Sunday Double Feature: “The Stepford Wives” (2004)

Part two of the double feature is the recent remake of
The Stepford Wives.

Cast, Crew, and Other Info

Nicole Kidman as Joanna Eberhart

Matthew Broderick as Walter Kresby

Bette Midler as Bobbie Markowitz

John Lovitz as Dave Markowitz

Glenn Close as Claire Wellington

Christopher Walken as Mike Wellington

Written by Paul Rudnick, based on the Ira Levin
novel.

Directed by Frank Oz.

Complete information is available from the
IMDB
.

Buy from: Amazon.com
or Amazon.ca

Past movie reviews can be found here.

Premise

A small development contains some typical American
husbands and some
incredibly atypical American wives.

High Point

The antlers. That was genuinely funny.

Low Point

The origin of the conspiracy. That wasn’t just lame,
it completely
undid the feminist aspect of the story that used to be
a driving force
behind it.

The Scores

The originality suffers for being the second
adaptation of
the same material, but it did change the genre to
comedy. I give it 4
out of 6.

The effects were few, but often weak. I give
it 3 out of 6.

The story is a weak modification of the
source material, with
an overly long opening that seemed to have no point
but to take
pot-shots at reality TV. Yes, it gave motivation to
move, but it could
have done that in a third of the time. I give it 3
out of 6.

The acting was a little over the top in
places, but not
terrible. I give it 4 out of 6.

The emotional response was uneven. Some
moments were quite
funny, but there was no horror left, despite shooting
much of the
second half as a horror film. Many segments just felt
too long, and
in a 93 minute movie (which makes it 22 minutes
shorter than the
original, which didn’t feel overly long)
that’s a problem. I
give it 4 out of 6.

The production had some rather pedestrian
directing, with
some very uneven editing. They just didn’t have a
script that was
ready to film yet, but they filmed it anyway. I have
to give David
Arnold credit for a great musical score, though. He
did an excellent
job. I give it 4 out of 6.

Overall, it’s a decent comedy, but not a
great one. I give
it 3 out of 6.

In total, Stepford Wives (2004) receives 25
out of 42.

3 replies on “Sunday Double Feature: “The Stepford Wives” (2004)”

  1. Stepford Wives

    Okay, I have a question, and this is also a test of my new spoiler-posting method. My question is about the general plot of The Stepford Wives. So basically, the movie is about a community where the men reprogram the women into being ideal wives from the male point of view, right?

    • Re: Stepford Wives

      Okay, I have a question, and this is also a test of my new spoiler-posting method. My question is about the general plot of The Stepford Wives. So basically, the movie is about a community where the men reprogram the women into being ideal wives from the male point of view, right?

      Thats pretty much the gist of it. I have never seen the original movie, but this one was average. Pretty much just another filler movie.

  2. Low Point

    The origin of the conspiracy. That wasn’t just lame, it completely undid the feminist aspect of the story that used to be a driving force behind it.

    I didn’t feel the same about this. Sure, it abandoned the Andrea Dworken era politics for something a little more modern, but that isn’t such a bad thing. Not all women agree on how to define feminism nor on what the goals of it should be. Are you still a feminist if you are given the choice to have a career and yet choose to be a homemaker?

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