Rated on a 4-star scale
Screening venue: Odeon (Manchester City Centre)
Released in the UK by Fox on November 10, 2000; certificate 12; 93 minutes;
country of origin USA; aspect ratio 2.35:1
Directed by Harold Ramis; produced by
Trevor Albert, Harold Ramis.
Written by Larry Gelbart, Harold Ramis, Peter Tolan.
Photographed by Bill Pope; edited by Craig P.
Herring.
CAST.....
Brendan Fraser..... Elliot Richards
Elizabeth Hurley..... The Devil
Frances O'Connor..... Alison Gardner
Miriam Shor..... Carol/Penthouse hostess
Gabriel Casseus..... Elliot's cellmate
"Bedazzled" is neither bad nor good; it's one of those movies you can sit and watch without getting fed up or impressed. Occasionally you laugh, more often you sit musing on the flaws. You walk out wanting to say that it's crap, even though you haven't been bored. Dontcha just hate it when that happens?
The movie is a remake of a 1967 picture starring Dudley Moore and Peter Cook, of which I have such little memory it's hardly worth mentioning. Brendan Fraser stars as Elliot Richards, a geek who talks in hyperactively forced slang to his co-workers in embarrassing attempts to ingratiate himself, throws up high-fives to blank stares and gets left behind when colleagues meet up in the local tavern. He has a crush on a girl named Alison (Frances O'Connor), a beauty who doesn't know he exists… but that could change, says a woman played by Elizabeth Hurley, if only he offers to make a little deal…
She's the Devil, you understand; "Satan, the Prince of Darkness, whatever you want to call me, with offices in Hell, Purgatory and Los Angeles." That's one of the film's better lines, although it doesn't get a laugh, because Hurley delivers it pretty badly. Fraser is quite appalling in these early stretches of the picture, too; he waddles around wearing a sheepish grin and talking in dopey, muffled tones -- he's a good actor, but everyone looks stupid when straining. I was reminded of Jason Biggs in the recent rom-com "Loser". The filmmakers could have portrayed this guy as a doofus without having him wear his nametag in a bar, without showing him carry around detailed pictures of his stereo equipment, and without having him hated by absolutely everyone he knows. Subtlety is effective, guys.
It's also kind of implausible that a sweet, intelligent guy -- which Elliot is in many scenes -- would be so unthinking as to sell his soul to the Devil. But no matter. The purpose of the plot is just to show us Elliot's seven wishes. It's an excuse for the movie to break down into a series of grand comic set pieces, whereby the Devil malevolently screws things up by realising Elliot's dreams with twisted interpretations.
Is this entertaining? Sometimes. When Elliot asks to be rich and powerful, the Devil turns him into a Columbian drug dealer. Great challenges are presented to the actors in this stretch; Fraser and the other performers are required to speak in Spanish, and accomplish the hard task of making us laugh at screwball comedy, as things go wildly out of control. This part of the picture is masterful; if all of "Bedazzled" had the same guts or imagination, it would be a great movie.
There is another good sketch, when Elliot asks to become a professional basketball player, and the Devil turns him into an inarticulate hick with a tiny penis. He gets interviewed, talks about "Giving a hundred and ten percent!" and how "It's a total team effort!", in a surprisingly effective send-up of sportsmen's clichés. Other moments don't quite hit the mark: Elliot asks to be sensitive, and he turns into an exaggeratedly awkward poetic teenager in a scene so obvious it belongs in a sitcom; he asks to become U.S. President and turns into Abraham Lincoln on the night of his assassination -- a set-up that can't help but be predictable, so why bother?
Fraser is a charming hero when the screenplay refrains from making Elliot a total bumbling moron; he's sympathetically bemused, occasionally reacting to the Devil's insanity with comebacks such as "I'm glad Scientology works for you, but I've got my own thing!" Hurley never really gets into her role; she's stilted and restrained when her delivery should be anarchic, free-flowing and playful. "I think you're hot," says Fraser. "You have no idea…" she replies, and we respect the wit of the line, but don't cackle, because Hurley lets us see the joins.
I dunno. It's watchable. It's certainly better than the one about the dyslexic devil-worshipper. You know that joke, right? He sold his soul to… okay, okay, you know it.
COPYRIGHT© 2000 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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