Fall in love with Joe Black

As the holidays approach, a little more black might distract from the mainstream of nauseating good cheer and validate the moods of all students as they head into finals. Fortunately, Joe Black is comes to town tonight, and, if romances appeal, is worth a spin.

As far as romances go, Meet Joe Black does a pretty good job. The direction is fairly effective, managing to evoke some real sympathy for the incredibly affluent lives all the characters are leading. The affluence of the characters is actually a little unnerving, as not long into the movie an appearance by Robin Leach wouldn't be all that surprising. But regardless, the director manages to pull it off, and the audience is prey to the perils of falling in love.

Brad Pitt plays Father Time, who has struck a deal with an aging entertainment mogul, played by Anthony Hopkins. Pitt is going to delay Hopkins' death so long as Hopkins provides Pitt with an entertaining tour of the mortal realm. Once Pitt stops having a good time, off they'll go to the hereafter. Enter Hopkins' beautiful and favorite, daughter, played by Clair Forlani, who has (surprise!) risen above her affluence and put her life to some use as a doctor at Mt. Sinai.

The plot takes its time as Pitt explores what it means to be mortal, which is at its height when talking to a woman from the East Indies. The main strength of the movie is the acting. Jeffrey Tambor, in particular, is likely to receive a best supporting actor nomination for revitalizing the rather common role of the naive, gentle sycophant. Hopkins, as always, performs well, and Pitt has always had a knack for the slightly deranged.

Unfortunately, toward the end of the movie, the already slow plot slows down, letting the movie drag rather painfully through the last hour. About half-way through, the remaineder of the plot becomes quite obvious, and the fact that the movie takes another hour and a half to play out obvious story-lines is simply a poor choice.

One minor strength of the movie is its dark, if rather sparse, humor. Early, on, and quite suddenly, the audience is treated to quite a dramatic and exciting death. If only there had been more, since death is, in fact, the focus of the film. Meet Joe Black is a remake of the much older film, Death Takes a Holiday, and besides having good actors, it doesn't improve much except that death doesn't get the girl in the end.