Over Her Dead Body : Don't mess with your boyfriend's dead fiance!

It's cute.  It won't offend anybody.  But it won't make a lasting impression.  I'm talking about Over Her Dead Body, a by-the-formula romantic comedy starring Eva Longoria Parker, Paul Rudd, and Lake Bell.

Eva and Paul play Kate and Henry.  We meet them on their wedding day where Kate's control-freak ways make us wonder what, exactly, Paul sees in her.  We never get to find out, because a few minutes later Kate's dead.

A year later Henry is still mourning, unable to move on.  This concerns his sister Chloe. So she does what any loving sister would do.  She convinces Henry to see self-proclaimed psychic Ashley (Bell).  Chloe's hoping Ashley will tell Henry that Kate wants him to move on.  In fact, Chloe convinces Ashley to lie, if she has to, in order to give Henry this message. 

Soon Ashley and Henry find themselves falling for each other.  And this makes dead Kate unhappy.  She appears to Ashley as a ghost, and warns her away from Henry.  Thus begin the silly antics, where Kate uses every other-world trick up her sleeve to try to scare off a very determined Ashley.

These antics are sometimes cute and other times annoying.  Some of Kate's tricks are actually pretty funny, like when she imitates voices so Ashley thinks she hears something that's not really there.  At one point this trick causes Ashley to light a dessert on fire.  At another point the trick causes her to run out of a gym's locker room naked.  Cute stuff.  On the other hand, there was a bit of "potty humor" tossed in as well, that I could have done without.

One of the funniest parts of the movie has to do with a talking bird.  Apparently, animals can also see and hear Kate, and this is used in a very cute way, with a parrot.

However, this movie is far from perfect.  First of all, why did they paint Kate as such a control-freak?  Why make us dislike her from the start?  If she had been sweet and kind, we might have rooted for her a little bit.  Instead, we don't like her, and have to wonder what Henry was doing with her in the first place.

Another problem is the performances.  Kate might as well have been named "Gabrielle" - they're the same character.  And Henry might as well have been named "Mike From Friends".  As for Bell's portrayal of Ashley, she was just awful.  The only one who did a good job was Jason Biggs who plays Ashley's best friend.  He has a few very funny scenes, and you can't help but hope for a happy ending for him.

As for everyone else, this is your basic romantic comedy so you'll know, within the first 5 minutes, how it's all going to end.  There are no real surprises here, nothing out of the ordinary.  Still, this movie was a fairly enjoyable (if formulaic) romp.