Bewitched (2005)

Short: A washed up actor, Jack Wyatt (Will Ferrell) gets a second chance with a television remake of the sixties sitcom, Bewitched. Thinking it will make him look better, Jack pushes for the show to be centered around Darren and casts unknown Isabel Bigelow (Nicole Kidman) as witch-married -to-mortal Samantha. Also unknown to Jack is the fact that Isabel is a real witch.

April is stuck once again in a bit of a crappy movie rut. Life's just tough like that sometimes. Especially when you consider the fact that I do nothing five days a week, you would think I could just get out of it. But it's never that simple, is it?

Also, in my defense, 2005 is no 2004. By the end of June last year, I had reviewed six films that I had seen in theatres, four of which I thought were pretty good. Now I only think two were good, but that's hardly the point. This year, five movies in the same time period, two of which were good. They'll still be good by this time next year, though.

I have a million things to say about this movie, but none are all that flattering. I'll try to keep most of them to myself.

The impeccably coifed and clad Kidman proved her self a sharp comedienne in Moulin Rouge, but Nora Ephron (director and co-writer) wastes those talents. Kidman isn't even playing a character in this movie - she's playing a mix-match of an actual 60s TV housewife and Meg Ryan in earlier, more enjoyable Nora Ephron comedies. What gives? Kidman throws herself fearlessly into her other screen roles, but I don't know what she was thinking here.

Ferrell, and I don't want to give away too much about myself here, can pull laughs out of thin air, but even he can't save this disaster.

The problem you may wonder? Well, it's a pretty cute premise. It it holds water for the first act. The further you get into the movie, though, the worse it gets. Why, oh why, oh why, has Ephron and her sister Delia written a heroine who is so ridiculous? Why in the world does Isabel want to be with this man? Why is she a throw back to pre-Second Wave 1950s housewives? I found myself looking around at all the younger girls than I there and praying that they never look to Kidman as a role model because of this film.

And then they had the fantastic Shirley MacLaine as Iris/Endora resort to magic to hold onto the womanizing Michael Caine. Don't you see, ladies? Men are evil pigs, so the best you can do is hope to manipulate them through deception!

Don't get me wrong, I still laughed. Emily and I laughed a fair deal more than everyone else there. I was in hysterics when Jack was interviewed by James Lipton as a nod to Ferrell's hilarious James Lipton impersonation from SNL.

Even so, the film fell flat and nothing could be done to revive it. So it goes. C-

There was one redeeming factor, though. I got the see the Rent trailer before the movie. That's right, my friends, the trailer. Get excited. Get very, very excited.