Bewitched
dir. Nora Ephron
Opens Fri June 24.

This Bewitched, by queen-of-cute writer/director Nora Ephron (You've Got Mail), is not a remake of the television show. It's a movie about making a remake. You'd think this would lend the film some degree of ironic distance—or at least the opportunity to comment on the cultural significance of the original—but no. In this Bewitched, Nicole Kidman plays an adorable witch impersonating a normal woman (just like Elizabeth Montgomery in the original), who is then impressed into the Elizabeth Montgomery role in a remake of the original. Dizzying, no? It's like Bewitched sprouted an extra appendage that then, sponge-like, fell off and became an entity of its own.

The entity has a deformed plot. After his agent tells him to leave "Pussytown" and become "the sheriff of Ballsville," a washed-up actor (Will Ferrell) turns into a raging egotist. He recruits a nobody (the flouncy Kidman) to play opposite him in a lame remake of a TV show about a witch. She then proceeds to fall in love with him ("He's idiotic, yet I find him completely charming!"), get uppity, and cast too many spells. Kidman and Ferrell have zero chemistry, except when they're making out. There are precious few moments of genuine comedy, most of which involve either a dog or a man-hating production assistant. And then something truly bizarre happens.

An actor named Steve Carell, who stars in the American version of The Office and will soon play the title character in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, descends into the movie, purportedly from the original Bewitched. He is Uncle Arthur, and he is the creepiest deus ex machina I have ever witnessed. He breaks mirrors, dents cars, and helps the actor and the witch to declare their undying love. I don't know what Nora Ephron was thinking. Carell is the opposite of cute, and his sudden appearance strangles this already painfully contorted movie.