When Kate is killed by an angel ice sculpture on her wedding day her fiancé Henry is forced to go on living without her. That is, until he meets Ashley, a psychic that he agrees to see regarding his recently deceased wife-to-be. Despite his strong feelings against psychics Henry can't help but fall in love with Ashley, and luckily for him she has the same feelings. But there seems to be one major problem, Ashley is being haunted by Kate's ghost, who considers it her heavenly duty to make sure that Henry and Ashley don't pursue anything romantic. The only problem it seems, is that Ashley couldn't care less.
Though it has a typical ending and suffers from a lack of acting talent, I have to admit that Over Her Dead Body was somewhat enjoyable and entertaining.
The first bone that I have to pick with this film is its acting. Though Eva Longoria Parker has found immense success on the small screen in the form of Desperate Housewives she does not deserve to open a film by herself. Her lines come across as forced and choppy and her character seems all too familiar as she brings more Gabriella to the screen than Kate. Mix in some bad chemistry and some underplayed costars in Paul Rudd and Lake Bell and the film seemed destined for the bottomless pit of shame.
Enter Jason Biggs. Playing the gay-best friend of Ashley, Biggs steals the show. His delivery is right on and his facial expressions are absolutely priceless proving that one solid actor, turning in a stellar comedic performance, can truly save an entire film.
With that said I want to continue on to the writing which was surprisingly good. The jokes were funny, the lines clever and the events real "“ okay maybe that last one was kind of stretching it. Either way I have to commend Mr. Jeff Lowell for taking a seemingly boring story and creating an inventive comedic spin, even if the ending was a bit too generic for my liking.
In the end the film was good, not great, but much better than I expected. And if there are two things that this film has taught Hollywood: Eva Longoria Parker is not good enough to open a flick and Paul Rudd, Lake Bell and Jason Biggs deserve more roles and screen time than they are currently receiving in any of their films.
