It is an unusual week when you can see two films with the word Just in the title. Just is such a wishy washy word, when used in its non-justice sense (and even then it is usually used wishy-washy people). Even Dictionary.Com when presented with this rubbish word offers up this page with Joust coming first instead, as it is more exciting.
So we start with Just Like Heaven which is Just Like Ghost except for a major plot twist. Actually it is a lot less sappy than Ghost and (dread phrase coming up) is rather sweet if you like this kind of thing*. It has lots of complicated ghost rules which it makes up itself, but is short and to the point. Its point however is that the dead girl is more alive than the living guy – which is clearly not true. The alive guy may be moping around the house, sad since the death of his wife, but he can pick stuff up, and breathe which is more than Witherspoon can do. It is notable for introducing the key motif of the Just films, namely blokes who are offered sex and turn it down.
In Just Friends this is because lead actor Ryan “Blade III” Reynolds is scared it will spoil his friendship with Any “The Butterfly Effect” Smart. He is also being stalked by Anna “Scary Movie III” Farris whilst avoiding his mother Julie “Airplane” Hagerty. Chris “American Pie” Klein is in there too, which is the key point, as this is clearly trying to be a new AP. It rocks up much nearer There’s Something About Mary (basically half-inching its plot) and what it lacks in sophistication it makes up in hurting small children jokes. There are not enough hurting small children jokes however to make it stand out. And oddly Ryan Reynolds fat suit for the first ten minutes seems to haunt him for the rest of the film as he still looks fat. Notable only really for how much it ignores the fact that people age between sixteen and twenty six.
The moral. Films with Just in the title are under-ambitious crowd pleasers, not bad but never great.
*For my sins I do.