Mean Spirited
by Flick Chick Vique Rojas
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Over Her Dead Body steals 2 Red Vines but only for effort. |
Her first real credit is listed as Flight Attendant #3 from a 2000 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210. But my first exposure to the Latina spitfire known as Eva Longoria (now Parker) came in 2001. She played a sweet on the outside, witchy on the inside sexy Latina on The Young and The Restless. Although her bio on IDMB only lists an episode, she played the part for a year. She was a great find but all these years later, Eva is still mining a character that has proven to be a gold mine. Don’t get me wrong, she’s great at it but I for one have grown weary of the spoiled beauty antics.
It should come as no surprise that for her first real full length motion picture, Ms. Parker has decided to continue with her small screen character. In Over Her Dead Body, a bridezilla is accidently killed on her wedding day. The irony with which she meets her demise is supposed to be funny. It isn’t. Her mourning husband is fixed up by his wacky, well meaning sister-not with another romantic partner but with a psychic. The sister plants information with the psychic, who against her better judgment, goes along with the scheme in hopes of bringing the depressed groom back to the land of the living. But lo and behold, in the midst of the shenanigans, the psychic and groom fall in love. To complicate things to the extreme, Parker has been sent back to earth to complete a mission before her spirit can move on. On her return she discovers the psychic’s true intentions and comes up with her own mission: to keep her almost husband single and make the psychic miserable until she succeeds.
While the premise is fresh, original and fun, (especially if you have never heard of or seen Blythe Spirit) the same cannot be said of the dialogue and execution. Many of the jokes fall as flat as the pratfalls. The cast does a good job of rising above the predictability so much so that audience members who go purely on the star power of Eva Longoria Parker won’t bemoan the fact that her screen time is surprisingly limited.
The always entertaining Paul Rudd is a standout, milking laughs from the most non-descript scenes. Lake Bell as the psychic does an admirable job as well. She looked so familiar to me but I just could not place the face so I looked her up. She starred in last year’s sci-fi series Surface along with a host of other TV credits. Jason Biggs also does a nice job with all his physical comedy and Stephen Root (NewsRadio) is always a wonderful addition to any cast.
While many movies start out strong and go downhill, this movie continued to get better and much funnier. Still, you can see the jokes coming from a mile away. It’s obvious the director felt the same way as slap stick scenes often fight with dialogue going on that has nothing to do with the slapstick. It’s like two different scenes happening simultaneously but instead of a double bang for your buck it’s like twice the failure.
I’m sure fans will flock to the theatres to see one of their favorites on the big screen. Eva Longoria Parker has come along way from Flight Attendant #3. But if Over Her Dead Body had been her first credit, her career would have crash landed long ago.
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