Image copyright © by Marcus Trahan

Bewitched

(2005)

Sounds like a great idea. They’re re-making the TV show “Bewitched,” and they happen to have cast a real witch in the character of Samantha. All sorts of devilment should result. Well, Rumor Has It, the sequel to The Graduate, also sounded like a great concept but didn’t deliver, and this doesn’t, either. It’s mostly the fault of Will Ferrell, who chews the scenery almost endlessly, and isn’t very funny. Nicole Kidman is nicely innocent, putting on a sweet little girl voice. But the real problem is that they didn’t think it through. The reason you tuned into the show was to watch Samantha do magic. Sure, she’d sworn it off, but even if only to combat the schemes of her relatives, she always ended up doing a lot of magic. There just wasn’t enough of that here, and it’s too bad, because when she did do magic, some of it was pretty good.