Cast: Nicole Kidman, Will Ferrell, Shirley MacLaine, Michael Caine, Jason Schwartzman, Kristin Chenoweth
Director: Nora Ephron
Producers: Lucy Fisher, Penny Marshall, Douglas Wick
Screenplay: Delia Ephron, Nora Ephron, Adam McKay
Cinematography: John Lindley
Music: George Fenton

It's long been said that Americans have never quite grasped the concept of irony - this dire film cements that notion. No amount of magic spells could make "Bewitched" enjoyable, even after all the work put into it by a filmic coven of rotating cooks stirring this long-simmering cauldron.

The brew that sisters Nora and Delia Ephron have ultimately created reeks of frantic desperation, despite featuring a solid cast in Nicole Kidman, Will Ferrell, Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine.

In adapting the '60s tv sitcom for the big screen, the Ephrons (Delia as director/writer and Nora as writer) have come up with a conceit that's admirable in its attempt at innovation - an updated version of "Bewitched" is in the works, with a real-life witch playing Samantha. You have to give them credit for at least trying something different, and not just another camped-up transfer from TV to film, like the insufferable "Brady Bunch Movie" or the weak "Starsky & Hutch", that is, until some o.t.t. theatrical mincing eejit called Steve Carell shows up, doing the token gay input as Uncle Arthur.

In execution, though, the premise is cute beyond endurance - as is the performance from Kidman, who's more than capable of comedy (see the darkly brilliant "To Die For") but is too substantial an actress for the wishy washy fluff routine she's landed with here. It doesn't help that she and Ferrell, as the actor playing Darrin, have zilch chemistry with each other, despite their individual appeal.

Kidman plays Isabel Bigelow, a blissfully naive and good witch who wants to give up her supernatural powers for mundane, suburban, mortal life. Ferrell plays Jack Wyatt, a washed-up actor looking for a comeback by starring as Darrin on the new "Bewitched." (He actually does his best work in the film at the beginning, when he's unshaven, insecure and withdrawn, and nervously meeting with the TV show's execs for the first time. It's a darker side of the comedian, and it suggests an untapped complexity that's promising - but it doesn't last long.

Jack spots Isabel in a book shop and notices her twitching her nose. He's instantly drawn to her as the ideal person to play his TV wife having no clue that she really is a witch, presuming she's just an innocent girl he can upstage. Meanwhile, she's instantly, inexplicably smitten with Jack, despite his obvious smarminess.

Isabel's father, Nigel (Michael Caine what were you on when you signed up for this??), is appalled by the idea of his daughter's involvement with the sitcom. "That's an insult to our way of life!" he scolds. But he softens when he realises who's playing Samantha's mother, Endora: his favourite actress, Iris Smythson (the irritating Shirley MacLaine, well past it and over-the-top in an array of brightly coloured feather boas).

Meanwhile, Isabel struggles with her urges to use her powers to manipulate everyone and everything around her, including Jack. It's so easy to whip up a house and a car or hook up the VCR and hi fi with a couple of quick facial gestures - but this procedure becomes repetitive very quickly, and the jaunty music that usually accompanies it grows seriously annoying.

The witchcraft also provides an abundance of opportunities for increasingly broad physical comedy, leading up to a montage of Isabel and Jack frolicking to the "Bewitched" theme and the dreadful and overused Rupert Holmes "Pina Colada" song. Presumably this is a trick to eat up time, as is a scene in which Jack goes on "Inside the Actors Studio" and insists to James Lipton, "This isn't the old "Bewitched!"'

It certainly isn't - but it does make the old "Bewitched" look like pure magic.