John Blabaum

Wow. Sooooo disappointed. Keaton was a huge reason the original worked for both his performance and the sharp delivery of some excellent writing. This movie lacked any of that originals simple story and developed characters who were all believable. The first half hour or so is a slog, trying to set us up for the 'plot' as it shotguns into about four or five different storylines that we are supposed to follow and care about. Who wrote this abomination? Here comes a plot spoiler as an example. For some reason we have dead people wandering all over the underworld with jobs an/or just hanging out in various stages of their demise (like axe in the head, missing a leg, whatever ha ha ha. It's like nobody there just dies normally). When the daughter ends up there she's whisked away to the 'Soul Train'. Get it? Damn, that's clever! Yes, we get not one but TWO 'Soul Train' esque musical dance numbers welcoming (I guess?) these souls to somewhere. I say somewhere as I couldn't figure out if they were going north or south. They even have a Don Cornelius lookalike driving the train. Yep, this is what passes as witty, clever, sharp writing straight out of the book of Dad jokes. As the original created buzz around and resurrected the song Day-O, this one tries the same with MacArthur Park. Wtf. As bad as that song is, was, and will always remain, the cringe use of it in this film is beyond bad. This is poorly written high school variety show level cringe. The actors in this lengthy climax act as if they know it's horrible and it's not possible to sell it to the audience. I should write more but then I'd be giving this waste of cinema more time and I can't get any of this back. Consider this my donation to save you.