VeteranLight
I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.
Afouotos
Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.
Billy Ollie
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
Gordon-11
This film tells the story of a private detective who enlists the help of a hypnotist to help a woman who suffers from amnesia.The title "Dead Again" gives the plot away a bit, but there is still a lot of suspense and thrill in the plot. Emma Thompson is great as an amnesic woman, she looks genuinely distressed by her amnesia, while looking completely different when under hypnosis. It is a little confusing to have Emma Thompson in both the past and the present. The presence of Robin Williams is a nice surprise, and reminds me of the other film "Shrink" in which he also plays a psychiatrist. The ending has another twist which is unpredictable, and keeps the film entertaining.
Lechuguilla
In this splendid psychological thriller, a murder from the past haunts a present day woman named Grace, wonderfully played by Emma Thompson. And a cocky private detective named Mike Church (Kenneth Branagh) tries to help her make sense of her personal nightmare. It's a murder mystery with twists within twists overlain with a Gothic, operatic tone.Set in Los Angeles, the clever script weaves two separate stories, one from the late 1940s, shown in B&W, and the other from the current day, shown in color. This alternating B&W and color keeps the two strands separate and therefore easy to follow. The film opens with tantalizing newspaper accounts of a 1949 murder; the victim; the probable killer (an opera composer), and related headlines such as "Alibi Questioned", "Composer's Prints Found On Scissors", "Housekeeper Testifies", and so on.Most scenes are jam-packed with information, including exposition and character traits. Clues to the murder are wonderfully subtle. A pair of sharp scissors figures into the outcome. The 1940s segment contains a melodramatic costume party. Humor augments the serious subject matter. The plot is so dense that it can be a tad confusing, which is my only real complaint. Owing to the story's complexity, the ending goes on for some 24 minutes.Visuals are terrific. I especially liked the B&W segments, slightly grainy with noir overhead and side lighting. Prod design and costumes in both periods are elaborate, detailed, and highly believable.Casting is fine, overall; Robin Williams is perfectly cast. Acting ranges from very good to outstanding. Actor Derek Jacobi does a great job as a light, campy hypnotist with a penchant for finding cheap antiques. Consistent with the operatic theme, the music is mostly melodramatic and serious which compounds the story's Gothic intensity.The viewer needs to pay attention, else be lost in confusion. The underlying puzzle can be solved but the solution surprised me. Except for a bit too much complexity, this is a wonderful film. I plan to watch it again.
preppy-3
Rough California detective Mike Church (Kenneth Branagh) takes on the case of a mysterious woman (then wife Emma Thompson) who can't seem to remember who she is. With the help of a doctor (Derek Jacobi) she comes to realize she might be the reincarnation of Margaret Strauss (also Thompson) who was supposedly murdered by her husband (Branagh) back in 1949. As she starts remembering more it seems someone is setting out to kill her--but who and why.Intriguing mystery/thriller with supernatural touches. The script is good and the story has many twists and turns. They do give you clues to who is doing it along the way so you might be able to figure it out. However I couldn't when I first saw it in 1991 and loved it. I STILL love it even though I knew how it was going to end. The acting is great. Branagh (who also directed) completely buries his Irish accent and is lots of fun. Thompson is just fantastic in her role. They were also great in the flashback sequences which are in gorgeous black and white. Jacobi is good too and having fun in his role. Also in small roles are Campbell Scott (blue eyes blazing) and Robin Williams in a rare dramatic role. A fun, intricate movie well worth catching. I give it an 8.
Robert J. Maxwell
Well, I guess it's not really "karmic" revenge. It's just plain revenge behind the murder.Whoever wrote this piece of confusing comic/mystery/melodrama was channeling Madame Blavatsky, who apparently emerges from time to time from behind the veil of Isis.There was a scissors murder in 1948. A composer (Branagh) was executed for the murder of his wife (Thompson). Somehow, a reporter (Garcia) seems to have been involved but he's just a red herring. Forget him.Anyway, it's now forty years later, 1988 that is, and Emma Thompson is an amnesiac taken in by Branagh because she has no identity and nowhere to go. A hypnotist and antique dealer insinuates his way into the relationship that, as the sophisticated viewer will have already guessed, has turned physically demonstrative. The hypnotist age regresses Thompson and she begins reliving the 1948 case in which she was the victim.Branagh, a fundamentally decent guy, consults Robin Williams, an ex shrink who now runs a Carniceria. (This is Los Angeles.) Williams explains all about karma to Branagh and advises him to kill Thompson before she kills him. The two are reliving the 1948 murder only the genders are reversed.But Williams is a red herring too. The whole business about karma is a red herring. And at the end, when the villain tries to murder Thompson with a pair of antique scissors -- hint, hint -- that's a lot of baloney too because Thompson has no connection with the earlier murder, as far as it's possible to tell. She just happens to be a lady who lost her memory and came up with these weird stories under hypnosis.What a fine cast. Kenneth Branagh looks young and innocent but isn't really convincing in this relatively light part. I haven't seen his renditions of Shakespeare. Emma Thompson is a splendid actress and looks very appealing without being in the least sultry and certainly not Hollywood gorgeous. She has the open, wide-eyed, innocent features of a loving pet dog, some kind of miniature. Not a poodle, though. More like a happy-go-lucky terrier, one of those pets that's always wagging its tail and has its tongue hanging out of its mouth, maybe poised and hoping you'll toss a tennis ball. Andy Garcia has sleek features, is an underused performer, and should choose his parts more carefully. All of them live in those pretentious mansions of Southern California except for Jacobi and his dear mother, who are consigned to one of those cluttered little spaces out of Dickens' "The Old Curiosity Shop." If anyone can make sense out of this underlighted mish mosh, will he please let me know? I need some hints too, you know.
