大象传媒

The magic has gone out of this big-screen version of 60s TV series Bewitched. Apparently someone has put the hex on writer-director Nora Ephron, who made her name with When Harry Met Sally and later slipped into mediocrity with botched comedy concoctions like this. Annoyingly, Nicole Kidman is more ditz than kitsch as the domestic sorceress and, while Will Ferrell is naturally funny as the mortal who falls in love with her, it's as if he's in a different film altogether.

Discomfort sets in early as undercover witch Isabel decides she'd rather live a normal life than snap her fingers and get everything she wants. Naturally it's hard to break the habit, especially for a bimbo who can't figure out the VCR. Kidman plays it especially dumb - as opposed to the wily witch originally portrayed by Elizabeth Montgomery - and her doe-eyed antics quickly grow tiresome. It's only when Ferrell turns up as vainglorious washed-up movie star Jack Wyatt that things liven up a little.

"GLIB, LAZY AND FRANKLY SILLY"

Alas, it's a half-baked set-up that brings them together; Wyatt bumps into Isabel at a bookshop, loves the way she wrinkles her nose, and promptly casts her in a TV remake of Bewitched. Hey presto, Isabel is suddenly and inexplicably in love! While there are laugh-out-loud moments, like a spell that forces Wyatt to overact, the plot is more scattered than Isabel's brain cells. Through a series of predictable stunts, she learns assertiveness, but the reservations Wyatt has about forming an honest relationship with a witch is dealt with in a glib, lazy and frankly silly finale. You will leave the cinema utterly disenchanted.