Warning: this page contains spoilers!
Well, simply put, I enjoyed it. It's not exactly one of the classics, but it was fun. The basic plot device (genie twists wishes to mess things up) has been done before, but that's ok as long as the actual implementation (i.e. the way the wishes get messed up) is original, which I thought they were. Liz Hurley's character was interesting - she
reminded me of Spike from Buffy, in that while her actions were morally reprehensible, she was witty and likeable. I also thought that she played quite fair when it came to the wishes, e.g. prompting him for things he might have forgotten ("anything in the winky department?"
) Of course, it doesn't hurt that she's amazingly good looking. I don't know whether this counts as standard Hollywood stereotyping to have God as American and the Devil as English...
As for the moral of the story, the main one (the journey is more important than the destination) wasn't that impressive. However, I did like the more subtle one, i.e. that he really didn't know the woman he'd been lusting after through the film, and had much more success when he started out with a friendship based on similar interests.
To make this vaguely balanced, the only thing I didn't like about the film was that at the start Elliot's behaviour was painfully embarrassing rather than funny.
Oh yes, I'm not sure whether that bit about "I want to be the President of the United States"
"That's the noblest thing I've ever heard of"
was supposed to be funny, but I seemed to be the only one in the cinema who was laughing...
I now have the DVD, which included a deleted scene. In the film as released, the devil cheated Elliot out of one of his wishes. In fact, there was an extra wish filmed, but it was cut out of the film, and presumably they didn't have the time/money to replace it with another fantasy world. This wish was to become a rock star - very much the sex/drugs lifestyle. I really didn't like it, and it didn't fit in with the rest of the tone of the film at all, so I think they made the right choice by cutting it out. That's interesting, because normally I enjoy watching extra scenes on disks.
This page was last updated on 2003-12-29 by John C. Kirk