Brendan Fraser plays several diverse mutations of his character Elliot Richards through his wishes, and does a superb job. If fact, so do actors Orlando Jones, Paul Adelstein, and Toby Huss who make appearances throughout Elliot's wish vignettes. Elizabeth Hurley plays a seductive, stylish, and very articulate Devil. And she's very hot of course. And Frances O' Connor does just as good a job with the different versions of her character Alison Gardner as Fraser does with his. Just and all around great cast.
Some of the vignettes are pretty funny while others are so-so, but I found myself wanting to see more of Fraser and Hurley together. Now that I think about it, I enjoyed the on-screen time with Moore and Cook together more than I enjoyed the actual wishes in the original also. That's what appealed to me in the original. The conversations Stanley Moon and George Spiggott (the Devil) got into while George was performing some act of mischief through the dialogue.
This deviousness is only manifest in Hurley's Devil in a few scenes where she and Fraser are together. Instead, the movie seems to rush from wish to wish due to The Devil prodding Elliot to hurry with his wishes because of a timeline in the contract, so we are denied seeing that improbable friendship that forms between Elliot and the Devil in as much detail as with Stanley and George in the original. But then again, their was an entire wish sequence cut (where Elliot becomes a rock star. Even the soundtrack features the song he sings with his real voice -- Inside of You Inside of Me), so who knows, maybe they cut out other scenes with Frasier and Hurley. And there was that scene with Hurley and the snake in the trailer after all.
But aside from those gripes, I enjoyed the movie very much. I even go downstairs on occasion to hear the audience reactions. And they seem to be having as good a time with the show as I did. Check it out if you haven't all ready.
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The man with the magic hands.
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--"That's my story and i'm sticking to it!"--
