Bedazzled [2000] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

Amazon.co.uk Review

Brendan Fraser stars in Bedazzled as Elliot, a dweebish office worker who yearns for Alison (Frances O'Connor), a coworker who barely knows he exists. When he blithely says he'd give his soul for Alison, the Devil appears in the fetching guise of Elizabeth Hurley and promises him seven wishes in exchange. Elliot is dubious at first, but agrees out of desperation. Unfortunately, his every wish always leaves the Devil with a little wiggle-room. When he asks to be rich and powerful, the Devil turns him into a drug lord beset on all sides. When he asks to be a successful, well-endowed writer, the Devil adds a male lover to the mix. The setup and situations are clever, though this Bedazzled has less bite than the original 1968 version starring Dudley Moore and Peter Cook. It does, however, provide some better comic substance for Fraser than most of his previous roles and will give his fans something to enjoy. O'Connor is entirely pleasant in her largely straight role, and Hurley fills out her part delectably by filling out a number of revealing outfits. This is an enjoyable bit of froth. --Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

Entertaining night in with Fraser and Hurley.......2006-03-09

I am a a big fan of Brendan Fraser. He of the braces in the Mummy movies. I did find Hurley very pleasing on the eye and she doesnt do bad on the acting front. All that bouncing while walking was a little annoying. Laugh out loud in places this is good fare for a couple night in, added bonus if your a Hurley or Fraser fan. What would you wish for if the devil traded your soul for anything your heart desired!

Surely the work of the Devil...........2004-03-18

This is an appaling waste of money, time, and electricity, and it appears to be the work of Mr G.Spiggot himself.
Get the original (and wonderful) Pete and Dud version if you can, but otherwise save your cash.
Perhaps the most mediocre and unwarrented re-make of all time, it belongs in a boggy swamp, just south of Croydon...
I gave it one - but that should be minus....

A wickedly funny (not to mention sexy) movie.......2003-09-14

Bedazzled is a surprisingly smart, genuinely funny movie about the wishes we all make and the fallacy of our belief that wealth, fame, love, etc., will truly make us happy. Taking the Dr. Faust theme to unheard of heights, the devil takes the form of Elizabeth Hurley who is indeed constantly bedazzling in a long list of outfits taken straight from the minds of adolescent teenaged boys (and a few of us who used to be adolescent teenaged boys). Gorgeously naughty, she is the epitome of temptation. Brendan Fraser gives a terrific performance as seven characters all wrapped up in one. Elliot Richards is a socially inept computer nerd who is not even very good at being a loser. He tries way too hard to make friends, and he even does the one thing that losers must never, ever do: admitting his crush on a woman who doesn't even know him. This leads to public embarrassment, as I could easily have told the guy, and soon Elliot unwittingly dial's Satan's number by saying he would give anything to have Alison Gardner (Frances O'Connor) in his life. Elizabeth Hurley looks nothing at all like the traditional devil, but she has comparatively little trouble convincing Elliot of her identity and getting him to sell his soul in exchange for seven wishes; I mean, what guy wouldn't give in to the seductive delights of Elizabeth Hurley?

You really have to be specific when you are making wishes, as Elliot soon learns as a series of fantasies fulfilled quickly fall through: fame, power, and marriage to Allison is dangerous as well as unfulfilling, the life of an unbelievable star athlete comes with its own little problem (wink, wink), intelligence and savoir faire misses the mark, and becoming the most sensitive man on earth is quite simply a big mistake. Elliot, his sweetie Allison, and his co-workers all appear in these separate wish-fulfilled lives, each actor adopting a number of very different roles over the course of the film. The results can be hilarious, and there was at least one surprising wish fulfillment that never appeared in any trailer. Fraser has always seemed to be something of a stiff actor to me, but he shows great versatility in his performance here, taking the challenge of his role and running with it. Frances O'Connor is an increasingly sweet delight, as well, and Elizabeth Hurley is simply fantastic and utterly enchanting.

There are lots of special features on the DVD. Besides a theatrical trailer and several TV spots, you get two commentaries by the director and actors (including Hurley), a quite impressive featurette hosted by Hurley herself on the making of the film, a still gallery, and a look at the impressive costuming that went into the making of the film. Best of all, though, you get an extended scene of six minutes featuring Orlando Jones and Toby Huss offering post-game commentary after Elliot's amazing NBA debut. The scene is hilarious in the movie, but the extended scene takes the hilarity to absurdly funny levels. Every so often, you can hear a direction pointing the guys toward a certain type of comment on the game, but Jones and Huss seem to be ad libbing the entire commentary, constantly outdoing one another with some truly inane babblings. The only thing that disappointed me about this Special Edition DVD was a lack of deleted scenes. My favorite couple of seconds from the trailer was not actually in the movie, and the featurette informs us that there was originally a scene with Hurley taking on the guise of a French maid. The filmmakers obviously didn't realize how cruel it would be to tell us of such a scene and then not include it anywhere on the DVD. That one omission aside, I pretty much loved Bedazzled; it's just a smart, funny, and sexy movie.

An Enjoyable Movie- Worth Watching.......2003-04-19

I bought this DVD in a 'buy one get one free' deal, so I expected it to be complete pap. But, it's not.
Some of the situations are very funny (especially the scene where Fraser is a writer)- and you just can't help but laugh. However, at the same time, there are some scenes that start off funny and just get so over-done that you get a tad bit bored.
But the performance from the stars is, I think, overall very good. Brendan Fraser is very comic in his various states (and hairstyles), and makes you giggle.
And, suprisingly enough, so does Liz Hurley. I thought very little of her performances before (also of her films ie- Austin Powers), but in this she is very purswasive. Unlike Fraser at times, Hurley is not too silly. She keeps her accent and character the whole way through.
I especially like the relationship between her and Fraser; they had good chemistry.

So, all in all, this movie is fun- and is to be taken (very) lightly. I reccommend watching before buying, though!

...mediocre..........2002-08-07

...mediocre - a laugh here and there with a great performance by Liz Hurley (yes! she's found a role she's suited to, even though it is that of the Dark Lord). But it has its pitfalls, like every three star film.
The lowdown is that Elliot (Brendan Fraser) is a love-starved IT worker who gets a deal for seven wishes from the devil (Hurley) - and he uses them all in some way to do with the object of his desires, Alison (Frances O'Connor). There.
The storyline is promising, but some of the wishes are too long, and some are too short. The best scenes are the Sportstar scene (watch out for Fraser's face when he sees what his privates have been reduced to by the devil), and the scene where he discovers 'rich, powerful and married' mean 'A Colombian Drugs Lord with a wife who wants to divorce you and who is getting off with her English teacher Raul'.
Hurley is brilliant in this film, as is O'Connor, but occassionally Fraser veers off track and is lost amid the sometimes stupid script. It also veers into the sentimental just a touch too much for my liking.
Well, this piece of movie-making never attempted to break any new ground or to be a masterpiece. It just aimed to provide fun, and ...fun is exactly what it delivers. Fun but not fantastic.

Average customer rating:

Bedazzled [2000] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Brendan Fraser
Manufacturer: Fox Home Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

All Comedy | Comedy | Categories | DVD | Video

DVD | Format (binding_browse-bin) | Refinements | DVD | Video
ASIN: 6306263845
Release Date: 2003-04-15

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