Bedazzled

Year of release : 2000

 

Run time : 1h33min

 

Genre : Comedy / Romance / Fantasy

 

Cast : Elizabeth Hurley, Brendan Fraser

 

 

The movie is a remake of the 1967 British movie of the same name, both of them being a retelling of the Faust story.

 

Elliot is a very shy man who cannot express his feelings to the woman he's in love with. Due to his shyness, his colleagues ,whom he considers friends,laugh at him. He’s also not good at talking to people, as he always seems to say the wrong things which put them off (he’s a bit dorky).

 

One night, after being mocked at by his colleagues as he couldn't talk to the woman of his dreams, the devil appears to him, making him an offer.

 

The devil, looking like a beautiful woman ( Elizabeth Hurley) tells him she's gonna grant him 7 wishes if he signs his soul to her. After a little work of convincing from the devil's part, Elliot signs with the devil.

 

From here on, he embarks on a self discovery journey with an unexpected ending.

The devil does her best to screw his wishes up and it feels maybe she is trying to help Elliot stand up for himself like in the movie Anger Management.

 

This is one of my favorite movies, I know the lines by heart.

Elliot starts as a man who, by trying to be liked ends up rubbing people the wrong way,

as he has no social skills and tends to say whatever goes through his head at the time,

and learns an important lesson from doing a deal with the devil, growing as a character. You can tell how lonely he is , and how much he longs for human connection based on the talk he has with the devil when she introduces herself to him, and then at the end, when he tells her she was his best friend!

The devil doesn’t seem to be that bad, and it looks more like she’s doing God’s bidding, trying to help Elliot come out of his shell.

I love how the actors are acting, especially the ones who play his colleagues and then his friends. Brendan Fraser and Elizabeth Hurley are the only one who, I feel, sometimes don't give 100%.

 

Elizabeth, also known as The Devil, is 90% of the time dressed in red ( and I love that). I loved her look and outfits. 

All actors go through changes, through each and every wish which takes them to different eras and countries. They completely change their look, their appearance, hair and makeup, along with their costumes.

 

The visual effects are good, especially for the year 2000.

The soundtrack was so and so, at the beginning I don’t like the songs played (like the opening song) or the soundtrack per se, but it gets better.

 

Bedazzled received mixed reviews, with a 50% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 49 score on Metacritic, and grossed a little over 90 million dollars at the box office, against a budget of 48 million dollars.

The movie opened at number one at the British box office, and at number 2, in the US!

Movie trivia : Brendan Fraser was supposed to play the lead in “The wedding planner” with Jennifer Love Hewitt (who was in the end replaced with Jennifer Lopez), but opted for Bedazzled instead, role for which he was paid 10 million dollars.

 

Rating : It's so money !