Dead Again
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Movie Reviews of Dead Again
Movie Review: Dead Again... Zombie Hitchcock
Summary: 3 Stars
Dead Again: 5 out of 10: On-screen chemistry is a funny thing. Some couples simply have it. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan make a cute believable couple; William Powell and Myrna Loy in their fourteen films together are in my mind the silvers screens best pairing.
On the other hand, Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson have no onscreen chemistry whatsoever. One might say despite the fact they were married, yet I would argue that too often whatever chemistry causes an off-screen couple to hook-up simply does not translate to the movies. In fact in many cases it seems to create a negative chemistry onscreen. (Think Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.)
Since Dead Again is at its heart a love story, the lack of chemistry is deadly. Branagh and Thompson play two couples. The first, filmed in beautiful black and white, are an angry World War 2 refugee and opera composer and his murdered wife. He goes to the chair for her murder and we flash forward to Branagh as a missing persons detective and Thompson as a crazy mute lady with amnesia. They may be connected to the previous couple and both stories are told alternately throughout the film.
The film itself (in particular the black and white flashbacks) is gorgeous, yet Branagh as a director plays too many tricks for his own good. He cribs so liberally from Hitchcock that the film threatens to turn into High Anxiety 2 rather than an original work.
Without the chemistry between the leads we are left with little more than a hundred film school in-jokes and a strange sci-fi mystical story that we simply have no stake in.
Movie Review: good story but disappointing film
Summary: 3 Stars
this is the story of reincarnation,of sorts.kenneth brannagh,emma thompson,andy garcia and robin williams star.switches from black & white for the story from the past and color for the present.this film definitely has it's moments,especially the story with all of it's twists.it's a mystery thriller inspired by hitchcock.unfortunately the film falls short.the acting is flat and trys to have scenes of humor but that as well falls flat,as these bits are unnecessaary.but i'll admit that i didn't see these twists coming.as i said there are some good things about this film but it just felt like there was something missing.a one watch only,unfortunately,as i had hoped that it would be better.Movie Review: Neuvo Drama
Summary: 3 Stars
This movie stands out for a number of reasons. The method of intermixing black and white and color to show when in time we were was done nicely along with some beautiful camera work. The acting and story is excellent which leads one to wonder why the film didn't receive more recognition. Be sure to at least rent this movie. I think you will see that it is worth adding to anyones DVD collection.Movie Review: Just plain dead
Summary: 2 Stars
Put aside for a moment the melodramatic overacting, the heavy handed musical score, and the bad American accents, and just focus on the premise - 40 years ago a composer was put to death for the presumed murder of his wife. Now flash forward - a woman who matches exactly the murdered wife develops amnesia, goes to the home she was murdered in which is now an orphanage, and the priest takes pity on her and asks one of his former inmates/orphans to try to discover her identity and, lo and behold, it turns out the detective/orphan looks exactly like the composer. Wait, that's not all. Turns out they are the reincarnated essence of the ill fated couple. Wait, that's not all. Turns out the reincarnation machine switched souls, so that the man is now the woman and the woman is now the man.
If you're still there, then there are some guilty little pleasures in what is otherwise an absurd film. For example, Derek Jacobi snarling and stuttering and then leaping through the air with a murderous shout, or Wayne Knight trying his best not to upset his pizza while all around him mayhem wrecks havoc and people are being shot, stabbed, and impaled, or Andy Garcia taking a drag on a cigarette through his trej hole.
Kenneth Branagh stars and directs. This was his second film as a director, following a very successful "Henry V" in 1989. Though I've enjoyed his Shakespearean adaptations (e.g., "Henry V", "Much Ado About Nothing"), his other directorial efforts have not been totally satisfactory (e.g, "The Magic Flute", "Frankenstein"). Unfortunately his acting seems to parallel this pattern - he does extremely well in Shakespearean roles but not so well in more modern tales.
Branagh's onscreen wife is his (then) off screen wife Emma Thompson. They married in 1989 during Henry V and divorced in 1995. Thompson is usually great, hence her 4 Oscar nominations and one win ("Howard's End", 1992), but in this film she falls flat. Apparently flashing your big brown eyes and looking lost were her two major character developments, but in an actress of her caliber, this isn't enough.
Movie Review: Hokey
Summary: 2 Stars
Considering the high caliber of the British cast (Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Derek Jacobi), DEAD AGAIN is notable for being so corny.Mike Church (Branagh) is a Los Angeles private gumshoe whose specialty is tracing missing persons. As a favor, he agrees to discover the identity of Grace (Thompson), an amnesiac who climbed over a fence to take refuge in a Catholic orphanage and who suffers nightmares that keep everyone awake from her screaming. Put under hypnosis by mesmerist/antique dealer Franklyn Madison (Jacobi), Grace reveals memories of the relationship between composer Roman Strauss (Branagh again) and his wife Margaret Strauss (Thompson again). In the late 1940s, Roman was convicted of fatally stabbing Margaret in the neck with a scissors, a crime for which he was executed in 1949. Franklyn drags out an old issue of "Life" magazine, and, golly, isn't it amazing how much Mike and Grace physically resemble Roman and Margaret. Subsequently, Mike goes under hypnosis also and ... well, you get the idea. And every chance the director (Branagh yet again) gets, he points the camera at a big, pointy scissors lying on Mike's living room table waiting for some mischief to get into.
At times, I wondered whether DEAD AGAIN was being presented as a comedy, drama, or parody. The too loud music soundtrack favored either the first or last. But, I finally decided on drama because the actors seemed to be taking the plot sufficiently seriously. Then, they overplayed their parts just to show the audience that they were having a jolly good time. (There were shots of a terrified Grace that almost had me laughing for their absurdity.) The result - a mess. There are some decent plot twists at the end, which, if the script could have evolved with more subtlety, would have resulted in an infinitely better suspense film and not such a silly melodrama.
Branagh, Thompson and Jacobi - what were they thinking?