The Reason Why Movements Such as the New Wave Came About

Rating: Null/10 (17 April 2000)

Directed by Martin Brest, of Beverly Hills Cop and Scent of a Woman fame, this overlong and typically Hollywood remake of the 1930's classic, Death Takes A Holiday, casts Brad Pitt as a boyish Death wishing to experience life as humans do. He 'takes' the body of a charming young man whom charmed Claire Forlani (Hopkins doctor daughter) in a coffee shop. He then calls upon billionaire media mongol Anthony Hopkins, a paradoxically wise, kind, old-fashioned elderly man whose 'time is almost up' and makes a deal with him: Hopkins is to show him the world as humans see and experience it, and Pitt will extend Hopkins life. All that follow is predictable: Pitt and Forlani fall for each other all over again, and Hopkins teaches Pitt a thing or two about life.
Disappointing is perhaps one way to sum up Meet Joe Black. The story offers a great deal of potential and the director was clearly given more than enough resources to bring it to life. Despite this, the film feels static and overlong (the last hour in particular would have to be one of the most agonisingly frustrating and predictable pieces of cinema in history). You can literally see the dust floating past the characters in several scenes. Also, whatever message the film is trying to present (assuming that it is trying to present one at all) is so strongly diluted by contradictory statements. Messages of pro-euthanasia are nestled amongst those of patriarchy. Also, Pitt announces that 'Money can't buy you happiness', though it certainly appears that for Hopkins it did. Meet Joe Black is not all failure, production-wise the movie is scrumptious. In the end, however, Meet Joe Black proves even to itself that it is mere Hollywood candy: all style and no substance, leaving the audience teased and uninspired.