PLOT: A couple (Jason Segel and Samara Weaving) on the rocks take a weekend trip to a secluded cabin where each has separately come up with a plan to murder the other.
REVIEW: Over Your Dead Body is an American remake of Tommy Wirkola’s dark Norwegian comedy The Trip, with MacGruber’s Jorma Taccone taking over as director. Fairly faithful to the original, the big change is that this remake sports action design by none other than 87North, with the second half of the movie featuring surprisingly potent, very gory action.
If you want to go into Over Your Dead Body completely unspoiled, proceed with caution, as there’s a second-act twist that changes the movie’s concept somewhat, but it’s already been revealed in the trailer and even in most online plot synopses. When it happens, it’s actually quite welcome, as the second half of this movie — or more specifically, its final third — is what makes it worth watching, as it’s a bit of a slog for a larger chunk of its running time than I anticipated.
For much of the film, we’re supposed to believe that Jason Segel and Samara Weaving’s characters hate each other so much that they want to kill each other. In Wirkola’s The Trip, you believe it. Here, you don’t for a second. In fact, the two leads come off as terribly unlikeable for the first half, with him a one-time hot young director who’s fallen on hard times, while she’s a struggling actress who never made it. With them on the verge of bankruptcy, they figure they can cash out on insurance money and start their lives over, but you never quite buy that either has the malevolent streak to go through with their deadly plans. Neither Segel nor Weaving can sell the idea that each hates the other so much that they would resort to murder.
Thankfully, the film fares much better when (MILD SPOILERS INCOMING) they are forced to unite against a bigger threat, when their cabin is infiltrated by two escaped cons (Timothy Olyphant and UFC fighter Keith Jardine) and their crooked former jailer (Juliette Lewis). Now in the crosshairs of three legitimate psychopaths, they have to team up to defeat their captors, and it’s here that the movie really starts to work — and 87North comes in.
The final third of Over Your Dead Body is a rollicking action flick, with 87North and Taccone showing some innovative action design as our distinctly non-pro leads use whatever they have handy to fight their captors, including billiard balls, pitchforks, and even — grotesquely — a lawnmower. Against all odds, you actually start to root for Segel and Weaving, which is a coup, as for most of the movie, I despised them.
Segel comes off as too affable to be playing a weak-willed loser who would be willing to kill his wife. He fares better as an unlikely action hero, where he comes off well using improvised weapons. Weaving has more experience as an action heroine, having done two Ready or Not movies and a bunch of others, but the action she does here is less polished, as she’s playing someone who’s never thrown a punch in her life. It’s a tribute to both of them that, after the rough first half, you want to see them survive their ordeal.
Over Your Dead Body also marks another step toward full-fledged action for Taccone, who’s been playing with the genre since MacGruber. He does a good job with the carnage, allowing the film to be pretty gruesome at times. Olyphant makes for a smooth bad guy, with Jardine more of the physical threat, although a graphic scene where Jardine’s attempted rape of Segel is played for comedy nearly stops the movie cold — it’s something that maybe worked in Wirkola’s movie but comes off poorly here. Lewis seems to be having a ball as perhaps the most evil of the villains, while former CSI star Paul Guilfoyle pops up a few times and nearly steals the whole show.
While I fully anticipated trashing Over Your Dead Body after the first half of the film, I was surprisingly engaged by it by the halfway point. Segel and Weaving’s chemistry in the second half, along with the inventive action scenes, make it worth checking out, even if it takes almost too long to get going.
Over Your Dead Body opens Friday
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