Rating: 5/10

On the one hand, I had to see this movie to check out Jon Heder’s Napoleon Dynamite follow-up. |’m also a huge fan of Mark Ruffalo’s work in You Can Count on Me. Just Like Heaven’s premise, however, a leap of faith romantic comedy, and a Reese Witherspoon lead were major drawbacks.

Witherspoon plays overworked, no life doctor Elizabeth Masterson. Things are looking up though, as she’s just been given a promotion and becayse her sister has set her up on a promising blind date. But then, well, she gets hit by a truck and ends up in a coma. Bummer.

Enter Ruffalo’s David, a gloomy young guy who seems to have a lot of money but still likes to drink beer out of a can. When he’s not moping about, he ends up being confronted by a ghost version of Elizabeth. It turns out, he ended up in Elizabeth’s apartment. She hasn’t quite realized that in reality she’s bed-ridden in comaland, and she’s peeved by this mega bachelor in her her apartment.

David and Elizabeth hit it off in an oddball way and the movie develops into a romance of sorts, which probably looked mighty fine on paper. It does wear thin through the course of the film and towards the end the cheese factor becomes quite large. I could almost see Ruffalo cringing in certain scenes.

Ruffalo and Witherspoon are an odd pairing, sort of like the high school cheerleader and the drama club wallflower. To their credit, they manage to remain watchable and more or less pull it off. Hader play the comic sidekick in a small role. Napoleon Dynamite fans won’t find much to enjoy here, but Hader is nevertheless pretty good.

Fans of romantic dramedies won’t be disappointed with Just Like Heaven and it even has some appeal to guys. All in all, Just Like Heaven is just like David’s cheap beer — it goes down easy and is quickly forgotten.

Buy Just Like Heaven (Widescreen Edition) from Amazon.

Filed under: 2005 by A.B.