Synopsis: In one small bottle…The fountain of youth. The secret of eternal life. The power of an ancient potion.
Sometimes it works…sometimes it dosen’t.
Helen and Madeline hate each other. Madeline is married to Ernest, who is having an affair with Helen. Both women rely on Ernest for plastic surgery for their continued good looks, so when Madeline finds a cure for ageing, Helen gets it too. It isn’t until both become immortal that they realise that ‘life’ will never be the same again.
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‘Death Becomes Her’ is one of those movies that, upon its original release, seemed kind of boring to me. For good or bad, the feeling never left me, and I never reconsidered my position that there were better ways to waste my time in front of the ol’ boob tube.
Half a decade ago, however, a colleague (whom I thought was a riot, slightly offbeat and charming to boot) raved on and on about it, telling me it was the funniest movie she had ever seen and that I had to give it a chance. So I started to shift my position, suddenly a tad intrigued due to her unmitigated enthusiasm.
And thus, almost twenty years after it graced the silver screen, I finally got around to it. The allure of a dark comedy, potentially in an Addams Family vein, was rather bewitching; there are very few of these types of movies (and even fewer that are well-done!), so I was really looking forward to testing these waters once and for all.
Well, all I can say at this point is that wishing upon a star doesn’t always mean dreams will come true. Eek!
I should have held firm in my original belief that this film would be deadly and unbecoming of its cast and crew. Quite seriously, despite his recent lows, I’ve never seen such a terrible Robert Zemeckis film before (having said this, I have yet to see his pre-Romancing the Stone films!); he always seemed to hit the ball right out of the park (even ‘Back to the Future III’ is quite good – even though it can never hold a candle to the original). And as for Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn and Bruce Willis… well, I’ve seen them do worse. But not by much.
The whole affair is just really dull and unfunny. I think that the script might have needed a polish or two before being shot, ‘cause the basic premise is quite alright, with some potential on the horizon. And the editing, at times, looks like it was done with a blunt instrument – quite unlike the surgical prowess of Willis’ protagonist, the earliest scenes were possibly cut together by amateur hands! Even the set design looked horrid and could have been given a more real-world look with… heck… different lighting… something… anything.
In the end, my feeling was that the whole movie was mostly a vehicle for testing the emerging (at the time!) CGI technology that made some of the more… um… challenging scenes possible. It looks very flat now, but it must have been a fun tool to play with for any filmmaker back then – much like a kid with a new toy (just as the new 3D cameras must be for many of them now). And, knowing Zemeckis’ penchant for CGI these days, this would hardly be surprising.
At least it would explain why this thing was greenlit, because, otherwise, I simply don’t get it. Or maybe the reason for its existence was to test nascent CGI techniques on screen before doing the groundbreaking wonders that they did with Zemeckis’ next film, the tremendous ‘Forrest Gump’.
Of course, if that’s the reason why this soulless, plastic film was cobbled together, then I think that it may be reason enough. It’s just not enough to warrant another viewing, I’m afraid, lest I need something to snooze by.
thecriticaleye 