nicole_kidman1.jpgIs there no original material left in Hollywood? Seriously, with all these remakes running around the last few years - first The Brady Bunch Movie and Charlie's Angels; now Dukes of Hazzard and, heaven help us, The Longest Yard - you'd think there are no screenwriters in Hollywood writing original, intelligent scripts these days. What, are all the screenwriters so busy serving quiche and sparkling water at The Ivy that they no longer have time to write? 

Bewitched is the latest of these remake efforts. To be sure, the project has a potentially magical cast - Will Ferrell, Nicole Kidman, Michael Caine, Shirley Maclaine, Kristen Chenoweth, Amy Sedaris and Stephen Colbert would seem to be a recipe for a swell film. The biggest potential factor for this movie to be a disaster is director/cowriter Nora Ephron.  For me, Ephron peaked with When Harry Met Sally and it was all downhill from there. From Michael to My Blue Heaven to You've Got Mail, Ephron has a solid track record for taking star-studded casts and weighing them down with unforgiveably tepid and sentimental screenplays.

The trailer for Bewitched, however, seems surprisingly promising. Perhaps that's because former Saturday Night Live writer Adam McKay, Ferrell's co-writer on Anchorman, was a co-writer on this script. McKay is hot comedic property in Hollywood right now, having recently gotten the greenlight from Dreamworks to helm and coproduce the comedy CEO, which is being coproduced by Elf and Anchorman alum Shauna Robertson.

In a clever move, McKay and the Ephrons have chosen not to pen a straight remake of the classic sitcom with this effort. Instead, the Bewitched script has Ferrell portraying Jack Wyatt, a once-big movie star who has been cast in the role of Darrin in a remake of the TV series. Kind of a film-within-a-film thing, which is either a stroke of genius or an annoyingly manipulative writing device designed to hide the Ephrons' inability to write a decent script based on the original series.

This much we know from the trailer: Ferrell's character doesn't want to be upstaged by a big-name actress, so he launches a search for an unknown to play the role of Samantha. He happens across Kidman's character, Isabel Bigelow, in a bookstore, and is captivated by
her ability to twitch her nose Samantha-style. I don't know if that's really Kidman's nose-twitching, or if we're seeing a digitally-enhanced twitch; it's not quite up to Elizabeth Montgomery standards, perhaps, but Kidman twitches quite bewitchingly.

The potentially too-clever twist, of course, is that Isabel is - get this - a real witch! Who is trying to give up witchcraft - just like the character of Samantha! Get it? In case you don't, the trailer pounds you about the head and shoulders with it, repeatedly showing Samantha's father, played by Michael Caine, reminding his recalcitrant daughter that she wants to give up witchcraft and live like a mortal.

In the two minutes or so of the trailer, we see Isabel reneging on that promise at a diner when she wants breakfast after 11AM, at a cash register when she doesn't have cash, and when she starts flinging Wyatt around with her broomstick. I don't know how many more times the script emphasizes this whole play on the original series, but three times in one trailer crossed the line from clever irony to annoyance for me.

Kidman seems an odd choice to play the female lead in this movie. I always think of her more as a strong dramatic actress, and I can think of several other perky blond actresses who have stronger comedic chops for this role - how about Reese Witherspoon? Or Alicia Silverstone? Or even Christina Applegate? Maybe they couldn't twitch their noses just so. On a positive note, Ferrell seems superbly cast in his role. His comedic timing is usually impeccable, and I'm guessing that if the movie turns out to be good it will be largely
because of his comic genius on screen coupled with McKay's writing.

At the end of the trailer, Ferrell is seen writhing on a hotel bed bemoaning his fate: "I'm Darrin! They replaced Darrin on the original Bewitched, and no one noticed! I'm DARRIN! How did this happen?" Here's hoping, for Ferrell's sake, he's not saying this in real life, once this film hits the screen.