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"Over Her Dead Body" (PG-13, 1 hr., 50 min.)
This ghost story/romantic comedy must have real supernatural powers, because it survives despite a patently sitcomish orientation and a brittle, one-note turn by "Desperate Housewife" Eva Longoria Parker. Luckily for audiences, the main co-stars, Paul Rudd and Lake Bell, with Jason Biggs in a supporting role that's both slapstick and touching, have more screen time and are fine comic actors. They (and the script) toss off droll throwaway lines and silly moments that hark back to Woody Allen's early movies and keep the film afloat. "Over Her Dead Body" will charm teens who like character comedy and screen romance.
Bossy bride-to-be Kate (Longoria Parker) is beaned by an ice sculpture on her wedding day and wakes up dead and unwed in limbo. A year later, her bereft fiance Henry (Rudd), a veterinarian, can't move on. His sister (Lindsay Sloane) drags him to Ashley (Bell), a "psychic-slash-caterer" with a disaster-prone cooking assistant (Biggs), in hopes she can contact Kate and have her give Henry the OK to love again. Smitten with Henry herself, Ashley violates her own ethics by agreeing to use Kate's diary to fake a response in case Kate's spirit doesn't answer. When Ashley and Henry start to fall in love, Kate's restless spirit reappears, jealous and interfering.
"Over Her Dead Body" is a very mild PG-13, with low-level profanity and muted sexual innuendo, sexual slang and gay jokes. A clothed bedroom scene never becomes explicit and is played for farce. There is a moment of implied toplessness at a health club. The movie deals with depression, loss and the morality of deceiving someone, even if it's for their own good. Some animal lovers may not be amused by a scene in a vet's office when techs try to lift an overweight dog and repeatedly drop it -- though the thuds are mostly off-camera. There is also a big flatulent gag.
P.S. FOR TEENS: If you like the ghost story/romantic comedy combination, check out a couple of classics with a British accent: "Blithe Spirit" (1945) by the great playwright Noel Coward, in which a dead wife haunts her husband and his second wife, and "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" (1947), about a widow haunted by the sea captain who once owned her house.
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BEYOND THE RATINGS GAME
-- OK FOR KIDS 10 AND OLDER:
"National Treasure: Book of Secrets" PG -- This sequel (to "National Treasure" PG, 2004) is an overlong scavenger hunt that waters down history, but good actors in neat locations lend credibility to the fastpaced silliness. Kids 10 and older should be entertained. The heroes nose around Buckingham Palace, the Library of Congress, Mount Rushmore and the Oval Office as treasure hunter Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) and his dad (Jon Voight) try to disprove their ancestor was involved in the plot to assassinate Lincoln. The film re-enacts the assassination understatedly and includes another gun death, car and gun mayhem, foot chases, floods, sexual innuendo and toilet humor.
-- PG-13s OF VARYING INTENSITY:
"Over Her Dead Body" (NEW) -- This ghost story/romantic comedy stays afloat despite a one-note star turn by Eva Longoria Parker and a sometimes sitcomish premise, thanks to the skills of Paul Rudd and Lake Bell, with Jason Biggs in a supporting role. They toss off the script's best bits of throwaway drollery in early-Woody Allen style. Longoria Parker plays Kate, a bossy bride-to-be who gets beaned by an ice sculpture on her wedding day and lands unwed and dead in limbo. A year later, her veterinarian fiance Henry (Rudd) still grieves. His sister (Lindsay Sloane) drags him to Ashley (Bell), a "psychic-slash-caterer," who falls for him and goes against her ethics to convince him his late love wants him to move on. Kate's jealous spirit starts tormenting Ashley. The film has low-level profanity, muted sexual innuendo, sexual slang and gay jokes, a clothed comic bedroom scene, and a moment of implied toplessness. Dog lovers may not be amused by a scene in which vet techs try to lift an overweight dog and drop it, though the thuds and yelps are mostly off-camera. For teens who like stories with character-driven comedy and romance.
"Meet the Spartans" (NEW) -- If ever a film embodied a waste of time and money, it is "Meet the Spartans," a heavy-handed and rarely funny spoof of "300" (R), the 2007 blockbuster (based on a graphic novel), an idealized rendering of the 480 B.C. Battle of Thermopylae between the outnumbered Spartans and the armies of Persia. This raunchy farce, loaded with gay innuendo and all kinds of other sexual and gross-out humor, also spoofs other action films and teen dance dramas such as "Stomp the Yard" (PG-13, 2007). Sean Maguire plays Sparta's King Leonidas and Carmen Electra his randy Queen Margo. There is endless crude language and profanity.
"How She Move" -- Exuberant dancing, talented young actors, arresting camera work and infectious music lift this urban teen dance flick above its cliches. Set among children of West Indian immigrants in a Toronto housing project, "How She Move" is the story of Raya (Rutina Wesley), a gifted girl who leaves private school after her sister dies of an overdose and her parents can't pay her tuition. In public school she's drawn into competitive step dancing. Some teen characters smoke and drink at a party. In another scene a few appear to smoke marijuana or even crack, but it's hard to tell. Dance routines contain rare miming of violence or sexual moves in stylized form. There are mild scuffles, lots of midrange and some stronger profanity. OK for most teens.
"Persepolis" (LIMITED RELEASE) -- "Persepolis" is an extraordinary, poignant animated film about a girl's life under a dictatorship. Hand-drawn in moody black-and-white, it is based on Marjane Satrapi's graphic novels about her childhood growing up in Iran as part of a left-wing family targeted first by the Shah, then by the radical Islamists who take over. As an outspoken teen, she is sent off to Europe to escape the religious police. The film depicts police hurting demonstrators, a man facing a firing squad, and the aftermath of a bombing raid. Blood and death are subtly drawn. The dialogue includes a threat of rape and murder, references to torture and executions, and midrange profanity. The older Marjane smokes, drinks, tries pot, has sexual liaisons (not graphic) and suffers depression. For thoughtful high-schoolers. In French with subtitles.
"Cassandra's Dream" (LIMITED RELEASE) -- Writer/director Woody Allen's engrossing little drama has fine portrayals by Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell as London brothers prone to living and romancing beyond their means. A rich uncle (Tom Wilkinson) offers to help out if they do him an ugly little favor. Then we watch smooth Ian (McGregor) and weak Terry (Farrell) disintegrate -- the latter in a fine rendering of a man with a guilty conscience. The film has brief, nongraphic violence, a suicide theme, drinking, smoking, bedroom scenes with kissing, and mild profanity.
"27 Dresses" -- Co-stars Katherine Heigl and James Marsden bring fizz and charm to this romantic comedy, despite its sometimes cringe-inducing retro view of modern womanhood. Heigl plays Jane, a perennial bridesmaid of large heart and low self-esteem. Marsden plays a cynical wedding columnist fascinated by her story. Then her vixenish younger sister (Malin Akerman) snares Jane's boss (Edward Burns), whom Jane not-so-secretly loves. The film includes rude sexual innuendo and slang, an implied sexual situation, occasional strong profanity, drinking, and toilet humor. It is less appropriate for middle-schoolers, but at least it shows the foolishness of using deception to win someone's heart.
"Cloverfield" -- This vertiginous fever-dream of a horror flick may be too much for middle-schoolers or anyone prone to motion sickness. For other cinema buffs it offers a neat roller-coaster ride, imagining the decimation of Manhattan by a monster seen only through the viewfinder of a shakily held video recorder. There are rare computer-generated visuals of the giant creature, but the dread comes mostly via sounds and images of destruction, as well as a strong cast of young unknowns. With a few briefly bloody exceptions, the movie displays little gore. It does deliberately echo the 9/11 terror attacks, with buildings falling and dust clouds. There is profanity, scatological humor, mild sexual innuendo and drinking.
"Mad Money" -- Teens may be surprised at how much they enjoy this quirky, well-written comedy. Diane Keaton plays an upper middle-class housewife whose husband (Ted Danson) loses his job. Reduced to working as a cleaner at a Federal Reserve Bank, she becomes obsessed by the piles of old greenbacks headed for the shredder. She enlists two fellow cleaners, a single mom (Queen Latifah) and a young wife (Katie Holmes), into a plot to smuggle cash out the door. The film's implicit message that crime pays is offset a bit by its acerbic take on consumerism and the three-way friendship that develops. It contains midrange profanity, semi-crude sexual innuendo, a naked derriere, drinking and toilet humor.
"The Bucket List" -- Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman lend their star power to this sentimental, slapdash movie, nudging its flaws into the background. A tale of two geezers is not a natural teen magnet, but some kids find their grandparents fascinating, so they might be tickled to see Nicholson and Freeman cracking wise as a billionaire (Nicholson) and an auto mechanic (Freeman), terminally ill hospital roommates who go off to do the things -- skydiving, drag racing -- they'd like to experience before they kick the bucket. The movie contains midrange profanity (mostly scatological), rude gestures, frisky nonexplicit sexual innuendo, drinking, smoking, toilet humor, and themes about divorce, infidelity and death.
-- AN R:
"Rambo" (NEW) -- Sylvester Stallone directed and stars in this excessively violent and formulaic, yet still pretty gripping follow-up to the "Rambo" films of the 1980s (all Rs). Stallone revisits his survivalist ex-Green Beret character and finds him working as a snake wrangler in the jungles of Thailand, still unsmiling and barely verbal. When a group of missionaries (Paul Schulze as their leader, Julie Benz as his wife) ask Rambo to take them upriver into Burma to help peasants brutalized by Burmese soldiers, he grudgingly obliges, then later must go back with a gang of mercenaries to rescue them in a bloody battle. The film depicts people, including children, blown apart by weapons fire and land mines, as well as stabbings, beheadings and implications about raping female hostages. The profanity is very strong. Not for under-17s.
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