Devil With a Red Dress On
In Harold Ramis' Bedazzled, Hurley eschews the traditional horns-and-pitchfork Lucifer look for a series of skintight red outfits and costumes straight out of an adolescent male's fantasies (cheerleader, French maid, schoolgirl, and so on). The movie, a remake of Dudley Moore and Peter Cook's classic 1967 comedy, is a veritable Hades fashion show, and if there's one thing Hurley knows how to do, it's strut her stuff.

In Bedazzled, she struts it for the benefit of pathetic dweeb Elliot Richards (an energetic, endearing Brendan Fraser). Longing for Allison (Mansfield Park's Frances O'Connor), the untouchable girl of his dreams, Elliot is so lonely and desperate that when the Devil offers him a way to get her — seven fabulous wishes in exchange for (of course) his soul — he doesn't need much persuading to sign on the dotted line. What follows is a series of vignettes in which Elliot gets to live out his fantasies; well, his fantasies with a devilish twist, that is.

Fraser Is a Comedy Inferno
And that's when Fraser really gets to shine. Bedazzled's script is uneven, the supporting cast (including up-and-coming funnyman Orlando Jones) is underused, and some of the jokes are worse than clichéd (for example, the Devil has offices in "purgatory, hell, and Los Angeles"... ha ha), but the enthusiasm with which Fraser tackles his part reveals what Hollywood and the moviegoing public are really starting to understand: This guy is funny. Sure, he's good at drama, too (check out Gods and Monsters), but his willingness to act like an idiot to get laughs makes Fraser a natural at comedy. (As Ramis says in his commentary, "For a guy who could be a male model, he's not afraid to look silly or stupid.") In Bedazzled, Fraser gets six chances to show off his gift: Whether he's playing the over-eager Elliot, a suave Colombian drug lord, or the Man Who Cries at Sunsets, he throws himself into each part with abandon.

He and Hurley make a good on-screen pair; when Elliot catches the Princess of Darkness blithely causing traffic accidents and switching hospital patients' pills with candy, Fraser plays him with the perfect mix of horror and grudging admiration — it's fun to be bad sometimes. It's just too bad that the movie doesn't have more of this subtle interplay instead of overdone scenes with the Devil faking tears and trying to convince Elliot that she really wants to be his friend. Hurley is most convincing when she's doing the temptress thing, not the demon-with-a-heart-of-gold routine.

Commentaries Lead DVD Features
Hurley seems to recognize that, too; in her commentary track with producer Trevor Albert on Fox's special edition DVD, she says the best part about playing the Devil was that, "There are no constraints whatever ... so really you can kind of go berserk." She also thanks director/producer/co-writer Ramis' wife for suggesting that the Devil be a woman in the remake (Cook played the horned one in the original). But overall she's fairly quiet, mostly speaking up when Albert asks her a question or makes a specific observation. Albert has more to say, though he tends to repeat a lot of what Ramis talks about in his commentary track; if you're only going to listen to one of the two commentaries, go with Ramis'. The director of Analyze This and Groundhog Day is chatty and informative, offering lots of interesting production details (director of photography Bill Pope also shot The Matrix, for example).

The disc's other features aren't half-bad either. "The Making of Bedazzled," a 14-minute behind-the-scenes featurette made for HBO, is actually better than average — it covers a lot of ground in a short amount of time and has a cute narrative gimmick with Hurley interrupting and sending it off in new directions. A second featurette, "Bedazzled Designs with Deena Appel," focuses on the costumes and includes some of the same interview clips with Ramis and Hurley that are featured in the making-of special. The disc also has the requisite theatrical trailer and TV spots; THX Optimode tests to help you maximize audio and visual performance; an expanded version of Jones and Toby Huss bantering during the basketball-themed wish; plus a still gallery with sketches, photos, and concept art of DV8 (the Devil's nightclub), the Devil's office, and the other sets. Last, but not least, are two brief scoring-session clips, which show composer David Newman leading his orchestra as they play the music for the scene in which Elliot signs the Devil's contract (the scene itself plays in a small picture-within-picture).

The 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer looks great, all the better to ogle Hurley's skimpy outfits and curves. Sound options, all of which are crisp and clear, include English 5.1 surround, English and French Dolby surround, Spanish subtitles, and English captions.

In the end, Bedazzled certainly could have been better, but it also could have been a lot worse — which is almost how you could describe the way the Devil ends up treating Elliot. Maybe if Satan hadn't had a soft side, the movie would have been stronger. Guess we'll have to wait until the next sucker comes along to find out.