I enjoyed this film very much. It was an exceptionally good romantic comedy that revolves around a remake of the Betwitched TV series with the inclusion of one tiny world detail…witches really exist! Will Ferrell agrees to play Darrin in the remake with the exception that they cast an unknown as Samantha so that he can over-star-power her and recover from a string of HORRIBLE designed-for-TV-but-released-in-theatres films. His plan fails (Darrin was such an unnoticeable character in the original that he was replaced and NOBODY NOTICED!!!!), but due to the typical misleading information that is the paramount of any comedy, Nicole Kidman (delivering a beautiful turn as a witch who falls in love for the first time) becomes insulted by Ferrell’s unusual change in character (he begged her to be in the show because she could do the “nose thing”…well she is a witch…) and loses all desire to hide her immortal powers. Chaos ensues and after much comedy, tears, bags of popcorn and pints of Hagen Daaz and a hallucinatory (or maybe real) visit from Uncle Arthur, the guy gets the girl and all is well…just like every other romantic comedy. But that’s not the point…the ending is never the point…it’s the journey that matters. Speaking of Uncle Arthur, Steve Carrel channels the very spirit of Paul Lynde (the original Uncle Arthur as well as Harry McAfee in Bye Bye Birdie and Templeton in Charlotte’s Web) in his brief (hell I’d go so far as to call it a cameo) appearance where he convinces Ferrell that he really loves Kidman. It was freaking uncanny and I loved it. I loved the whole movie! Great comedy, great chemistry between Ferrell and Kidman, and great original story.

Going beyond the film’s fantastic-ness, I was slightly confused by three issues raised in the movie: what was going on with the original Samantha (confusing implications and results), why is Kidman’s witch mother (only mentioned) apparently complacent with her husbands infidelity (they might have gotten divorced, I wasn’t paying too close attention to it) and what happened to Michael McCaine and Shirley Maclaine? Their story kind of petered out without any closure. Not that it was necessary (it wasn’t their story), but I would have liked some closure. Oh yeah, and Jason Schwartzman scared me with his gay agent / tough guy / complete idiot…he served his purpose though. Why didn’t Ferrell push firing him? Wish he had…oh well.

In conclusion, the film is great for what it is: a romantic comedy with a fresh take of old source material. Beautiful.