Starring Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Derek Jacobi, Robin Williams, Andy Garcia, Wayne Knight, Campbell Scott

(7-Very Good Film)

Lurid. Twisty. Effective.

Cozy Carlisle: You take what you’ve learned from this life and use it in the next. That’s karma.

Soul mates, fate, hypnosis, murder, red herrings, sharp objects. Dead Again is pretty kitschy. Maybe too much for some, it’s enormously appealing to people with taste like mine. Kenneth Branagh directs and stars, playing a private detective, Mike Church (adopting an American accent that’s done well-enough but still slightly awkward as it’s such a departure from his usual British manner). Mike is persuaded into helping a lost, mute woman (Thompson), who suffers from amnesia and visions of murder from an apparent past life. Like many of the best Alfred Hitchcock films that inspired it, Dead again is wild and ludicrous upon further inspection but still proves wonderfully entertaining thanks to Branagh’s skill and panache directing it.

-Walter Tyrone Howard-

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