Over Your Dead Body is, at first glance, what you’ve maybe come to expect from most action comedies since 87North’s rise post the Bullet Train’s and The Fall Guy’s of the world, but its conception and tonal play represent something far more interesting upon closer look. Jorma Taccone’s (of Lonely Island fame) latest is an American remake of Tommy Wirkola’s The Trip and is essentially a cross between fast and loose comedic punchlines, over-the-top bloody action, and small touches of character drama between our two leads and their central conflict.
What’s more shocking than anything is that Over Your Dead Body’s more serious beats tend to give better with its clever riff on relationships, as the film’s biggest issues tend to grow when its running gags and darker narrative turns in its second act don’t land as well as when it first starts. Luckily, both Samara Weaving and Jason Segel completely understand the assignment and are able to surf Taccone’s tonal wavelengths, making Over Your Dead Body a fun cross of absurdist comedy and surprisingly sweet romantic comedy, even when its tonal inflections grow more shaky when the film starts to outstay its welcome.
We follow Dan (Segel), a down-on-his-luck film director having to settle for commercial ad gigs, and Lisa (Weaving), a working actress in the theater space. The married couple is planning a trip to a cabin owned by Dan’s dad (Paul Guilfoyle), but it’s clear from their drive to the destination that the two aren’t exactly in the best place, constantly bickering over the most minuscule of things. Their quarrels have gotten so bad, in fact, that it turns out Dan has ulterior motives for their little vacay as he has meticulously planned how to silently dispose of his wife without anyone being the wiser.
Just when he’s about to execute on his plan, however, it turns out Lisa also had a similar scheme to kill Dan, and after she tazes him, flashbacks reveal a plan of her own, leading to an all out war between the two in terms of verbal insult word play of why they fell out of love and multiple knockouts and attempted executions.
Things take an even bigger turn in the narrative when it’s revealed that two escaped jailbirds, Pete (Timothy Olyphant) and Todd (Keith Jardine), alongside a police guard who assisted them (Juliette Lewis), have been stowing away in the attic of the cabin. When the trio threatens to kill both Lisa and Dan unless they give them money, the two previous rivals must work together and maybe find that they aren’t so terrible together as they once thought.
It would be best to describe Over Your Dead Body as the type of film that restarts its momentum over and over again, introducing new layers to its insane events between characters through multiple flashbacks, and it starts quite effectively in its format before losing its edge when it piles more on top of itself. The snappy rhythm of Taccone’s running gags and comedy works best when we’re entirely focused on Lisa and Dan’s misgivings. There’s a crackling sensation to the dialogue between Weaving and Segel, acting as perfect solar opposites between Lisa’s more fiery personality and Dan’s wimpy-willed nature, making a great catalyst for the driving force of the film and its emotional core as it reveals itself further on in the narrative.
The film starts to grow a tad more tiresome when the criminal characters are introduced alongside the movie’s more action/thriller oriented back half, not because they don’t also have their own funny bits—Olyphant and Lewis’ couple dynamic is fun to watch unfold—but it’s where the tonal balance in Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney’s screenplay becomes much more wobbly. Jokes feel far more overlong in nature; it’s where the crossing of genres is more at odds with each other, rather than fully meshing together, and there’s one specifically out of place joke involving sexual assault within this section of the film that almost kills the momentum entirely.
Luckily, the growing problems never end up as an ultimate dealbreaker since nearly every performer is game here and makes the movies a rapid-fire comedy delight throughout most of its runtime, even amidst more questionable jumps in genre or tone. It only helps that the bloody explosions and gunshots and knife stabbings here are solidly executed as the movie moves along, with the insanely gruesome gore matching well with the off-kilter humor that Taccone works through in his direction.
Over Your Dead Body loses a bit of the crackling spark that it starts with when it struggles to carry its constantly shifting story, but it’s still a smartly fun action comedy thanks to the central performances of Segel and Weaving and the nicely poignant theming that matches well with the Lonely Island sense of humor in most instances. With witty dialogue and spectacularly cartoonish bloody action to match, Over Your Dead Body is a somewhat off-balance but funny enough dissection of this martial relationship.
Over Your Dead Body will debut exclusively in theaters on April 24, 2026, courtesy of Independent Film Company.
Over Your Dead Body loses a bit of the crackling spark that it starts with when it struggles to carry its constantly shifting story, but it’s still a smartly fun action comedy thanks to the central performances of Segel and Weaving and the nicely poignant theming that matches well with the Lonely Island sense of humor in most instances.
Lover of film writing about film. Member of the Dallas Fort-Worth Critics Association. The more time passes, the more the medium of movies has become deeply intertwined with who I am.
