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Anyway, so far as the actual plot goes: Parker (“Desperate Housewives”) gets killed on her wedding day and, in the afterlife, opts to torment psychic Lake Bell (“Boston Legal”) once she tries to hook up with former fiancée Paul Rudd (Knocked Up).

After she gets knocked off, there is a fortunate stretch sans Parker, in which the ever-snarky Rudd tries to make something out of nothing, both in terms of jokes and chemistry between him and the blandly genial Bell, but he then takes an inevitable and unfortunate backseat to the flat mischief of our shrewish spirit as she attempts to force the lovers – and laughs – apart. In the ghost bitch’s arsenal, besides fabricating fire alarms and fart noises: pouting and nagging, of which there is no shortage.

Ghost Bitch was allegedly the film’s original title, and it would have been fitting of the limited humor and appeal of Jeff Lowell’s directorial debut (heck, it might’ve been blunt enough to catch on as a female-skewing equivalent to Snakes on a Plane). It’s just like Just Like Heaven, by way of half a dozen other relationship-scheming rom-coms, and for the likely undiscerning target audience, it delivers up enough obvious chortles and developments to hold them over until that Step Up sequel is unleashed upon the masses, but Lowell (who wrote John Tucker Must Die – swap names and you’ve got another title for this gem) relies on slapstick gags, mostly involving either Bell or requisite gay pal Jason Biggs, and a variety of other sitcom-level scenarios.

However, I’m not above facing facts: if the trailer left you thinking that this looks legitimately cute and/or funny, then it won’t disappoint ye lowered standards. Guys, you’ll live; there are worse films to be dragged to in the new-year doldrums known as Hollywood’s dumping ground, although films like this are the reason that films like 27 Dresses aren’t all that bad.

But to be honest, like no other recent film, Body has most struck me as a film that deserves to be watched in the comforts of home, whilst folding laundry or otherwise distracting one’s self from the sheer feebleness of the proceedings. It’s the type of movie where our protagonist harps on about angels supposedly having wings, while her ghost proceeding to cast an ever-present shadow in her post-mortem scenes remains a non-issue. It even has the gall to end with yet another of those effin’ climactic rushes to the airport in the name of true lurve.

In the end, 'Over Her Dead Body' just really is that trivial, and if you don’t like that, you can just drop, well…

link directly to this review at https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=16856&reviewer=409
originally posted: 02/02/08 04:21:54
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