Share Your Shame: Bedazzled (2000)

ME - I’m going to write a review of Bedazzled.

MY BROTHER - The Dudley Moore one? Or the 1998 thing?

ME - Nope, not the Dudley Moore one.                      (pedantically) And it came out in 2000.

MY BROTHER - But that’s one’s shit.

 ME  - Thats the point…

Bedazzled, for those of you who missed it, stars (and I use the term loosely) Brendan Fraser as Elliot Richards, a manifestation of social ineptitude, and Elizabeth Hurley as the “Princess of Darkness”. We follow Elliot’s attempts to woo the woman of his dreams by becoming her ideal man through the use of seven satanic wishes granted by the Devil. Hilarity ensues. Well, that was the idea, but as my brother so elegantly stated – it’s shit.

Harsh? Perhaps, in fairness it has astonishingly average qualities; Its a bit funny, a bit touching, a bit poorly acted and a bit of your life wasted. The varied vignettes of the type of men-that-men-think-women-want are predictable. Fraser, in my opinion an obstinately watchable actor, plays some of them to a tee; that mixture of humour and suave cocksureness that made the Mummy so entertaining goes down well here too. Unfortunately, it seems that he also decided to bring a healthy dose of George of the Jungle along for the ride.

One very important thing that Bedazzled does have going for it is Hurley’s wardrobe. Yes, crass it may be but it’s true. Much the film’s appeal for me was the dress-code. I defend myself by stating that a) Elizabeth Hurley was hot and b) I was 14 when I bought the DVD. We all make mistakes when we’re young, don’t hold it against me.

The sub-par nature of the film is a shame given that the director, Harold Ramis once gifted humanity with Groundhog Day, absolutely starring Bill Murray. He was even a co-writer on the Ghostbusters’ franchise for God’s sake. Yet now he blights us with a plague of, well, crap. Woe is man, for he hath fallen low. I mean he directed Year One… dear dear lord, that one makes Bedazzled look Oscar worthy.

The problem is that given all the negatives, I shouldn’t like this film. But I do. It has that one saving grace of terrible movies, its fun. Bedazzled offers 90 minutes of un-thinking light entertainment, with a few high-points, such as the intro sequence (Director of Photography Bill Pope, who would have been fresh from shooting the superlative Matrix might well be thanked for that), or the occasional better-than-the-rest jokes, and oh did I mention Liz Hurley?

David Clough