The Stepford Wives Reviews

What the heeeeell is Broderick doing still employed as an actor?? Not that he ruined a good movie. This remake was just watered down and with stuffed with stuffiness and stiffness, before and after the wives' transformation.

For those not in the know the Stepford Wives was originally a novel that got made into a movie in the 1970's.

In 2004, this movie was remade. The director of this movie is Frank Oz, who you Muppet-fans out there might know as the voices behind Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear - he also voiced Yoda in Star Wars and also directed The Score with Marlon Brando, Little Shop Of Horrors and quite a few other movies.

This centers around Joanna Eberhart (Nicole Kidman) a female TV executive who despite being rather sucessful...suffers a nervous breakdown which causes her to get fired from the network. Following this she decides that it would be the best if she and her family moved to Stepford.

She befriends an author named Bobbee (Bette Midler) and a gay man by the name of Roger (Roger Bart, who you Disney fans might know as the singing voice of Hercules.) Speaking of Disney...Miss Midler was the voice of Georgette in Oliver And Company and also played one of three witches in Hocus Pocus.

The town is run by Claire Wellington (Glenn Close, - who as you might already know played a certain fur-crazed villainess.) and her husband Mike...who of course is played by Christopher Walken. Mike appears during the scene where Sarah (Faith Hill) spins out of control during a country hoedown.

Joanna's husband is played by Matthew Broderick...who if you are a Disney fan you would know as Adult Simba and Inspector Gadget.

Stepford is quite a nice, quiet..crime free little burb...almost a little too perfect. As Joanna begins to notice that not everything is as it seems.

The women are almost inhumanly nice and perfect...not to mention loyal to their husbands, and even Roger starts turning straight and running for Mayor of Stepford.

Turns out that Mike invented a program that he uses to change the wives...and make them that way. It involves mind control chips that drasticially alter their personalities.

I can honestly say that you'll be surprised when you see the ending. I know I was. But I am not going to spoil it for you.

I actually really liked this movie. I heard that it had a very troubled production but it doesn't really show here. I thought it was really interesting. The cast was all great especially Nicole Kidman and the others.

The special effects were intriguing and the costumes and sets were very elegant and stylish. And yes for those are wondering....Walken dances in this movie.

Since I heard only bad things about this movie, I wasn’t expecting much but since I have a weak spot for Frank Oz and the cast involved, I still wanted to check it out. Apparently, the production on this movie was quite messy and Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, and producer Scott Rudin all expressed regret for being part of this movie. Even Frank Oz has also reported regrets over his involvement as well. So, I thought it would be awful but, honestly, I don’t think it was that bad. Pretty much like the remake of ‘The Wicker Man’, I didn’t get what was the fuss about this movie. Of course, it is a weak movie, awkwardly mixing SF, thriller and comedy but I thought it was watchable. I have to admit, I haven’t seen the original version so I can’t compare both movies but , in my opinion, there was a pretty good cast (Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler, Glenn Close, Christopher Walken, Faith Hill) and I think there was there, somewhere a pretty good movie very well hidden. The point is that I have a weak spot for this kind of stories and I thought it was quite intriguing, at least for a while. Indeed, unfortunately, the tone was quite messed up and they kept jumping from a dark scene to something lighter without much of a warning so the whole thing felt terribly half-baked. To conclude, even though I don’t think it is one of the worst movies ever made, I still have to admit that it is messy and just plain average and, obviously, it is not really worth a look.