Just Like Heaven
Metascore
47 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 31 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 31
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 31
  3. Negative: 9 out of 31
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  1. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    88
    Just Like Heaven isn't far short of a classic among romantic comedies with a teary chaser, sure to please fans of "Ghost" and "Heaven Can Wait."
  2. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    75
    Yes. The movie works, and so we accept everything.
  3. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Angel Cohn
    75
    Works because of the utterly charming leads and a strong supporting cast.
  4. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Sheri Linden
    70
    Crossing the life-death divide, Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo are a winning pair in this smart and tender comedy.
  5. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marc Savlov
    67
    There's a manipulative streak to the proceedings, and you'd have to be stone cold dead not to grasp the inevitable outcome long before the third act, but it's a professionally handled sort of emotional manipulation common to its genre, dating back to "Blithe Spirit" and, somewhat less memorably, "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir."
  6. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    67
    That Just Like Heaven succeeds at all - at least for teenage girls with limited interest in the drafting of living wills - is due entirely to Witherspoon's can-do charisma.
  7. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Connie Ogle
    63
    The film, which comes way too close to preaching, lurches away from the control of director Mark Waters (Mean Girls, Freaky Friday) and ends on a stretched-out note so sappy it makes "Must Love Dogs" look like "8 Mile."
  8. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Mike Clark
    63
    Garnering a chuckle or two, but no more, are Donal Logue from "The Tao of Steve" (now there's a comedy) -- and, as a desperate magnet for both the slacker and "dude" demographics, Jon Heder from Napoleon Dynamite.
  9. Premiere
    Reviewed by: Peter Debruge
    63
    Belongs to the same class of cotton-candy romances as "Chances Are" and "Somewhere in Time," although it steers its light-hearted subject into darker territory with the life support subplot.
  10. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Michael Sragow
    63
    Sadly, most of the fun and all the magic derive from the location. The most enthralling fantasy of Just Like Heaven is that an unemployed landscape architect and a fledgling doctor can afford a sprawling apartment with a rooftop view in San Francisco.
  11. Empire
    Reviewed by: Jo Berry
    60
    A sweet but predictable chick flick, this coasts by on the considerable charm of its two leads.
  12. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Dana Stevens
    60
    It's not heaven, exactly, but after the purgatory of the late summer movie season, it may be close enough.
  13. Variety
    Reviewed by: Brian Lowry
    60
    As uneven as the topography of its San Francisco locales, but the amiable peaks mostly offset the flat stretches and valleys. A variation on a very old meet-cute theme with a touch of otherworldly romance.
  14. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: William Arnold
    58
    A forgettable, patched-together clone of other ghostly romances.
  15. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Ruthe Stein
    50
    The last half is so superior to the first that you wish they'd rethought the whole thing and devised a way to make it more of a one piece.
  16. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: M. E. Russell
    50
    The leads are just too good to commit fully to something this baldly formulaic. It's sad.
  17. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    50
    Part of the problem is Mark Ruffalo, whose tortured sensitivity in "You Can Count On Me" and "We Don't Live Here Anymore" made him seem like Marlon Brando's heir apparent, not Will Smith's.
  18. Dallas Observer
    Reviewed by: Luke Y. Thompson
    50
    Unfortunately, the movie fails to fully make sense, which may be because it's based on a French novel (If Only It Were True by Marc Levy).
  19. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Thomas
    50
    There are moments when it is possible, with effort, to forget the plot and its tired premise and enjoy Witherspoon and Ruffalo's chemistry and imagine they are in another movie. But never for long.
  20. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: J.R. Jones
    50
    As a movie genre, the ghostly romantic comedy dates back at least as far as "Topper" (1937), and the stale premise, combined with the leads' typecasting, makes for an eminently forgettable date movie.
  21. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Scott Foundas
    40
    The usually zippy and subversive director Mark Waters (Freaky Friday, Mean Girls) plays things straight and suffocatingly sentimental - which actually makes the whole movie seem that much creepier.
  22. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Joshua Land
    40
    Witherspoon's oft charming perkiness is merely patronizing here, but mid-'90s MTV staple Donal Logue steals every scene he's in as an ethically challenged therapist.
  23. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Allison Benedikt
    38
    A huge waste of talent (Witherspoon's) and time (ours), a supernatural romantic comedy that is neither romantic, comedic, super or natural.
  24. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jami Bernard
    38
    The problem comes when the movie turns into a tedious, faith-based diatribe against medical science.
  25. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Carrie Rickey
    38
    A groaningly awful romantic comedy.
  26. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    38
    Just Like Heaven suggests that a post-coma Elizabeth might understand what life is truly all about. Of course, if being alive means having to live in this movie, maybe she was better off the way she was.
  27. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    38
    The movie starts cheating the audience early, and never lets up.
  28. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Pete Vonder Haar
    30
    You won’t want to sit through.
  29. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Zacharek
    30
    It's desperately lifeless.
  30. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Ann Hornaday
    30
    Outlandish, uneven, preposterous and often maddeningly morbid.
  31. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Stephen Cole
    25
    Sounds promising. What a disappointment then to report that Just Like Heaven is more like purgatory, a sweating, straining attempt to marry the wisecracking fury of the modern sitcom to the classic Rock-Doris, Cary-Kate romantic comedy.

User Reviews

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User Score
7.4 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 35 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 13
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 13
  3. Negative: 2 out of 13
  1. [Anonymous]
    10
    this movie was an awsome and inspiaring lovable and laghabull movie.i really love it and i even bought it.
  2. MiaS.
    9
    A truly enjoyable film. Yes, it pleases me to no end to see Reese WItherspoon comatose in her hospital bed after all the Blonde thing, or Mark Ruffalo clothed in bed after 'In The Cut', but forget chemistry, or believable sub plots or background, and chances are you'll be bawling your eyes out 90 minutes into the film. Both of them are wonderful actors and having seen all of Mark Ruffalo's films, this is probably one where he appears effortlessly hearbroken without having to crease his brow.… Full Review »
  3. Malachi
    8
    Way more than I was expecting out of a modern-day romantic comedy. I was laughing most of the way through because everyone thought Mark Ruffalo's character was talking to himself. Definitely an interesting twist on a love story.… Full Review »
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