Review of The Stepford Wives (2004) by Sheridan P — 26 Aug 2014

I honestly don't know what to say about this movie. I've seen the original, but in all honesty, that one didn't sit well with me either. I don't know, the premise is good for a horror 'what if' type flick like the purge, but as a comedy? I'm sorry, but no.

Just no. I can't think of one joke in this movie that worked. That earns it a failing grade right there. You tried to make a comedy and you failed. The end. Even if you ignore that it fails in the drama category too, as well as the mystery category.

It fails in every genre it tried to squeeze itself into, and it didn't even get to be the type 'it's so bad it's good' movie either. Even the acting is sub par. Kidman acts like she's choking and gagging on every word of dialogue throughout the film, Broderick is his normal bland self (he looks more like the robots than the actual robots do half the time), Midler's obvious fake smiles make her look like her face will break any minute, and Close constantly looked like she was trying to resist the urge to strangle everyone around in her in every scene she was in.

Her face constantly had this strained look, like she was desperately trying to hold back screaming and tearing her hair out of her head. I refuse to believe that her anger in her last few scenes was acting; I'm betting she was just using her pent up rage at the piece of crap she was working in.

Even Walken looked like he wasn't feeling it, how does that happen?! And let's not forget the not-even-remotely-funny sexist and misogynistic tones of the movie. After hearing some of the crap the men and women are forced to say throughout this movie I'm terrified of the people who would laugh at those 'jokes'.

No, none of that is funny, it's still degrading no matter how many times you make your actors chuckle (yes, the movie is so desperate to get a laugh, they actually had the cast chuckle at their own 'jokes' half the time to try and get the laughter going).

What even makes it worse is that this is from the man who has given us so many wonderful children's programming and movies. I can't believe a man who's worked on Sesame Street and the like could actually think that this was a good idea.

Of course, I'm betting it's not all his fault, but a part of the blame does rest with him. Sad. Next time I'm given the opportunity to see this movie, I'm running away from this plot-holed, contrived, misogynistic, piece of boredom at lightening speed.