Eva Longoria Parker, as she is now known, plays a woman wackily killed by an ice sculpture on her wedding day. She comes back to Earth as a ghost so she can harass a psychic who’s now trying to put the moves on her guy. At some point, this movie must have been a screenplay. But it’s an enigma why anyone would bet tens of millions of dollars that people would laugh at lines such as:
“I like my apartment. No one hassles me if I don’t smile there.”
“Look, bro, when I see four girls in matching bowling shirts, that’s how I roll.”
“We saw you drop the tray of meatballs last night and still serve them.”
“When you’re casting out spirits, the Church doesn’t really like you to wing it.”
Every so often, somebody squirts mustard on herself or sticks his arm in a flame – and those are the highlights of this “Blithe Spirit” rip-off. Such shtick at least marks attempts at humor, unlike the strangely aimless dialogue.
The story is equally lethargic. Paul Rudd plays Henry, the guy struggling to get over the loss of his bride-to-be, but the movie doesn’t put his character and Longoria Parker’s Kate in any scenes together before she dies, so we don’t see any bond between them. It seems bizarre that his low-key veterinarian would have had anything in common with such a control freak.
Henry’s sister takes him to see a wacky psychic/caterer named Ashley to help him get over his loss. But when he and the psychic start to flirt, Kate’s jealous ghost starts warning Ashley – who is the only one who can see and hear her – to stay away from her man. Kate plays pranks (talking all night to keep Ashley awake, making fart noises, etc.) and shows up in odd places like the medicine chest, just like Endora on “Bewitched.”
Since no one else (except animals) can sense Kate’s presence, there are lots of arthritic scenes – it’s been decades since this gag became a cliché – in which people around Ashley watch her apparently having an argument with thin air.
Rudd does well not to overplay the situation, and Longoria Parker is to the bitch what John Wayne was to the cowboy. The lead, though, is Lake Bell as the psychic. She’s the only one who is in virtually every scene, and she isn’t charismatic enough to hold the big screen. Being likable and inoffensive makes you the best friend. To be the star, you have to be adorable.
Following scene after scene after scene built around the same static situation – the ghost keeps annoying the psychic, who can’t do anything about it – the movie throws in a dumb little subplot, then resolves itself without any action taken by the couple. The whole story turns on a minor speech given by a minor character. I think I picked up psychic powers, though: I see dead box office.
OVER HER DEAD BODY
Comedy corpse.
Running time: 95 minutes. Rated PG-13 (sexual content, profanity) At the E-Walk, the Lincoln Square, the Kips Bay, others