http://www.aintitcool.com/node/39999


"Kelvington," who regularly kicks in reviews of "Doctor Who"
episodes as soon as they air on the BBC, here reviews the direct-to-
DVD movie "Dead Like Me: Life After Death," hitting shelves Feb. 17.

Two important things. The great Mandy Patinkin does not reprise his
role as top reaper Rube Sofer. More damningly, "Dead Like Me"
creator Bryan Fuller ("Wonderfalls," "Pushing Daisies") was
foolishly not invited to participate in the project.

Still, good to see the always enjoyable Ellen Muth getting a little
work!

"Kelvington" suggests the movie is not as good as the series, but
still worth picking up:

First I was a HUGE fan of the original series, "Dead Like Me". It
was well written, well done and most of all intelligent. The TV
Movie does well to try and follow in the footsteps of the series.
But it does fall a tad short. While I by no means hated this
adaptation of the show. It just didn't feel the same. Here are a few
reasons why, some spoilers contained within.

The dead don't age, they stay frozen in time, but since the show
started several years ago, when Ellen Muth was several years
younger, she has aged. They did a nice job trying to down play it,
but she got older, nothing can be done about that. However, her
voice matured, or fell victim to some heavy smoking and got a little
raspy. That could have easily been fixed in post. Did you see the
Dark Knight? They can do things with voices.

The movie begins with a comic book style explanation was very well
done and fit right in with the feel of the old show. However, the
loss of Rube the leader of the reapers played by Mandy Patinkin was
probably a loss they couldn't afford. I don't know if he didn't want
to come back to the part, or they didn't want to offer it to him.
Either way, the film suffers a bit from him not being there.

After a short recap of things past, and how death works, we see
George, played by Ellen Muth reap a soul and send it off to it's
lights. After that we meet the new boss played by Henry Ian Cusick,
you know Des from "Lost". And when I first saw him, I said, "Hey,
it's Desmond from Lost". Even though this casting was a bit off he
fit into the role nicely. We also see the new Daisy, played by Sarah
Wynter, you might remember her from "24". She did a great job
filling the gap left by Laura Harris who was not available to
reprise the role. Fortunately, we got both Jasmine Guy and Callum
Blue to come back to play Roxy and Mason, which helped the film a
immensely.

The film could easily have been called "Dead Like Me – Reapers Gone
Wild", because we get to see what happens when the reapers break the
rules, and yes even Roxy breaks the number one rule. She keeps
someone alive. It's been a while since I saw the very first "Dead
Like Me", but I clearly remember what Rube said about keeping
someone past their expiration date. When George didn't want to reap
a little girl, and said she would have eighty more years left, Rube
told her that's eighty years she wouldn't want, that souls rot and
decay if left in the body. We get to see what happens when the
reapers figure out that apparently there are no consequences for
reaps gone wrong. George spends a great deal of the movie trying to
figure out why she can't reap a soul, while Daisy will actually
break a leg to get back into acting, even if it's not her own.

The acting is top notch, Ellen seems to play the role in a much more
thoughtful way, and it really shows. I had forgotten how much I
loved this character and Muth's portrayal of her. Jasmine Guy, hits
everything so perfectly you never think for a moment she's been
doing anything but playing Roxy everyday since the series ended.

We see that the reapers haven't changed much in the past five years
and that things are pretty much normal, except their new boss is
more hi-tech than Rube, and uses Trio's instead of post-it notes.
I'm sure 3M was sorry to see the loss of that endorsement deal, but
what are you going to do.

Finally, the tone of the movie is very different than the tone of
the series, while the series had a more light touch, the movie is
much more dark in feeling and it's one of it's few faults. I think
what made the series really work was the feel, the "Wonder Falls"
meets death. It isn't until late in the film do we get a sense of
the old series. And while this is not as magical as "Pushing
Daisies" it is still worth renting or buying, and it really pisses
me off that Showtime ever canceled this show. I hope to see many
more "Dead Like Me" movies.

Just my 2¢