BEWITCHED (2005) ** It's good and appropriate that instead of making a straight remake of the greatest show in television history, they make a film about people screwing up such an effort. That's the only major thing they do right. Where Elizabeth Montgomery's character was strong, and she was enchanting; Nicole Kidman's character is ditzy, and she's irritating. If you still want to claim that she's a good actress, well maybe: I know she tried hard to attain this substrata of ditzy, but could she possibly have been trying for irritating? Would that be something that a good actress would even consider? I think not. Still, she's not as awful as Will Ferrell. Where the original Darins were slightly daft but more than that inconsequential, Will's portrayal of the actor who wants to portray them is..well, lots of things, all of them playing off of precisely nauseating. In fact the entire interaction between the two is more like watching two idiots fall in love than anything else, except that it lacks any charm and most of the entertainment value. Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine are fun in secondary roles, but not nearly enough to pull the rest of it out. The best parts of the film are unquestionably when they throw in cuts of the original. It's not a terrible film and I expected to hate it, which I don't. On the other hand, if the Pope wants to keep running around identifying new sins-and I know he does-he should add associating anything like this with the glory that was "Bewitched" to the list.
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