In short order, the voice materializes to the mystified William in the guise of the fellow from the coffee shop. At the same time, his young physician daughter, Susan (Claire Forlani), who is halfheartedly involved with her father’s ambitious second-in-command, Drew (Jake Weber), has a memorable chance encounter in a coffee shop with a dashing young man (Brad Pitt) who, immediately after, is hit and killed by speeding cars. With his 65th birthday fast approaching, New York media tycoon William Parrish (Anthony Hopkins) begins hearing a strange, disembodied voice, and shortly suffers a heart seizure while being spoken to so mysteriously. No matter the new film’s failings, its inventions can represent only improvements, as the Leisen picture, itself adapted from a 1920s play, now comes off as deadly dull.

Brest, who began mulling the project seriously more than 15 years ago, and his writers have taken just the central premise - of Death assuming human form for a few days to get a taste of what life is like, and falling in love along the way - and spun it in different, much more detailed ways. The uncharitable could make mileage of the issue that the film upon which “Meet Joe Black” is based, Mitchell Leisen’s 1934 Paramount release “Death Takes a Holiday,” ran just 78 minutes, except for the fact that the new picture isn’t a remake in any meaningful sense. Rarely has there been a film with so little justification for such a marathon running time much of the problem stems from the dialogue direction, which often has the actors pausing significantly for many seconds between lines. Here, he pushes his luck too far by extending a slim conceit to a full three hours.

Martin Brest skated on thin ice but got away with it, at least with moviegoers, when he stretched his last film, “Scent of a Woman,” out to 157 minutes.

Meet joe black full movie