Bedazzled

BEDAZZLED

Rating: B-
Brendan Fraser plays a lonely telephone tech support jockey whose life is in the stalled mode. Not only do his co-workers loathe him, but the girl he's had his eye on (Frances O'Connor, completely wasted in the role) doesn't know he exists. No sooner have the words "I'd do anything to make her love me" escaped his lips one night in a bar, than up pops the devil in the form of Elizabeth Hurley to take him up on his offer. She coerces him to sign over his soul in exchange for granting him seven wishes.

The original Bedazzled came out in 1967, with Peter Cook (who also wrote the script) in the luciferian role and Dudley Moore as the lonesome loser. Frankly, the original was better. For one thing, Moore is much more believable in the guise of a sad sack than Fraser is, and when the wishes inevitably go wrong (as they always do), Moore's downtrodden persona makes the events more comical. The new film changes the substance of the wishes, and why they fail miserably, but in almost every case the original's were more clever. Another element in the film is the pranks the devil is shown playing as he or she converses with the hero. Hurley issuing bogus parking tickets doesn't have nearly the humorous impact as Cook releasing bees on unsuspecting picnickers and crossing phone lines with embarrassing results for the callers.

How funny you think this film is will depend largely on how funny you find the ordeals Fraser encounters with each of his wishes. Unfortunately, director Harold Ramis doesn't have a good instinct for separating the witty from the tedious. In one wish, Frazer and all those around him speak Spanish. This is basically good for a single laugh, and then the rest of the skit becomes boring as we're left reading subtitles for its remainder. I have no problem with subtitles in foreign films, but here they seemed so... unnecessary. It simply isn't as funny when you're reading the jokes instead of hearing them. In another wish, Fraser is a basketball player who towers over everyone. Obviously, this necessitates a considerable helping of visual effects, and the resulting scenes and camera angles are so static and confined that the whole thing just descends into tedium. Not to mention the fact that the punchline in that particular wish is time-worn, predictable, and an insult to Frances O'Connor's character. In yet a third wish, Fraser longs to be the type of "sensitive, caring man" that women claim to find attractive. You and I both know where this one is leading. And it seems like it takes forever to get there. Fortunately, there are enough good scenes in between the bad ones to make the film somewhat enjoyable.

Changing the devil from male to female certainly alters the dynamic of the relationship with the hero, and the new film takes advantage of this to the fullest. Hurley is shown in one sexy outfit after another (my personal favorite is her meter maid uniform - almost worth getting a ticket just to see her in it). She uses her sex appeal to continually lure and entice Fraser and deflect his criticism each time she tricks him. Sort of parallels real-life boy-girl romances, huh? I'm just kidding. Really. I am.

Let's face it, there's nothing inherently funny about the subject of eternal damnation. The only hope this film has is to get the audience to relax its apprehensions and accept the film's lighthearted treatment of its subject matter. Sometimes it succeeds, such as when Hurley wryly admits she's the devil "with offices in hell, purgatory, and Los Angeles." Likewise when Fraser asks her if God is a man, and she notes wearily, "All men think they're God; this one just happens to be right." But it fails at the end when it suggests that Hurley and Fraser actually have come to like each other. Um, didn't she just try to condemn him to eternal torment? Personally, I think I'd hold a bit of a grudge for that. It's the typical Hollywood happy ending sellout taken to absurd new levels. Or should that be "descending to absurd new depths"?