“Dead Like Me: Life After Death.” – DVD Review.

By Jason Tanamor

3 1/2 Stars:

Fans of the series, “Dead Like Me” are in for a treat with the 2009 release of the movie version titled, “Dead Like Me: Life After Death.”

Kind of.



As you may remember about the series, which ended prematurely after two seasons, Georgia “George” Lass gets killed by a flying toilet seat that falls to the Earth when a space station explodes. Instead of dying like everyone else, George has to live her death as a Grim Reaper, taking the souls of soon to be dead people. In the series, George is joined by her fellow reapers, Mason (Callum Blue), Daisy (Laura Harris), and Roxy (Jasmine Guy), who all follow the lead of their boss, Rube (Mandy Patinkin). Rube, whose old school system included Post-It notes with dying people’s names on them, would hand out each reaper’s assignment, which then entailed the reaps of these individuals by being touched before they die. This all takes place in their morning meeting location, Der Waffle Haus.

The series was fun, and much of the story revolved around George’s distant relationship with her surviving family, most particularly her sister Reggie (Britt McKillip).



The movie, which takes place five years after George’s death, sees the group of reapers reunite to find out that their boss Rube has moved on and that their waffle restaurant has burned to the ground. Their new boss, Cameron Kane (Henry Ian Cusick) - a far cry from Rube’s old school, funny way of showing that he cares, style of leading who trades in the Post-It notes for fancy PDA’s – is a slick businessman who uses the reapers to capitalize on death by giving them anything they want. When Cameron gets the group of reapers to buy into his philosophy by not taking souls for personal gain, their lives turn upside down. Daisy (played by Sarah Wynter and not Laura Harris) and Mason become drunk partiers, Roxy, instead of taking a soul, saves the life to get an award from her superior, and George misses a reap, only to discover that her missed appointment is her sister’s secret boyfriend.

While the rest of the group kick themselves for not following Rube’s rules, George goes off on her own to make up for unresolved issues in the series. I’m not going to go into the movie anymore because I’ll spoil it. The movie was given 3 ½ stars because it really wasn’t that spectacular. The series was far better. I loved the series, how each one played off of each other, and watched the movie because of that reason. Plus, not getting Laura Harris to play Daisy was a disservice for fans that waited years for this.



BYLINE:

Jason Tanamor is the Editor of Zoiks! Online. He is also the author of the novels, "Hello Lesbian!" and "Anonymous."