Mark Waters’ film Just Like Heaven is one part comedy, one part romance and two parts overwhelmingly predictable. Although Waters attempts to bring viewers a unique twist on the traditional romantic comedy, what results is a forgettable flick that might as well have gone straight to video.

Elizabeth Masterson (Reese Witherspoon) is a hardworking young doctor in a San Francisco hospital until a terrible car accident puts her into a coma. Shortly after, David Abbott (Mark Ruffalo), a landscape architect who drowns his loneliness in alcohol, moves into her former apartment. He soon finds, however, that he is not alone – Elizabeth’s spirit has come back to discover that this “lazy slob” has moved in. For a good part of the film, the two engage in mildly amusing exchanges over whose apartment it really is. But predictably enough, their bickering turns lovey-dovey as the two get to know each other and Elizabeth longs to remember who she once was. You can guess the rest. This is a romantic comedy, after all.

Just Like Heaven is filled with cutesy one-liners and the typical rom-com rapport. When David talks to Elizabeth (the ghost), it looks like he’s talking to himself, and Waters so blatantly exploits this novelty that it gets old right from the beginning. The real comedy comes from the “spiritual” Darryl, played by Jon Heder of Napoleon Dynamite, whom David meets in his unsuccessful attempt to exorcise Elizabeth’s spirit from the apartment. Claiming to have the ability to feel spirits, Darryl and his “deep” platitudes provide some much-needed comic relief in a film that, billed as a comedy, doesn’t quite live up to the title.

The film may be be somewhat cliche – often to the point where one can predict the next line or even Elizabeth’s next outfit – but it does have some better moments, even if they’re less-than-memorable. The movie’s no epic, but it’s a semi-solid waste of 95 minutes. Heaven is, after all, just like nearly every other romantic comedy.

– Christina Amoroso