Bewitched

Director: Nora Ephron
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Will Ferrell, Michael Caine, Shirley MacLaine
Certificate: PG
Running time: 102 mins

Jack Wyatt (Ferrell) is a washed-up movie star who is looking for an opportunity to get his career back on track, which he finds in his role of Darrin in a remake of classic sitcom Bewitched. To ensure that viewers know who is the star of the show, Wyatt insists that an unknown be cast as the former lead character, Samantha - enter Isabel Bigelow (Kidman) to take the role. All the supposed fun begins when it transpires that she herself is a real witch.

Unfortunately though, director Nora Ephron (When Harry Met Sally) takes what could have been a workable idea and creates a film which starts off mediocre and then heads progressively downhill with only the performances making it at all bearable.

Herself admitting that she has run out of ideas in terms of where the plotline is going, Ephron at one point decides to rewind (with a <-- <-- REW symbol to add to the hilarity) through a sizeable chunk of the movie to redo things in a different, although hardly better, way. This rewinding trick is in fact one of the few times in which Isabel's powers are used, wasting a mine of potential gags, especially considering the supposed importance of her being a witch. In fact, one use of magic lends the film what is probably its funniest scene, where Ferrell’s character is forced to overact.

There are a few laugh out loud moments but in what is supposed to be a romantic comedy, a few minutes of laughter out of 102 hardly seems like good value for time or money. Nor is the 'romantic' half of the romantic comedy much to write home about. It is hard really to even see it as a romantic comedy for most of the film until the last half hour or so, and even then the chemistry between Kidman and Ferrell is far from spellbinding.

The acting itself isn't all that bad considering that the cast have so little to work with. Both Kidman and Ferrell are perfectly adequate in their respective roles, although frankly it's hard not to feel embarrassed for Kidman, usually a very strong actress, for deciding to take the part.

Whilst the TV show was often more charming in terms of Darrin and Samantha’s relationship rather than being raucously funny, this original yet highly-flawed reinvention of the idea is far from being either and the magic is well and truly lost.