Review of 'Over Your Dead Body': Jason Segel and Samara Weaving plot elopement

In the first of several significant flashbacks in “Over Your Dead Body,” Samara Weaving's unhappy Lisa complains to a friend about a hunting trip her equally miserable husband Dan (Jason Segel) is taking her on. “You know how much I hate guns,” Lisa fumes. “How dangerous.” It turns out he's actually telling two lies, which is par for the course in this twisted but disappointing black comedy that sees marriage as a hyper-violent blood sport and a battle to the death.

Based on Norwegian filmmaker Tommy Wirkola's 2021 “The Trip,” “Over Your Dead Body” is about a couple whose marital happiness has faded along with their career prospects. Dan directed a moderately successful sci-fi movie several years ago, but now he's stuck filming cheesy pop-up ads. Meanwhile, Lisa's budding acting career falters. As the film begins, Dan visibly informs his production team that he and his wife are going on a hike to the middle of nowhere, something that, he insists, is a risk that Lisa wants to do, despite how dangerous it may be. What we soon realize is that he is covering up his nefarious plan, which is to kill Lisa in her family's forest cabin, making it appear that she disappeared without a trace in the forest.

But director Jorma Taccone finally reveals that it's not just Dan who has murder on his mind. That first flashback flashes back to Lisa's simultaneous scheming, claiming to those close to her that Dan longs to go hunting, when, in fact, she secretly brought a rifle so authorities will assume it was accidentally shot. (Whatever fears you once harbored about firearms, they are clearly no longer a problem, if they ever were.) Dan is offended when he discovers their plan: Why she do you want to kill him? At least he's justified, he believes, having caught Lisa in an affair with her scene partner.

More surprises await when Dan and Lisa engage in a deadly showdown at the cabin, only to discover they are not alone. Another flashback details how two convicted murderers, Todd (Keith Jardine) and Pete (Timothy Olyphant), escaped from a local penitentiary with the help of Pete's girlfriend, prison guard Allegra (Juliette Lewis), and seek refuge in the cabin. Suddenly, the feuding couple must work together to stay alive.

Taccone, one-third of the Lonely Island comedy troupe, previously directed the big-screen adaptation of the “Saturday Night Live” sketch “MacGruber” and co-directed the endlessly rewatchable mockumentary “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.” For “Over Your Dead Body,” he teams with producer David Leitch, whose 87North group specializes in R-rated action comedies like “Nobody” and “Violent Night.” Taccone's irreverent and slyly shocking style would seem a good match for a story in which the pain of romantic discontent is combined with countless scenes in which a variety of weapons wreak gruesome havoc, including lawnmowers, sports cars, gardening equipment, and a sock with a pool ball in it.

But despite Segel and Weaver's best efforts, they can't make this bickering duo deliciously awful, and the characters come off more irritating than hilariously combustible. And when Pete and his henchmen arrive, they're too outlandish to be menacing or hysterical, although Olyphant's long-suffering leader does have some nice moments slowly processing how dumb Todd and Allegra are.

Aside from an awkward homage to “Deliverance,” the film’s handling of the confrontation between this drab marriage and the cartoonish criminals is rarely engrossing. Instead, “Over Your Dead Body” offers over-the-top fight sequences that emphasize grimaces and disgusting laughter. People are not simply shot in the head: the bullet transforms them into a sticky piece of meat. Fingers are cut off, stakes are driven into hands, and one foot is reduced to bloody shreds. Taccone handles all of this with gleeful excess, but once you've seen one pulverized face, you've seen them all.

An amusing irony is intended to play out alongside the growing body count. Dan and Lisa embarked on this escapade to murder each other, but they will end up rekindling their love. Without a doubt, Segel and Weaving gain much more once their characters begin to sympathize with each other. Still, the film seems like a missed opportunity for Weaving, who became the scream queen in the “Ready or Not” films. In those films, as an unsuspecting bride thrust into a life-or-death situation, she engagingly balanced a convincing physical performance with an understated comedic streak, and her beleaguered character endured one absurdity after another.

Weaving finds himself in a somewhat similar role in “Over Your Dead Body,” and this uneven action comedy is anchored by his performance up to this point, which provides a witty take on marriage that the film otherwise ignores. It's bad enough that Lisa has to deal with Dan's insecurity: now she has to tangle with some dumb criminals? Women have to do everything in a relationship.