I can very much appreciate the good will behind the idea of a DTV follow-up to a highly underrated series, especially one that has been criminally aborted. But good will alone does not make a good film, and in those regards, Dead Like Me : Life After Death is almost complete failure.… More
I can very much appreciate the good will behind the idea of a DTV follow-up to a highly underrated series, especially one that has been criminally aborted. But good will alone does not make a good film, and in those regards, Dead Like Me : Life After Death is almost complete failure.
It's a real shame. Really. Without a doubt, the Dead Like Me series had proven itself as a deliciously sardonic take on life and death, and established a fun, elaborate set of rules concerning its gimmicky fantasies in just two seasons. Not known for its subtlety and certainly not for its family-friendly content, the program nevertheless excelled in drawing laughs (and even morals) from gleefully macabre situations and peppery character exchanges. And by chosing to present some closure to the show's most passionate fans, a nifty little feature-length conclusion was not by any means a bad idea. But was the target that hard to hit? Or rather, were the potential screw-ups that tough to avoid?
Not that I have any sympathy for the minds behind this flat, stodgy reheat of the original show's flashiest elements. Even if one excuses the absence of two-fifths of the brilliant lead cast members, the results are profoundly embarassing. First and foremost without a clue how to blend tones, director Stephen Herek makes a very poor use of the slightly higher production values, lensing his feature in-between television and, well, bad television. Most closeups are used in all the wrong places, calling unneeded attention to shallow conversations; the dialogue, limp and obvious, is strictly shot reverse-shot; the tacky scene transitions and sped-up footage taken from the series are cheap and redundant here; the phony CGI blends rather badly with the bigger sets, yada, yada yada. It's really terribly directed, using all of the beloved TV show's ticks to spice up its lazy mechanics, and if it weren't for a few brief imaginative touches (the opening graphic novel, one Rube Goldberg death, a narratively interesting conclusion, etc.), it would be nothing short of just horrid.
But I could have easily forgiven the clumsy directing if it wasn't backed by equally clumsy writing, though to be honest, the screenplay is not clumsy as much as it is uninspired. It's like they didn't even try. Before even getting into the butchering of genuinely likeable characters, I will lean on the *gasp* extremely flaccid plotting. It's a bad sign when one cannot even remember what the film's main conflict was about-- and Dead Like Me : Life After Death sure as hell makes sure nothing too important is going on. Going through tremendously unexciting motions, it uses patterns that not only repeat some of the show's episodes but also crushes the rules that were previously established. Add to that chunks of contrived melodrama and plenty of situational incoherences, and you've got yourself a screenplay that deserves to be reworked from scratch, or worse, a plot that could be an okay 22-minute episode from the second season.
What really kills this project to death, though, is how they handle most of the characters this time. Callum Blue's Mason, once a joyfully clueless but ocassionally witty druggie, does nothing to come across as sympathetic here, barely even existing inside the film's narrative. Jasmine Guy's badass Roxy tends to hit the same notes of hilarity, but she goes through such an ass-stupid plot point her persona barely recovers from it. To our despair, Cynthia Stevenson as Joy (the series' big emotional arc) is surprisingly absent from the film, leaving much more place to Britt McKillip's Reggie, who's grown to be a peculiarly decent actress inhabiting probably the only character 'change' to prove itself successful. The two lowest points are unquestionably Henry Ian Cusick as Cameron Kane, an awful, almost non-existant villain, and Sarah Wynter as the new Daisy, possessing zero charisma while stuck with quite possibly the most appalling dumbing-down ever of a character through transition. Mandy Patinkin and Laura Harris, your presences are sorely missed. Ellen Muth, though, is just as good as she was before, and let me tell you it's a relief to find out her dry humour and whatthefuck-stance is left intact among all the crappiness on display.
By the time the final scene rolls and Metisse's ''Boom Boom Ba'' plays, it's like the film doesn't even deserve to use it. Untrue to Dead Like Me in spirit and manoeuvered with striking incompetence, it breaks my heart to say so, but this drivel totally misses the mark on nearly every level. I think we can safely say the series is, ahem, dead by now.
Now let's mourn, and move on.