So gut wie tot - Dead Like Me: Der Film

ideally, it would be that they were trying to tie up loose ends left when the show was canceled...but i guess that would be a bit too much to ask... there are so many shows that, when they get gone, leave the viewers with little to no resolution. or, if you're from California...closure. 'deadwood' and 'john from cincinnati' come readily to mind... so when i saw that these people had made a movie i thought, 'great. a studio that cares about its audience...'. maybe. maybe not. personally, i would've rather they made no follow up than a foul up... there's LOTS of things that are, at best, unsatisfactory about this project. first off, for me, was the 'new' daisy adair...easily one of the most dynamic characters of the show, though a 'latecomer'...and boy, if people want to see the difference a good actress makes, they need look no further than here...i imagine the actress that played daisy saw this as a good opportunity to, pardon the pun, make a killing... seems the studio decided they didn't need her THAT badly. bad decision... but it would seem that's only one of many... see this if you must. just don't get your hopes up. or you did like me...

I thought Dead Like Me was one of the... funniest.. saddest.. smartest.. and just quirkiest shows ever on the air. This film takes place, picking up 5 years later, where everyone left off.. mostly. Now the biggest complain has been the absence of Rube (Mandy Patinkin) as the boss.. a tragic loss to be sure. and the recasting of Sarah Wynter in the role of Daisy Adair, formerly filled by Laura Harris. I will only say.. not to give too much away.. but they got MOST of the cast back.. and a pretty decent.. I won't say it is a definitive conclusion, as it could be left open to more DTV films. But at least it felt there was a punctuation at the end of the sentence which had been hanging for almost half a decade.

I will be the first to admit the movie has its MAJOR problems.. but over all, rough edges and everything.. it is a pretty decent representation of what the best of the show offered, although not quite as adeptly written, or acted.. its much harder to fill in a 90 minute film with so many characters as opposed to a dozen hour episodes yearly. This does seem more done for the "fans" who've missed the show. and its still a welcome return, if not at its best.

George Lass (Ellen Muth) is a grim reaper. She's been dead for 5 years after getting hit by a toilet seat from space. Der Waffle Haus has burnt down. Rube Sofer has moved on. Cameron Kane (Henry Ian Cusick) is the new supervisor. He has a different take on reaping. Daisy (Sarah Wynter), Mason (Callum Blue) and Roxy (Jasmine Guy) start breaking the rules. George has to reap popular school jock Hudson Hart who is secretly dating George's sister Reggie (Britt McKillip) behind his girlfriend Jennifer Hardick (Shenae Grimes)'s back. George's mother Joy (Cynthia Stevenson) has written a book about grief. George takes over at work from vacationing Delores. George is discovered by Reggie.

This is a fine visit from the familiar characters despite the missing Mandy Patinkin and Laura Harris. It's really touching to have George and Reggie together. It wraps up the family's story quite nicely. I'm less taken with Cameron Kane. He's not much of a villain and that side of the movie needs to be much funnier. That half isn't much. Sarah Wynter is an inferior Daisy. In the end, it's great to have George back for a bit.

While it was nice to see the return of the show, this reeked of Straight to DVD production value.

The excessive use of slow-mo and transitional effects were annoying to me, the original series just had a more polished feel to it.

The story line was OK, while it was good they tied up the absence of Rube. His general presence was missed, he kept everyone grounded.

In all honesty this movie has lost some of the charm of the series that made it quirky and dark. I am not saying it's bad, I just think they could have done so much better with how long this has been in production.

And to anyone who may quip that I am looking to find fault I watched the series when it had it's run on TV and bought the DVD's when they came out. I love the series as much as the next person and I want to see it picked up again but not at the expense of the story and the ideals that made the series what it was.

I was so surprised to find this movie because I was a big Dead Like Me fan from the start and was looking forward to seeing a wrap-up of it. Unfortunately, I was mostly disappointed. First off, there are some changes to some of the characters personalities. Of course, Daisy, comes to mind. They had to have another actress play her because Laura Harris either couldn't or wouldn't. People complain that Sarah Wynter is poor at depicting Daisy but I'm not so sure it's all her. When the original Daisy would open her mouth, something interesting came out. Not so with this movie. Daisy's lines in general are just boring. Along with that, there are a few changes in the way the original characters act as if whoever wrote the movie didn't participate in the series and didn't have a good grasp as to what it was all about. I thought perhaps they had different writers but the ones who worked on this also worked on the series. I don't want to give spoilers so I'll just say that some things that happen, esp. the ending with their "replacement" character for Rube, seem completely out of character for all of them. It just comes off as stupid and ridiculous. Another thing is, if they couldn't get Mandy Patinkin, they shouldn't have even bothered with this. He's too important for the composition of the characters to go without and the Henry Ian Cusick part was mostly annoying and pointless. I also wasn't too crazy at how George's mother's change in demeanor from sardonic, cynical and sarcastic to upbeat and recovered from her daughter's death was kind of jarring even though it made sense being after a five year period. There's also a edgy quirky darkness that the original had that is sadly missing here. The best most interesting part of the movie is what happens between George and her sister, which I don't want to say to, again, spoil anything but it is the part that makes this movie worth watching.