The story in "Bedazzled" revolves around Elliot (Brendan Fraser), a nerdy guy who works as a tech support representative for Synedyne in the San Francisco area. He’s a crashing bore whose fellow employees avoid him like the plague. Most of all, Elliot wants desperately to connect with an attractive co-worker named Alison, who doesn’t even know he exists. In despair he says, "Dear God, I’d give anything to have that girl in my life."
This is when the Devil (Hurley, looking ravishing in a red cocktail dress) introduces herself to Elliot. She hands him her business card and tells him she has offices in Purgatory, Hell, and Los Angeles. Elliot soon learns that the Devil drives a Lamborghini Diablo with personalized license plate "BAD 1" and owns an Oakland nightclub called DV8. Eventually the Devil convinces Elliot to sign a contract with her, agreeing to sell her his soul in exchange for being granted seven wishes. As part of the deal, she issues him a pager-like device so that if at any time one of his wishes goes awry, he can punch in the numbers 666 and be rescued.
Most of the rest of the film consists of Elliot making a series of wishes, each involving having Alison in his life, but when the wish is granted, something is always catastrophically wrong. In the best of these sequences, Elliot wishes to be rich and powerful and married to Alison. But in granting the wish, the Devil makes Elliot a Colombian drug lord and although he’s married to Alison, she loathes him and is having an affair. What makes this sequence so funny, though, is that it’s performed entirely in Spanish!
If you’re in the mood for a mildly entertaining comedy that’s easy to watch and never in the least offensive, you’ll probably be satisfied with "Bedazzled." It isn’t in any way a bad movie, but it plays everything awfully safe. The result is a slick, soulless film that seems pleasant enough while you’re watching it, but which starts to fade from memory almost as soon as the final credits begin to roll.
Selected Special DVD Features:
• Widescreen