In short: this movie is a waste of time.
First of all, I think the cast was not chosen wisely. I know that Liam Neeson is a great actor, but for some reason he fails in performing the "dark part" of the undertaker, which is the most important character in this movie (in my opinion).
While being excellent as the "normal" undertaker when interacting with relatives of the deceased, he is not able to express the feelings of his dark part. He is shouting to his dead "clients" in order to show how bad he is, but you still don't believe that he is convinced of what he is doing. It just looks like acting and this gives you a bad feeling when watching the movie.
Christina Ricci is performing excellent (yes she looks great, and there are some nude scenes), but this doesn't save the movie. Justin Long is neither excellent nor bad. Who cares... his part is not that important for the movie.
However, the cast is not the main problem, because the story is illogical as it can be. The director took it too easy with going into both directions and ignored the resulting contradictions during the final. I'm afraid, that after all the hints in the movie that were pointing in both directions, there was no room for a logical ending without removing the scenes that do not fit.
The illogical story makes this movie a complete waste of time, because there is no other interesting point in this movie but to find out, what is really happening and why the hints are going in both directions.
However in the end the director just throws away half of the hints and delivers an easy solution - too easy for serious storytelling.
First of all, I think the cast was not chosen wisely. I know that Liam Neeson is a great actor, but for some reason he fails in performing the "dark part" of the undertaker, which is the most important character in this movie (in my opinion).
While being excellent as the "normal" undertaker when interacting with relatives of the deceased, he is not able to express the feelings of his dark part. He is shouting to his dead "clients" in order to show how bad he is, but you still don't believe that he is convinced of what he is doing. It just looks like acting and this gives you a bad feeling when watching the movie.
Christina Ricci is performing excellent (yes she looks great, and there are some nude scenes), but this doesn't save the movie. Justin Long is neither excellent nor bad. Who cares... his part is not that important for the movie.
However, the cast is not the main problem, because the story is illogical as it can be. The director took it too easy with going into both directions and ignored the resulting contradictions during the final. I'm afraid, that after all the hints in the movie that were pointing in both directions, there was no room for a logical ending without removing the scenes that do not fit.
The illogical story makes this movie a complete waste of time, because there is no other interesting point in this movie but to find out, what is really happening and why the hints are going in both directions.
However in the end the director just throws away half of the hints and delivers an easy solution - too easy for serious storytelling.