A Yawner

Rating: Null/10 (25 April 1999)

"Meet Joe Black" was a drag. It kept dragging on, not wanting to end. Think of a stubborn spike being driven into a piece of knotty oak. The finality of this film came three and one-half hours in, in what seemed like eternity with what seemed like every out-take left in.
Pacing and length, towering above any apparent cinematic style, provided excellent saboteurs in making this film one of unfilled potential. For the most part this movie was deadpan serious and a yawner save coming alive on occasion with exchanges of some clever dialogue. Yet even with this little spark, it failed to ignite MJB, for just about every single scene was excruciatingly long and tiring. It seemed as if either the editing machine broke down or the makers of the film got so enamored with their handiwork they couldn't decide what cuts to make. The result was that everything got left in. What probably could have worked as a shorter film - or even as a farce - was too melodramatic and hokey. The filmmakers took the topic and indeed themselves way too seriously. The old saying that "the good die young," might aptly be restated: "To 'Meet Joe Black', Death came too late."
Death's usurping the body of a young man to fulfill a special earthly mission while falling in love promised to be a tricky proposition to pull off. From this standpoint of plot, the film wasn't a disappointment and did fulfill its almost self-fulfilling prophecy to come up short. The body that was chosen for Death - Joe Black - couldn't have come in a prettier form of blood and flesh. Brad Pitt could steal any woman's heart, I suppose, even if in this miscast role of Death he did come across as if he had been born the day before. Wide-eyed and fresh-as-new-snow in his knowledge of life and its pleasures, he showed himself to be a fast learner, puckering up those lips for the obligatory love scene. Seeing that Adonis physique getting hot and bothered showed that even Death can be human. It gave the ladies in the audience and those of nontraditional sexual orientation their money's worth. It wasn't hard to imagine these raw images firing up sounds of oohs and aahs in viewers as he and Susan Parish (Claire Forlaine) cooed and cawed and grimaced and earned the movie its PG-13 rating. From my lofty perch, however, it's hard to conceive of anything death wouldn't have known about in life, for the two go hand-in-hand. Death/Brad Pitt was ingenuously out of touch with the happenings in life, yet paradoxically possessed so much insight on other things. In the matter of love, which is intrinsic to life, Death knew nothing about. But he knew the skinny - all the dirt and good things, too - about the key players in the film. It would seem that to know death (which Mr. Pitt was) is to know life. Why then was Death clueless about female wiles while knowing so much about everything else? Is this too philosophical? Too picky? Or am I the one who is taking myself too seriously instead?
All this wetness behind Death's ears notwithstanding, one cannot help but to get a chuckle out of the movie's second best running gag. Death's ET-like mulling over the spoonful of peanut butter and the ways to down it did cut into the monotone of this feature-and-a-half-length picture. Praise be to Death who did come through in the clutch stealing the show and saving the day, ultimately, by giving the wannabe corporate cut-throat his comeuppance with the best gag about nothing being certain but "Death and Taxes".
Not to take anything away from an overly serious film. it did have its lighter moments, although few and far between long takes in which everybody spoke in low tones as if they had trouble expressing their true, innermost feelings like those at an Inner Child Within meeting or something. When Mr. Parish (Anthony Hopkins) became infuriated, Death tried to settle him down. "Don't have a heart attack. . .you'll ruin my vacation." There should have been a few more doses of comic relief like this in an all-too-serious film like Meet Joe Black.
Such seriousness may not be as big a culprit in the film's lack of punch as the slow pace and long length. What could have been a well-versed screenplay turned out to be an unwitting accomplice to the movie's failure. I kept waiting for something exciting to happen. Getting nothing is a terrible letdown. For one thing, it took too long for the plot to begin to unfold, and when it did, it was hard to discern what it was. Too often the dialogue was cryptic and impeded the understanding of the film. May I use the word, "Serlingesque"? I just did. . .left to your interpretation.
I hate to rant on. (I could be accused of being long-winded myself). But I do have one more thing to say. . . or to ponder. This has to do with the film's budget. Was it on a restricted diet or did it just appear that way? This was one of the worst cases of special effects and use of extras I had ever seen. Joe Black (before Death usurped him) hurtling through the air the way he did after getting hit could have been itself comic relief. It looked so much like a dummy and the set looked like a sound stage. (Maybe it was a stand-in who was upgraded to stunt man). A tight budget may have manifested by use of the extras on the board of directors, who remained mum and stoic throughout their presence on screen. Seriously, a few words would have been called for from a few members during the cloak and dagger meeting in which the ouster of Parish was raised. This scene called for interaction. The cynic in me asks if these characters sat stone silent because the producer was too cheap to pay them the upgrade from extra to bit player. Though redeeming qualities in Joe Black were infrequent, there were some. A few scenes could be preserved for a film school acting class and on screenwriting dos and don'ts. The film did not look like it was directed by someone of Martin Brest's track record and capabilities. Weaknesses in the movie rest squarely on his shoulders. The actors seemed strained at times and the dialogue pulled out like hot water taffy. That's because everything was way, way too long. The 40 minute ending had the makings of a tear-jerker, but the duration to get it over with (Parish's demise) got in the way. (Had he made a secret deal with Death behind the scenes for "just one more day. . .?) 20 minutes for all this would have given people time enough to cry and get it out of the system. Instead, it gave them time to dab their eyes dry and await another emotional farewell of false endings. By the time the real ending came around, it hurt too much to cry (being so long).
Meet Joe Black should have been a comedy. In a sense it was.