it's time to tie your brain in knots

Rating: 4/10 (23 January 2020)

When "Meet Joe Black" got released, a lot of people went to see it just for the "Phantom Menace" trailer. Infamous as "The Phantom Menace" was, the trailer must've been the only interesting thing about this melodrama. The movie itself is probably best known for getting Universal executive Frank Biondi fired due to the movie's weak performance (a mere two weeks later, the dismal performance of "Babe: Pig in the City" got Casey Silver fired). Leave it to Robin Williams to give the studio a hit ("Patch Adams" was Universal's only successful movie in 1998; it got the studio out of the hospital, you might say).
Anyway, back to this one. Director Martin Brest is best known for "Beverly Hills Cop" and "Scent of a Woman" (his last effort, 2003's "Gigli", became a punchline and pretty much ended his career). It probably says something about Hollywood that the director of one of the most famous movies of the '80s is practically unmentionable nowadays.
Basically, even if you interpret the movie as a look at the meaning of life, it's still three hours leading to a cop-out ending. The original version, 1934's "Death Takes a Holiday", isn't much to brag about either.