And yet more Albert Brooks completism. And once again he wrote, directed and starred. He put a few things he learnt from doing James L. Brooks's Broadcast News to work here, for instance by casting a strong female co-lead (here Meryl Streep) and getting her to laugh at all his jokes. Unfortunately he was funnier there and once again we get little sense of why his leading lady finds him irresistible. (In contrast Holly Hunter made it clear why she found him very resistible.)
The premise is that we really are on the karmic wheel but it's not about desire and ignorance but optimising the universe's machinery for bravery. This makes little sense as the permanent residents of Judgement City are more interested in how much of their brains they can make use of. Things start out a bit open ended but the format demands a rigidly adversarial courtroom and so we get Rip Torn hamming it up as Brooks's defender against Lee Grant's prosecutor. Nothing is made of the post-death romance between Brooks and Streep; it and all the other generally rich conceits lead nowhere.
Roger Ebert: three-and-a-half stars. Janet Maslin. That was Shirley MacLaine hosting the Past Lives Pavilion.