Review of Bedazzled (2000) by Sma A — 23 Aug 2012

I kind of like the premise here. Usually movies are bound by their basic settings. If the movie starts with certain characters and tones, chances are that those basic building blocks will not change all that much throughout the course of the movie. Which is why I love adventure films so much as they're usually full of exotic locations, ever-changing situations and there's always something new to marvel at.

The same principle applies here. The seven wishes granted to Elliot (Brendan Fraser) allow him to go through many different scenarios and locations, from Columbia to the 19th century America. The problem is that some of these scenarios brought by the wishes are not that creative and usually depend on a singular joke to be made. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. The first few wishes and the various problems that occur are pretty funny to follow and I found myself chuckling from time to time, but the novelty wears off pretty quickly. The scenarios don't repeat themselves that much, but when you know that Elliot still has wishes left to be used, you can pretty much expect that something will go wrong with the first six, which kills the excitement. All that is left is the wonderment of how the Devil (Elizabeth Hurley) will screw up this particular wish for Elliot. Though admittedly the last few wishes manage to dust off the formula to a certain degree, but I still feel that the writers could have been a bit more creative. Of course this is a remake, but they already changed some things, like the gender of the Devil, so why not go a bit further.

On the technical side of things, the three main actors (Fraser, Hurley and O'Connor) play their roles pretty convincingly and I enjoyed their performances. They weren't anything spectacular, but the comedic timing was there and I especially enjoyed Hurley's portrayal of the Devil as a vindictive, petty and mean-spirited, yet surprisingly sympathetic character. She was evil, sure, but the malice just wasn't there. It's her job to be evil, so she is. Strange take on the classic character, but for the purposes of the film, it actually worked quite well.

Final thoughts: I cannot really find it in me to call this movie bad, though the rating I'll give it is quite low, mainly because it's just so cheesy and doesn't really explore its possibilities. It's still enjoyable if all you're looking for are some cheap laughs and a way to spend an hour and a half.