Metacritic reviews

Crossing the life-death divide, Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo are a winning pair in this smart and tender comedy.

That Just Like Heaven succeeds at all - at least for teenage girls with limited interest in the drafting of living wills - is due entirely to Witherspoon's can-do charisma.

The film, which comes way too close to preaching, lurches away from the control of director Mark Waters (Mean Girls, Freaky Friday) and ends on a stretched-out note so sappy it makes "Must Love Dogs" look like "8 Mile."

As uneven as the topography of its San Francisco locales, but the amiable peaks mostly offset the flat stretches and valleys. A variation on a very old meet-cute theme with a touch of otherworldly romance.

Part of the problem is Mark Ruffalo, whose tortured sensitivity in "You Can Count On Me" and "We Don't Live Here Anymore" made him seem like Marlon Brando's heir apparent, not Will Smith's.

Unfortunately, the movie fails to fully make sense, which may be because it's based on a French novel (If Only It Were True by Marc Levy).

The usually zippy and subversive director Mark Waters (Freaky Friday, Mean Girls) plays things straight and suffocatingly sentimental - which actually makes the whole movie seem that much creepier.

The movie starts cheating the audience early, and never lets up.

A huge waste of talent (Witherspoon's) and time (ours), a supernatural romantic comedy that is neither romantic, comedic, super or natural.

A groaningly awful romantic comedy.