Lots of eye-gazing!

Rating: 7/10 (30 August 1999)

If you overlook the impossible plot and sit back and enjoy the screen presence of Anthony Hopkins and boyish good looks of Brad Pitt, "Meet Joe Black" is entertaining enough though at 180 minutes it's rather too long. The early coffee-shop scene which introduces the Joe Black character is most enjoyable and the parting of the "lovers" with backward glances is a charming interlude in the story. Then comes the traffic fatality- a sudden jolt and so unexpected. There is a lot of eye-gazing in the next two hours and very little audible conversation. There is a lot of speaking in whispers! I thought the final birthday celebrations were much overdone even for a very wealthy family, but at least the spectacular fireworks could be heard. If you watch the closing scene carefully, you will note that although the sky is filled with brilliant light from the multitude of bursting rockets, the dark figures of of Pitt and Hopkins who are walking up the stone steps of the garden are not illuminated by flashes of colour from the sky. This is a bad oversight. One expects better.