The Stepford Wives (2004)

"Oh, I feel like Nancy Drew in the mystery of the mid-life crisis.", 27 February 2006

What a mess! The remake of The Stepford Wives takes everything that made the original such a good movie and throws it all away. Instead, the movie goes for comedy and generally misses its mark at every opportunity. I'll admit that I did find myself smiling and almost laughing at a couple of scenes, but they are too few and too far between. And when the funniest bit in the movie is a 10 second Christmas sing-a-long, you can probably get an idea of how lame I found most of the comedy.

But the biggest problem I see is a lack of any sort of realism. I understand that with comedy it's often necessary to stretch believability. But The Stepford Wives attempts to inject realism by also being a drama, a thriller, and a sci-fi movie. It's none of these. There's no drama when the movies main plot point is beaten to death within the first 15 minutes of the movie. The mystery of Stepford in this remake doesn't exist. As for being a thriller, The Stepford Wives is the kind of movie that all along you just know everything will be fine in the end. What kind of thriller doesn't at least make you think someone may be in danger? Finally, most of the sci-fi elements are presented in cartoon format. How can you take that seriously?

In the end, other than a very few moments of comedy, this thing is a stinker.

4/10