Bewitched
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: June 24, 2005 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
34
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
4
Mixed:
21
Negative:
14
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
It's funny, easily the funniest and least self-conscious movie that director Nora Ephron has made. Read full review
63
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Puts a fun, frothy spin on the 1960s TV show before sinking back into the mundane. Read full review
63
PremierePeter Debruge
As endearing as Ferrell and Kidman are on their own, there's just no chemistry between them onscreen. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
It's one of those movies where you smile and laugh and are reasonably entertained, but you get no sense of a mighty enterprise sweeping you along with its comedic force. There is not a movie here. Just scenes in search of one. Read full review
60
NewsweekDavid Ansen
As long as it stays focused on showbiz, Bewitched is light, frothy fun. But Ephron insists on turning Bewitched into a love story, and that's when the fun starts to seep out of the movie. Read full review
58
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Sadly, it's a disappointment. Nicole Kidman could hardly be more enchanting in the lead, but the script is one of writer-director Nora Ephron's weakest. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
When Ephron gives Ferrell and Kidman a musical number that's supposed to be sweet and uplifting, the movie feels downright creepy. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
One thing Kidman is not is a clown. She thinks fizzy and dizzy and klutzy are funny. She is mistaken. To be a clown requires a kind of witchcraft. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
A romantic comedy that's pleasant, if not exactly spellbinding. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
An uninspired misfire of a TV-series knockoff that, despite its great cast and smart filmmakers, never manages to scare up much magic. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Bewitched does have a few laughs, thanks to Ferrell's antics. And some of the wittiest contemporary comedians are on board, notably "The Office's" Steve Carell and "The Daily Show's" Stephen Colbert, but they are underused. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
The special effects, for once, are witty rather than overblown, and director Nora Ephron, writing with her sister Delia, handles the material with some grace and confidence. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
With no help from the dialogue, Kidman doesn't have a clue how to make clueless interesting. Not for lack of trying. Her efforts, which often consist of channelling Elizabeth Montgomery by way of Marilyn Monroe, are painful but insistent. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Kidman will have the last laugh; not even Ephron, with her dumb flying house of a movie, can crush her magic. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
The Ephron sisters, sophisticates entrusted with a simple TV situation comedy, lose the magic of the com as they mess with the sit. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterMichael Rechtshaffen
Despite the labors of leads Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell, there's no screen magic being made here. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
The result is clever, and the narrative twistings keep you on your toes, but there's just one hitch: it ain't funny. Read full review
40
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
The film's screenwriters conjured up a very clever gimmick when they decided to revamp a favorite 60's television show. Too bad they forgot that a gimmick is no substitute for a screenplay, never mind a real movie. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
Isn't a remake, really. It's a "reimagining," which is a sparkly word for what happens to a beloved TV hit of yesteryear when it's cannibalized by committee. Read full review
40
SlateDavid Edelstein
Using R.E.M.'s impassioned "Everybody Hurts"--written by Michael Stipe after the suicide of Kurt Cobain--to underscore shots of Kidman and Ferrell feeling blue about their inability to pair off is an aesthetic crime. The Ephrons should be fined and forced to do a few hundred hours of community service. Read full review
40
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Falls victim to an overly tricky rethinking of the way familiar TV shows are transformed into movies. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
This isn’t Nicole Kidman’s first dalliance with witchcraft, and it is one of Bewitched’s unfortunate achievements that it actually makes one pine for Kidman’s 1998 dud, "Practical Magic." That witch at least had some sass; this cardigan-clad witch, alas, is an altogether more benign being, and by "benign" I mean boring. Read full review
40
TimeRichard Schickel
Bewitched means to be a civilized entertainment, which occasionally it is. But the gentility of this antique sitcom cannot be recaptured at this late date. Read full review
40
EmpireSimon Braund
It’s neither funny nor charming enough, proving a disappointing treatment of fabulous source material. Read full review
40
VarietyBrian Lowry
Nora Ephron's attempt to reconceive the standard TV-to-bigscreen adaptation goes bizarrely haywire here, spinning out of control like a runaway broomstick. Read full review
38
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
The result, at best, is a sweet failure. Read full review
38
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Forget chemistry: There's no biology to the star casting. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Bewitched presents a phony and cynical look at how Hollywood might make or remake a television show. It's as grating, laughless, and narcissistic (though, to its credit, not as cruel) as that new Lisa Kudrow show-within-a-show-within-a-show, "The Comeback." Read full review
33
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
A terrible, terrible movie. Its creators have a swell idea at the core, a wonderful leading lady, and several stalwart comic players in support, and they make of all of that a picture with the wit of an armpit fart, the verve of a boxwood shrub, and the appeal of a long night in an ER waiting room. Read full review
30
Washington PostDesson Thomson
It sinks so deep and fast, you don't even see bubbles on the surface. Read full review
30
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Regardless of the cute little hats and clam-diggers she wears, it's impossible to believe Kidman as a breathless ingenue; that relentless drive and steely Kidmanesque determination keep jutting through the cotton in flinty, sharp-edged shards. Read full review
30
New York Magazine (Vulture)Ken Tucker
Kidman is stuck in this pomo movie about the making of a TV-show remake. It’s "Being John Malkovich for Morons." Read full review
30
L.A. WeeklySteven Mikulan
The film's funny for 15 minutes as it skewers Hollywood and prowls block after block of familiar L.A. scenery. Read full review
25
New York PostLou Lumenick
Un-magical, unfunny and un-romantic alleged comedy. Read full review
25
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
The motion picture version of Bewitched is a travesty of monumental proportions that belongs in the "What the hell were they thinking?" category. Read full review
20
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Why is the movie such a mess? Will Ferrell plays a washed-up actor who's supposed to be a hopeless mess, but even his character makes little sense. Is it all supposed to be postmodern? No, it's post-postmortem, the dead spirit of a dearly departed show.
10
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
Bewitched piles miscalculation upon miscalculation, beginning by casting the iron-willed Kidman, one of film's gutsiest and most fearless actresses, as a regressive pre-feminist dumb-blonde doormat, a sort of mildly retarded amalgam of Marilyn Monroe, Renée Zellweger, and Meg Ryan. Read full review
0
Village VoiceMichael Atkinson
To spend even 10 minutes in the movie's universe is to experience the Sartrean nausea of an utterly hollow head and heart. Read full review
0
Dallas ObserverRobert Wilonsky
This hackneyed, hapless and utterly useless redo of an overrated 1960s sitcom is excruciating to sit through for a dozen reasons. Read full review
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