Seemed kinda like a would-be-Heinlein book to me

Rating: 4/10 (4 June 2004)

I suppose the usual critic for MJB is its length. Granted, when I did chose this movie to start the evening with I did not know that there would be so little left after the movie. THREE HOURS ... puh, well, a Harry Potter would have needed that amount of time, but for MJB it was way to much time and gave it a "slow" feeling.
But it wasn't entirely bad. Although the story is not new (personally, I like the Death in Sandman by Neil Gaiman much better, and she is only mortal for a day every hundred years) the setting was quite nice. A media mogul with an accomplished life as a guide for death? Why not. The whole setting reminded me of the books of Robert A. Heinlein, where an old but wise man is often the guide for a younger and inexperienced person, hmmm, like a mixture of "Stranger in a Strange Land" and "I Will Fear No Evil". Regarding the need for guidance ... maybe death does not know what it is to live, but with the knowledge he has about other areas a normal dinner should be no problem for him - but perhaps it's the difference between seeing it done and experiencing it first hand.
All in all the movie was a slow, nice distraction with a Brad Pitt for the female audience and a very attractive Claire Forlani for the male. There are better movies about death, like "My Life Without Me" for example and much better comics, like the mentioned Sandman-Comics by Neil Gaiman ("Death: The High Cost of Living" for example or the Chapter "The Sound of Her Wings" in a Sandman-Edition). Both are way superior to this movie (sorry, Forlani).
But it was o.k. for a slow evening (and the beginning of the night).
4/10