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- Bedazzled
(Reviewed October 18, 2000)
- Very early on in this surprisingly bad movie, I wished that Brendan Fraser only had been given two or three wishes instead of seven, so I could escape this hell a little sooner. I
never
have been able to understand Fraser's appeal. Maybe he is living proof that girls like dumb, good-looking guys as much as guys like dumb, good-looking girls. (What a revelation!) He played a befuddled
innocent dope in "Blast From the Past," then did "The Mummy" as if he were Indiana Jones with Down Syndrome, and then he ratcheted things down to the sub-basement in the abysmally awful "Dudley
Do-Right." What next -- playing a buff-color rock?
The various comic setups that Fraser mugs his way through in "Bedazzled" are flat, predictable and just plain boring. Devil Elizabeth Hurley
appears in lots of hot outfits (my favorite being the red plaid miniskirt, tight red sweater, white Peter-Pan collar and black kneesocks -- Satan looks damned good as a Catholic schoolgirl, lemme tell ya).
But her attitude throughout is more bitchy dominatrix than sexy seductress. So don't go expecting to slobber and stiffen, unless you are the sort who gets turned on by looking at really nicely built
refrigerators.
Another thing: This kind of story only works if it has a decent payoff. In this case, Fraser has made a deal with the devil: his soul for seven wishes. So the one thing you wonder
throughout is how he will manage to get out of the contract. What ends up happening feels unlikely and unsatisfying. (Why didn't he merely wish he never had signed the deal in the first place?) And the
movie's coda is just plain stupid.
Bottom line: Hell no, don't go.
Back Row Grade: F
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