Review

Review Date: 26-June-05
Spoiler Rating: Low
Juju Judgment: Just OK

Bewitched (2005)

Now and then I trot off to the cinema hoping to catch something awful that I can lambaste roundly and thereby work out some of my frustrations. "Bewitched," that TV show rehash-cum-Will Ferrell yukfest, was slated to be my punching bag for summer '05, but it's just not bad enough to serve that purpose. In fact, it has only intermittent groans, recurrent chuckles, and a soundtrack that includes "Escape: The Piña Colada Song," so what's a frustrated critic to do? Sure, it feels more like a rental than a matinee, but "Bewitched" should please viewers looking for a few laughs, a light romance, and a bit of pop culture nostalgia.

To put it in other not-especially-glowing terms, "Bewitched" is better than "Practical Magic" (1998), the last movie in which Nicole Kidman stirred eye of newt into a cauldron. Here, she plays perky, cute-sweatered Isabel Bigelow, a pampered innocent who wishes to swap the omnipotence of the magical world for the challenges of a normal human life. Working off a rather skewed version of "normal," she sets up house in Beverly Hills (or thereabouts) and is immediately tapped by an actor named Jack Wyatt to play Samantha in a remake of "Bewitched." The joke is, of course, that she really is a witch and really does want to settle down into sitcomy domestic happiness with a doofus for a husband.

The casting of Ferrell ensures that Jack is indeed a colossal doofus, and this sets up a quandary that the script (by director Nora Ephron and her sister Delia) doesn't resolve to satisfaction. On the one hand, he's a movie star whose career has crashed and burned (his last picture is the only DVD that no one ever bought), which brings out the worst of his self-absorbed insecurity. On the other hand, he's supposed to be suitable for romance as well as slapstick, which necessitates appearances by his obnoxious agent (Jason Schwartzman) and estranged harpy wife to make him look good by comparison. Isabel might get turned on by Jack's being a mess, but to a viewer his combination of fathead and kiss-worthy frog seems more ludicrous than lovable. Still, Ferrell does own most of the funnier moments (like when he's enchanted into giving absurd line readings), and he manages to work up a bit of charm in a cast that's generally wasted (like Shirley MacLaine), ghastly (like Steve Carell impersonating Paul Lynde), or nondescript (in standard romantic comedy fashion).

Kind of like Jack's career, "Bewitched" nosedives after putting together a string of agreeable scenes as it lurches toward the inevitable happy ending. This is not great entertainment nor a particularly clever way to reimagine a television classic. It is, however, the quieter counterpart of the dumb summer action film, a tribute to the idiot box with a modest helping of sweetness and fun.

Copyright © 2005 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.