| The Stepford Wives | | Cast : | Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler | | Director : | Frank Oz | | Studio : | Paramount Home Video | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | June 11, 2004 | | DVD Released Date : | November 09, 2004 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), Spanish (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | July 27, 2005 | | Summary | Exactly what I expected | Content
 | Even after hearing this movie panned by professionals and audiences alike, I was drawn to it and had to check it out for myself. Well, the bar was set low, so the movie had nowhere to go but up for me, and I wasn't too dissappointed. If you go in expecting a great movie of the year, or something that holds a candle to the original, then you ARE going to be let down.
This has an all-star cast, yet it still managed to be trite and ridiculous in a not-funny not-satirical way. Oz does some absolutely amazing shots of women in pastel and the surburbian hell of Stepford (a town picnic, pastel grocery store, book club meeting, aerobics class). They would make great magazine layouts, but the scenery and costumes are not able to carry the movie all on their own.
The "science" of the movie was just ridiculous. If these are real women converted to robots via a microchip, how is a woman an ATM? What? Is she really a bank that her husband refills with dollar bills, and then dispenses ATM-like as a party joke? The bills come out of her mouth? That didn't make any sense at all to me, and I think a ten-year-old could have thought up better things for a robot-woman to do, things that made more sense.
This isn't recommended unless you are really curious, and if you are, set your expectations low. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 27, 2005 | | Summary | Remakes & Comparisons... | Content
| I'm annoyed that there's so little original material that the classics are all being redone. I'm a huge fan of the original film and avoided seeing this remake, but finally I gave in. After all, with a cast like this, what could be so bad? Sure, it's idiotic and over-the-top with the subtle slapstick. The basic idea of the original (and Levin's book) are there, but Frank Oz took it to a different level, with the help of the very clever Paul Rudnick. I'm glad to know that I'm not such a snob as to totally disregard this "re-imagining" and enjoy it for its parody. Yes, I enjoyed it. I laughed often, and all the leads are quite in tune with the huge joke that's going on. Silly is good. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 16, 2005 | | Summary | indeed. | Content
| I have no clue what the point of this movie was. It wasn't funny, it wasn't suspensful, it tried to be dramatic and failed and overall was not even interesting. If I hadn't been at work while I was watching this it would have been the biggest waste of an 1 + 1/2 hours of my life ever.
The high point of this movie is Nicole Kidman's scream at around the 5 minute mark, you can turn it off after that |
| Rating | | | Date | July 09, 2005 | | Summary | The Ending Was Good | Content
| The only thing I liked about this movie is the ending. I disliked the rest of this movie for the same reason I dislike Harry Potter books/movies. Both have obnoxious main characters who get away with bad behavior, and by the end of the movie/book, they still have no redeeming qualities and have not learned anything whatsoever. The underlying message becomes 'it's OK to be a brat: to have zero consideration for other folks, to break rules and do your own thing, etc. etc.' I also do not appreciate the harsh tone the movie has towards women in general. By the end of the movie, the message is implied that there is something amiss with women who stay home to keep house, raise children, wear other colors than black, and partake in community activites. Women, of all people, do not need harsh scrutiny. We all come from different backgrounds and upbringings, and women most certainly cannot do it all. I believe women should do whatever makes them happy. If you enjoy being a Martha Stewart type, there is nothing wrong with that if it makes you happy, and likewise if you want to become an executive. Why be so harsh and condemning? And as any non-city person will tell ya, life out in the sticks needs some type of community/social activities, or else there will be very few opportunities to get together with other folks. We are social beings, after all. We need social interactions with each other. Another peeve I have with the movie is once again, as seems to be the trend lately, a plot twist occurs from out of left field. Hello, foreshadowing. I do not enjoy being manipulated. I like a little heads-up, and not be thrown a 180 degree turn because the writers are stuck. I also think they should have left in the deleted scenes of Bette Midler becoming a human lawn mower. It would still have kept in tune with the rest of the movie, since the rest of the movie is already over the top, and it was the funniest.
Watch this movie for the ending, however - it is really funny and the only reason to see the movie. Otherwise, I suggest watching the original which is more a thriller and whose message is much more generous. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 09, 2005 | | Summary | Lighter-than-Air Camp | Content
| What were people expecting, I wonder, when this remake was announced?
With Frank Oz at the helm, Glenn Close and Bette Midler providing the comic relief and Christopher Walken in the role of the Stepford Patriarch, could this movie ever have turned out as anything other than high camp?
No, and you'd be stupid to even try to compare it to the excellent original.
In and of itself, however, 'The Stepford Wives' is a solid, well-made sort of comedy that won't win any awards, won't change the face of film making as we know it, and certainly won't stay with people for very long. But what it does, it does well - gentle undemanding comedy with broadly-drawn characters and some really rather beautiful set-pieces to look at mean that, even though it's as predictable as Martha Stewart in a Kitchen, at least it's a very entertaining sort of movie.
Nicole Kidman plays Joanna Eberhart, a high-powered career minded TV executive, who, after losing her job and having a subsequent breakdown, is ferried by 'loving' husband Walter (Matthew Broderick) to the town of Stepford, Connecticut, where she is aghast at the seeming chauvanistic conformity of the majority of the townswomen. Allying herself to her more normal contemporaries Bobbie Markowitz (Bette Midler) and Roger Bannister (Roger Bart), the trio begins to unravel something of the mystery behind a community headed by the mysterious Mike (Christopher Walken) and his ueber-perfect wife Claire Wellington (Glenn Close).
Close turns in a really rather terrific performance here, full of high falsetto and trembling over-enunciation. As with the rest of the Stepfords, the all-important 'sinister' aspect is missing here, but in the final scenes of the movie she really shines, garnering more laughs with her closing speech than the rest ofthe cast does throughout the movie. Kidman and Midler are in preschool here, they deliver their lines and act their emotions with all the energy of a tired basset hound, but they do it so well you don't really notice the lack of creativity in the roles. Roger Bart turns in a formulaic, if likeable enough, performance as Stepford's First Gay 'Wife', and the chemistry between the cast, while not really important, is enough to be believable.
The movie is beautifully shot, with major attention to detail in all of the Suburban settings - Oz and his team have gone to great lengths to provide a really rather sumptuous vision of the Gated Community of Stepford, and this is where the picture shines - sure, the dialogue may be mundane and the plot predictable, but the visuals are so pretty and well-suited to the piece that it's hard not to like the movie more. The Book Club, Day Spa and Town Picnic scenes are really rather good, and lend a real sense of professional gloss to this otherwise ordinary movie.
And that's about it, really. Hollow, unsurprising and not very creative, 'The Stepford Wives' is also solid, well-made and, if you take it as a separate movie to the original, quite enjoyable.
Recommended. |
|
|
|
|
