Heaven Can Wait (1978)

A Los Angeles Rams quarterback, accidentally taken away from his body by an overanxious angel before he was meant to die, returns to life in the body of a recently murdered millionaire. The insane plot and the good and talent cast can't make Heaven Can Wait work since it's jokes and it's characters are more than boring and bland and the whole package fails to work in the end. (0/10)

I really enjoy this movie. It is both a love story and a comedy. The casting is superb. The pairing of Beatty and Christie is wonderful and helps advance the love story. They had this on screen attraction and comfort being with each other. After I first saw this movie, I found out that they had previously dated. And, the other main actors, James Mason, Buck Henry, Charles Grodin, Dyan Cannon and Jack Warden, are wonderful in their roles. The end of the movie is special. I watch this movie from time to time and always enjoy it. Beatty deserves a lot of credit for the casting, writing, directing and acting. I hope one day it will be available on blu-ray.

This movie is a remake of another movie that was so dumb it should never have been made once, let alone twice. You might think the original version was "Heaven Can Wait" (1943), on account of the fact that it has the same title, but that is actually a different movie. Both movies with that title have something to do with dying and going to Heaven, and both movies are comedies that are not very funny, but that is about all they have in common. The present movie is actually a remake of "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" (1941).Now, all that one asks of a comedy is that it be funny. If it makes you laugh, that is all that counts, no matter how ridiculous the plot may be. But when a comedy is not funny, and yet it keeps insisting that you are supposed to be laughing at one silly scene after another, there is little one can do but think about the plot until it is finally over. In this case, the plot is exasperating. Joe Pendleton is a quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams. He is hit by a car and is mistakenly whisked away to Heaven. It is discovered by Mr. Jordan, an authority in Heaven, that Joe was not supposed to die. Unfortunately, his body has already been cremated, so they have to find him another one to take its place.When Joe realizes what is going on, his big concern is whether he will be able to play football again. Football? He has just found out that all that stuff about God and Heaven is true, and he's worried about football? How could you possibly care about worldly goods when you know the secret of Eternity? Now, if I had just found out that I was in Heaven, I would be thrilled to discover that my soul was immortal. But if I subsequently found out that I was going to have to go back to earth in another body, my question to Mr. Jordan would be, "Is there a Hell, and if so, what do I need to do to stay out of it?" There is no more important question in this world or the next than that one.Assuming that there is a Hell, then having been sent back to earth in whatever body I was given, I would not be worried about football. I would immediately give all my worldly goods to the poor, turn the other cheek if struck, and absolutely, positively never look at a woman with lust in my heart again. Yeah, I know. At the end of the movie, Joe's memory of dying and going to Heaven is erased. But for the better part of the movie, he does remember all that Heaven stuff, and yet all he cares about is football (and a woman named Betty, whom he probably lusts after).As I said, if the movie were funny, all would be forgiven. Or, if the movie had been worthy in other ways, one might overlook this absurdity of caring about something like football when you know that Eternity hangs in the balance. For example, in the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946), George Bailey finds out that all that stuff about God and Heaven is true too. Right then George should have said, "Oh Wow! That takes all the pressure off. Wait till I tell Mary the good news. Even if I do go to jail, everything will be fine when Mary and I die and we go to Heaven." He doesn't say this to himself, but we are willing to overlook the way George seems oblivious to his newfound knowledge of Eternity, because it is otherwise such a good movie.But "Heaven Can Wait," just like the original version on which it was based, is not a good movie, is not funny, and thus its preposterous plot deserves the ridicule I have just subjected it to.

I found "Heaven Can Wait" to have some interesting turns, but it generally falls apart in the third act, most especially the too-muddled scene where Farnsworth's story is closed out and Tom's story gets rolling. Also, the foreshadowing of Farnsworth's last meeting with Betty is *much* too overdone.As a longtime fan of "Quantum Leap" who has only recently seen "Heaven Can Wait" for the first time, I was surprised to see how well this film fits into the mythos of that show.It is very easy to imagine Joe as a Leaper, right down to looking and sounding like Joe both to himself and to us, having friends he can talk to that others can't see or hear, and leaping from one body to another to set things right. It's easy to see the ending with Tom as answering the age-old question from the show of "What would've happened if Sam hadn't leaped when the job was done?" The only thing missing, really, is the time travel aspect.