OVER HER DEAD BODY: DVD

SYNOPSIS:
When Kate (Eva Longoria Parker) is killed by an ice sculpture on her wedding day, her fiancé Henry (Paul Rudd) gives up on romance. His sister Chloe (Lindsay Sloane) is keen for him to move on and persuades him to visit a caterer called Ashley (Lake Bell), who works part time as a psychic. Ashley falls in love with Henry, but their romance takes a turn for the worse when Kate's ghost appears and tries to put a stop to their relationship.

Review by Louise Keller:
This fantasy romance is totally misconceived from the very first frame and gets worse as it goes along. The script is tacky and Lake Bell's part-time psychic Ashley is badly directed by writer director Jeff Lowell. Desperate Housewives' Eva Longoria Parker plays Kate and looks fabulous throughout, albeit artificial, wearing different styles of white fitted dresses and outfits. Paul Rudd as her grieving former fiancé Henry is likeable enough, but clearly struggles to make the material credible; his screen sister Chloe (Lindsay Sloane) is fine as the well-meaning matchmaker. The dialogue is problematic, the plot nonsensical and the execution sloppy in this predictable, derivative and disappointing comedy.

In the opening sequence we meet Kate on her wedding day, orchestrating the delivery of an ice sculpture shaped like an angel. That's where it all begins (the angel has no wings) and pretty soon, Kate is in the white room, where a real angel (also without wings) tells her 'hello - you were crushed to death.' Unfortunately, the relationship between Kate and Henry is never established, so we couldn't care less about the fact that they never made it down the aisle together. The side plot involving Ashley's allegedly gay, catering assistant played by Jason Biggs, never works and the fart sequence in which the invisible Kate makes trombone-like noises when Ashley and Henry are about to consummate their first weekend end together is the film's low point.

There are many scenes that make me cringe. Like the one when Ashley starts talking like a robot when trying to contact Kate beyond the grave. There's another when she runs around the gym with bare breasts, screeching maniacally. The attempted exorcism is pretty ridiculous too. The only time I laughed was in the final 20 minutes, when Kate sees the error of her ways and projects her voice into Henry's pet parrot, causing some funny situations. Otherwise, there is no salvation for this dead-boring misfire.

Published February 5, 2009