Written by Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney (of the online sketch group BriTANicK), Taccone\u2019s marriage satire is a nearly beat-for-beat remake of Tommy Wirkola\u2019s The Trip, or I Onde Dager (\u201cIn Bad Days\u201d), but it departs from the Norwegian original\u2019s bleakness with some overt, broad comedy befitting the names involved. Taccone was, after all, half-responsible for the modern comedy classic, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, and as a co-founder of The Lonely Island, he\u2019s no stranger to hilarity.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s for this reason that failing film director Dan (Segel) makes for such a fun, intriguing protagonist. We meet him as he curiously reminds friends and coworkers alike that he and stage actress wife Lisa (Weaving) are all set for their wilderness hike. This starts to seem more like the search for an alibi as he purchases suspicious tools like rope and duct tape. It\u2019s one of Segel\u2019s funnier roles, as well as one of his most dramatically fine-tuned, given the way he juggles exaggerated exhaustion with an inferiority complex supposedly brought on by constant spousal criticism. <\/p>\n Through Dan\u2019s point of view, Lisa is an irredeemably horrid person; all they seem to do is argue, even while headed for the cabin. However, the premise soon flips (along with the movie\u2019s default POV) when Lisa turns her husband\u2019s murderous plan on its head, revealing one of her own through snappy flashbacks. As the film goes on, numerous other characters come tumbling into the couple\u2019s narrative, including two escaped convicts (Timothy Olyphant, Keith Jardine) and their turncoat corrections officer (Juliette Lewis), turning the film from a marriage satire into a home invasion comedy-thriller in the vein of a goofy Straw Dogs. This transformation \u2013 pulled from the original, where it involves three male escapees \u2013 works in theory, but its execution and adaptation function rather strangely. Of course, like any other film, Over Your Dead Body deserves to be evaluated on its own merits, but comparisons to the original are nothing if not instructive about where it falters.<\/p>\n There are dramatic, comedic, and thematic holes which the remake\u2019s more gradual pacing fails to paper over. \u201c<\/p>\n The laugh-out-loud gags are a wonderful addition, affording the rubber-faced Segel and the more straightforward Weaving numerous spats and t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eates, including a side-splitting bizarro version of the \u201cI\u2019ll have what she\u2019s having\u201d scene<\/a> from When Harry Met Sally, swapping out fake orgasms for soap opera acting. When the couple are at each other\u2019s throats \u2013 at times literally \u2013 the unfettered stunt choreography imbues the remake with a raucous energy that wasn\u2019t present in Wirkola\u2019s version. However, where the original succeeded was in its snappy unspooling. The two films are comparable in length; in fact, the original is slightly longer, but its constant forward momentum left no time for the audience\u2019s attention to stray, or for them to ever question the premise. It\u2019s far more airtight in this regard, but the remake\u2019s dead air and vestigial dialogue provides too much room for a double-take as to why Dan and Lisa seem to suddenly undergo a 180-degree character change so the rest of the plot can happen.<\/p>\n Even if one were to forgive the occasional inconsistency, there are dramatic, comedic, and thematic holes which the remake\u2019s more gradual pacing fails to paper over. Where the original\u2019s protagonist was a Jewish man, and the home invaders included a ruthless utilitarian and a Neo-Nazi, there are no such nerve-wracking dimensions in the Hollywood version; its characters are interchangeable pieces. Olyphant and Lewis\u2019 characters, who were male friends in the original, are an oddball couple here, but this added subplot is never used to reflect or contrast Dan and Lisa\u2019s ongoing domestic drama, so it feels like dead weight.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n