Just Like Heaven

If you haven't seen "Just Like Heaven", beware that spoilers follow...

I'm finally starting to understand Randy's "Good Movie" Criteria, which I now paraphrase as, "A movie should only be as good as it's trying to be." It's still nonsense, but I'm starting to see a glimmer of truth in it. My personal version of Randy's Criteria is, "As long as I set my expectations to the right level, I can enjoy almost any movie."

Thus, when I sat down to watch "Just Like Heaven", I was prepared for a cute generic romance. I was not disappointed. It was precisely a cute generic romance; no more and no less. But there were a few points which worked in its favor. It didn't overuse its jokes. It didn't spend too much time setting up the fact that our main character is a ghost. And aside from one very ill-placed scene, it didn't rely on slap-stick humor. I liked it only because it didn't fall into too many of the common romance pitfalls. Like the movie "Men of Honor," it was a very average movie. I know I spent 90 minutes watching... something. But after a year, I probably won't even remember that I saw it.

The only scene that impacted me at all was the ending. And, unfortunately, it wasn't a good thing. All romance movies require at least one "let-down" moment: the couple breaks-up, or there's a huge misunderstanding, or one of them is presumed dead, etc. In this case, they just decided to play the old "amnesia" trick: one character completely forgets the entire relationship until some event triggers her memory. Then our couple happily embraces, and the credits roll. It was just an excuse to tack a few extra minutes onto the running time. I don't think they could have come up with a weaker ending if they tried.

All-in-all it was a cute, but very forgettable movie.