Brendan Fraser plays Elliot Richards, a happy-go-lucky guy who everyone just hates. He tries to be friendly, but instead falls on his face. None of his co-workers want to even deal with him. Then there is Alison (Frances O'Connor), the girl of his dreams. Elliot would give anything to have her in his life. And that's where The Devil (Elizabeth Hurley) shows up. She offers Elliot 7 wishes in exchange for his soul. Well, it doesn't take long before Elliot decides to go for it, and that's where the fun begins. Everytime he wishes for something, it never quite turns out the way he wants. He wants to be rich and powerful and married to Alison, and he ends up being a Colombian drug lord, with Alison married to him, but hating him. He wishes to be a suave, sophisticated man who knows everything and has Alison fall in love with him, only to end up being gay.

You see where this is going. He has 7 wishes, none of them work out, he ends up in humourous situations then at the end there is a moral and everyone goes home happy. Nothing too special about the story, but I don't think that was the point. Even though you knew how it was all going to end up, it was the situations that Elliot ends up in that were supposed to carry the movie. The problem is the situations weren't all that funny. Each scene had funny moments, but overall they weren't funny. I think the most humour came from seeing Fraser look different in each circumstance. The overly emotionally sensative man was probably my favorite look. Brendan Fraser has a certain charm about him. I really like him as an actor. He seems like the kind of guy you'd just like to hang out with. George of the Jungle was a very funny movie because of him, and even movies like Encino Man were better because of him. The problem here is, he can't rise above the slow story. He gets into each character, and makes them appealing, but the dialogue and story aren't up to par with his acting. He needed a better plot and a lot less emotional morality to make this movie really fun.

Then of course, there is Elizabeth Hurley. Wow. Like I said before, most of the enjoyment for me came from looking at her outfits. I thought she was a very good choice as The Devil. The accent helped, and she has a hard yet very attractive look about her. It wasn't hard to see how Elliot could fall for whatever she said. She did a good job with the role, but again, the story and dialogue let her down. The last 20 minutes of the movie tried to become a Saturday afternoon moral about looking within yourself, and how Heaven and Hell were both right here, you just have to decide which way you want to go. I didn't think that was necessary. This was a comedy, so focus on making it funny, not on making you think.

So overall, Bedazzled had potential, but didn't follow through. There were funny moments, but not enough of them to make the film really enjoyable. Brendan Fraser was his usual self, and Elizabeth Hurley looked amazing, so if you like either of them, you can deal with the film. by the way, my favorite Devil outfit? Probably the school teacher. Something about those plaid skirts.

Got something to say? Say it on the Message Boards. No password needed!