Meet Joe Black opens with a simple idea: Death comes to call on a wealthy businessman played by Anthony Hopkins. The movie spends nearly three hours turning that premise into a romance, a lecture on mortality, and a chase through New York City. It never quite earns any of it.
Hopkins plays Edward Lewis, a man who has built a vast fortune and now finds himself exhausted by it. He invites Death, played by Brad Pitt, to stay at his mansion and observe how the world runs. Death takes the form of a young man named Joe Black, and he falls in love with Edward’s wife, Emma, played by Claire Forlani. That love triangle is the engine of the plot, and it is also the movie’s biggest problem.
Trailer, via Universal Pictures.
The Romance Problem
Forlani is a talented actress, but she is given almost nothing to do here. She exists to be desired, to be jealous, and to be comforted. Her scenes with Pitt are supposed to crackle with chemistry, but they mostly feel like a series of awkward pauses. Pitt, meanwhile, plays Death as a boy scout: earnest, curious, and completely unthreatening. The movie wants him to be terrifying, but it keeps dressing him in suits and letting him smile.
The love story is meant to humanize Death, to show that even the Grim Reaper can fall in love. It fails because the movie never explains why Emma would choose Death over Edward, or why Edward would let her. The romance is a set piece, not a character arc.
The Lecture on Mortality
Between the scenes of romantic tension, the movie delivers lectures on life, death, and the meaning of existence. Edward has a conversation with Death about the value of living, and Death has a conversation with Edward about the inevitability of dying. These conversations are delivered with the kind of solemnity that makes you want to fast-forward.
The lectures are the weakest part of the film. They are long, repetitive, and they stop the story cold. The movie is trying to be profound, but it keeps leaning on platitudes. Death is not a philosopher, and the movie should not pretend otherwise.
The Chase Through New York
The film’s most effective stretch is its final act, when Death decides to test the limits of his power by running around New York City at superhuman speed. This sequence is genuinely thrilling, full of energy and spectacle. It is the closest the movie comes to being fun.
But the chase is a detour. It is a set piece that does not advance the plot, and it ends abruptly. The film returns to its lectures and its romance as soon as the chase is over, as if it had forgotten what made the chase work in the first place.
The Technical Craft
The film is technically proficient. The production design is lavish, the costumes are elegant, and the lighting is moody. The performances are competent, even if they are not memorable. The score, by James Horner, is pleasant but forgettable.
None of this saves the movie. A technically proficient film can still be dull, and Meet Joe Black is dull. The problem is not the craft, but the material.
The Final Word
Meet Joe Black is a film that tries to be many things at once: a thriller, a romance, a philosophical meditation, a chase movie. It succeeds at none of them. The chase is the only moment the film feels alive, and even then it is a brief reprieve from the tedium.
The movie is also guilty of a particular sin: it takes Death, the most interesting character in mythology, and turns him into a bland young man. Death should be unsettling, mysterious, and awe-inspiring. Instead, the film makes him a friendly guide who just happens to collect souls.
The film’s defenders might argue that it is a thoughtful exploration of mortality. That is generous. It is more accurately described as a lecture on mortality, delivered by a movie that does not know how to stop talking.
- The romance between Death and Emma is underwritten and implausible
- The lectures on life and death are repetitive and hollow
- The chase through New York is the only exciting stretch
- The film is visually polished but narratively inert
Key Facts
- Title: Meet Joe Black
- Director: Martin Brest
- Release year: 1998
- Runtime: 154 minutes
- Score: 4.8 out of 10
Meet Joe Black is a movie that wastes its premise. It could have been a sharp, unsettling look at mortality, a romance with stakes, or a thrilling chase. Instead, it is a bloated, talky mess. It is the kind of film that makes you appreciate the beauty of death without ever making you afraid of it.
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