by Harold Ramis, 2000.
Starring: Brendan Fraser, Elizabeth Hurley, Frances O’Connor.
Rating: 3/10, 2/10.
A friend and I were in a video store trying to decide what movie to rent. Looking through the comedies, I saw Bedazzled, and said we should get that. He was like, yeah, that’s a really funny movie, and reached for the remake. I was like, oh my.
So we agreed to have a Bedazzledathon; since I’d only seen the original and he’d only seen the remake, we’d watch them both. I was skeptical, but tried to keep an open mind as we began to watch the remake. I decided I would entirely divorce the fact of this film from my memories of the original. I would forget that Peter Cook and Dudley Moore had ever played these roles, and that Stanley Donen had ever brilliantly directed them.
It started out promisingly enough; the opening credits were nice. Big rushing crowds of people sped up, going about their business; we’d focus in on one and a little label would pop up, pointing out personal flaws: this one steals, this one lies, this baby in a backpack is a freeloader. Eventually we come to (ugh) Brendan Fraser, and I can’t remember what word he’s labeled with (irritating would be appropriate, as would talentless or not funny, but it was none of these...boy, am I being clever!), but the way he’s in normal speed while he holds a door open for ridiculous amounts of sped-up people zooming through, that’s funny.
After that, everything goes downhill. In fact, aside from the opening credits, Elizabeth Hurley’s outfit in the picture at the top of this page was pretty much the only enjoyable thing about the movie. Sure, I laughed once or twice, but these laughs were more of the "Oh, that could have been funny" variety than the "That was funny" kind.
The film entirely lacks subtlety. Subtlety is essential in a comedy, or at least in most comedies (Zucker films, for example, don’t particularly need it), and there is exactly none of it here. Take, for example, the scene where Dudley wishes to be the most sensitive person in the world, and bam, there he is with the girl he loves (O’Connor, who looks frighteningly like an ultra-skinny Mariah Carey, or at least does here) on a beach, crying every time he looks at the sunset. Vaguely funny concept. Not even remotely funny scene. Soon the manly men show up and kick bucketfuls of sand at him. Ho ho ho, boy was that funny. Overdone, too long, way too obvious, completely lacking in the proper timing, but oh so funny. Ho ho ho, still laughing. Or what about the wish where Dudley becomes Abraham Lincoln, pretty much just so we can see him made up like him? Ho ho ho.
I said I’d try to be impartial, to leave preconceptions from the original at the door, but as hard as I tried, this remake made that impossible. Just when I’d come close, it would stick whole sight gags, whole lines of dialogue, from the original right into the mouths of Dudley and Elizabeth frickin’ Hurley, only it would remove anything that made the lines funny or clever, and turn them into painful reminders of how good this story once was.