In a novel takeoff on the ripe old Faust legend, "Bedazzled" sells its soul to the middle bidder. Which is not to say it's a bad deal.
Elliot Richards (Brendan Fraser) is an inept computer nerd — not inept at the computer, just anywhere else – who is hopelessly in love with Alison Gardner (Frances O'Connor) who barely know poor Richards exists.
Enter a glamorous and wily female Satan (Elizabeth Hurley), who decides to have a little fun with the unsuspecting Richards. She offers him seven wishes for anything he would like for the simple price of his simple soul. Richards doesn't care. He must have Gardner.
To give a hint at Satan's sense of humor, when Richards asks to be rich and powerful and married to Gardner, he wakes up as a Columbian drug kingpin, not really what he had in mind. However, the misanthropic Richards, muddles on with his next six wishes whose fulfillment become more and more bizarre. Hurley's performance has been likened to a "lip-smacking Joan Collins." This may, or may not, be a drawing card.
The movie is a remake of a 1967 version which featured Dudley Moore, a hard act to follow, as a hapless short-order cook who also comes up with a female Princes of Darkness, Raquel Welch.
Directed by Harold Ramis, ( "Caddyshack," "Analyse This"), the movie is rated PG for sex related humor, language and some drug content. ( The Columbian, no doubt.)
It starts Thursday at Sunny Isle Theaters.
