On Bewitched

2005-07-10

My friend Marlene and I decided to watch the Wil Smith movie ?Hitch?. The previews included the new movie Bewitched. That looked like it might be better so we went to catch a matinee.

The movie I?m talking about is a take-off of the old television series of the same name. In this film, some people are remaking the original series and the person cast in the role of ?Samantha?, the witch in the series, turns out to be a real witch who is trying to live a normal, human life. I won?t tell more of the plot in case you plan on seeing it.

The story is pretty good. The support actors do a good job, though they could have been used to greater effect. Nicole Kidman does a spectacular job as the witch who gets cast as a witch. She acts the part well and brings depth to the movie. That leaves the matter of Will Ferrell.

I?ve only ever seen Ferrell play one character, the moron. No matter what movie or old Saturday Night Live skit he?s done, the character has always been the same dopey, emotionally immature, idiot. This film is no exception. Ferrell?s character is an idiot.

In the original series, humor came from the fact that a normal, rational, intelligent man married a witch and was suddenly thrust into outrageous situations. It?s a common feature in humor that the absurd is funny only in juxtaposition with seriousness. If you ever watch the old Monty Python material, you will see their oddness set next to seriousness produces laughs. In this movie, the irony of a real witch being cast as a witch lost out because it was set against the inane behavior of Ferrell.

We weren?t quite twenty minutes into the movie when Marlene declared the film boring. I was a little more forgiving, very little.

Don?t get me wrong, this flick is worth seeing? on video. If you?re a fan of the TV show, it?ll be good for nostalgia reasons. It?s all very sad. If they had just cast an actor to play Ferrell?s part, it would have been a really good movie.