Film - A postmodern remake loses all the magic of the 1960s original, writes Mark Kermode Bewitched (PG)

Although television has long been considered the natural enemy of cinema, Hollywood continues to spew out big-screen spin-offs of long- (and perhaps best-) forgotten TV shows. Last year saw Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson goofing it up in the camp confectionery of Starsky and Hutch, a movie that merrily mocked its small-screen source material even as it milked its money-making memory. Next, The Dukes of Hazzard ploughs into your local multiplex, having already proven itself to be a no-brain crowd-pleaser among American kids presumably far too young to remember the original. Before that, however, we have Bewitched, an obligatorily postmodern retooling of the witchy 1960s marital sitcom which notably fails to hold a modern audience in its nostalgic spell.

Having garnered an Oscar for modelling a prosthetic schnozzle in the overrated dirge The Hours, Nicole Kidman reportedly landed the lead role in Bewitched thanks in part to the alleged "miraculous similarity" of her conk to that of the original series' star, Elizabeth Montgomery. Sadly, despite her practisedly pert nasal wiggle, Kidman's grimly determined brand of quirky comedy comes off as more petulant than perky or even pesky. She plays Isabel Bigelow, a real-life witch attempting to turn her back on her Harry Potter heritage who is zanily enlisted to play Samantha in a rubbish TV remake of . . . Bewitched! How hilariously reflexive is that?!

Originally signed on to play silent second fiddle to a boorish has-been, Jack Wyatt (Will Ferrell), Isabel finds that her cutesy grin and apple-pie cuddleability are soon stealing the show from under her leading man's nose. "He's idiotic," she gasps breathlessly, "but I also find him completely charming." Not me, dearie; I thought Ferrell's turned-up-to-eleven gurning, flapping antics marked something of an insufferable low point in his annoyingly erratic career, closer to the jabbering goonery of Elf than the urbane comedy of Melinda and Melinda. Kidman, meanwhile, apparently needs to be told that there's a difference between playing an ingenue and the female equivalent of Rain Man. "You don't want to become mannered," whispers her TV mother after Isabel is spied magically tugging at her ear lobe on camera. Yet Kidman's entire performance consists of an assortment of knowing nods, twitches and flutters which offer a horrible counterpoint to Ferrell's one-note shrieking. Together, Nicole and Will make the sort of smugly frisky couple you'd happily torch your house to avoid having as neighbours.

The problems, of course, run far deeper than the charmlessness of the leading players. As a casual comparison between When Harry Met Sally . . . and Sleepless in Seattle amply demonstrates, Nora Ephron has always been a far better writer than director. Here, whatever helmsmanship skills she may have had in the past desert her entirely as gag after gag falls flat on its face. Set pieces that must have looked like an absolute hoot on the page (Samantha's father materialising as the jolly green giant on the label of a tin of supermarket corn) are executed with such leaden clunkiness as to eradicate the merest whiff of carefree comedy. Honkingly obvious music cues don't help, with a string of witch-themed crooner classics being merrily plastered on to the soundtrack alongside a few butchered bars of The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" in what must rank as the year's grossest act of celluloid jukebox cannibalism. When a well-written one-liner (and unsurprisingly there are several) manages to make it to screen unscathed, the laughter it provokes is less of joy than of relief.

There is a half-hearted attempt to add some well-ripened glamour, with celebrity cameos from Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine, both of whom prance around in broad pantomime style that does few favours either to themselves or to the movie. What we're left with is a classic high-concept bodge, a wittily ironic conceit that probably seemed light and bubbly in the planning stages but wound up looking flat and stale by the time it got to the screen.

Both Nora Ephron and her sister Delia are clearly talented, intelligent wordsmiths whose screenwriting talents are hardly in doubt. But, on the evidence of Bewitched, Nora would perhaps be best advised to relinquish the directorial chores next time one of her scripts goes before the cameras. As for Kidman, this film sits alongside last year's dismal remake of The Stepford Wives as proof that urbane, offbeat comedy is simply not her forte. Perhaps she should stick to wowing critics with earnest impressions of big-conked depressives and strangely accented suffering wives. For all her nose-wiggling antics, Kidman's Samantha just doesn't have that old black magic.

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