PLOT: A witch wants to live like a normal person and winds up becoming an actress and starring in a contemporary remake of an old TV series called Bewitched. You say postmodern, we say narcissistic bloody nonsense.
If you could harness all the self-congratulatory crap that flows out of Hollywood, you'd come up with something like Bewitched. Something exactly like Bewitched.
A bad film based on a childish TV show, Bewitched has some pretty moments involving Nicole Kidman and the magic she can do, and then it has oodles and oodles of nothing else at all.
Kidman plays a witch named Isabel, a witch who longs to lead a normal life and fall in love with a mortal. She vows never to use her witch tricks again, but from time to time she just can't help herself -- when figuring out the VCR and television, for example. So cute.
Isabel's father (Michael Caine) begs her not to give up witchery, but she doesn't listen. Instead, she gets discovered and cast in a remake of an old TV show called Bewitched. And she falls in love with the lead, a self-centred nincompoop played by Will Ferrell. You probably won't believe this, but the role requires Ferrell to squinch up his face and look stupid and do pratfalls over furniture.
What will they think of next?
After what feels like a very, very long time, and specifically one of those very, very long times punctuated by obvious music that's never loud enough to stop you from wondering if there ever was a script in the first place, the heroine admits she's a witch. The hero runs off screaming. It takes another interminable hunk of time before they end up happily ever after.
Before we go any further, let us remember that the filmmaker, Nora Ephron, is responsible for such movies as Sleepless In Seattle and You've Got Mail, so this is not the first time she has put together a romantic comedy involving fairly repellent leads and no laughs.
The beginning of Bewitched involves a lot of actor jokes, and it's attractive, suggesting as it does the parallels between witchcraft and Hollywood fame. After that, however, the story has nowhere to go.
Kidman learns that speaking up for oneself has results almost as magical as witchcraft. Girls, don't be doormats! There. You just saved $10.
Bewitched includes a cameo from Shirley MacLaine and a hideous turn from Steve Carell doing some sort of Paul Lynde impersonation as Uncle Arthur.
You've been warned.
(This film is rated PG)
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