A CERTAIN MAGIC TO 'BEWITCHED'.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

IT MIGHT BE going a bit far to use the word ``enchanting'' when discussing Nora Ephron's frothy remake of the TV series ``Bewitched,'' but the movie is indisputably a cut above such rote efforts as ``The Honeymooners'' and ``Charlie's Angels.'' Ephron's ``Bewitched'' actually contains ideas. Some work better than others, but there's enough originality and solid laughs here to call this a charmed effort.

If for no other reason, the movie is worth seeing to watch Nicole Kidman bounce her way through a rare comic turn. Kidman plays Isabel, who begins the film as a breathy kewpie doll (Kidman must have watched ``The Seven-Year Itch'' for inspiration), a naive witch who comes to the San Fernando Valley wanting only to be normal and to find a man who needs her for herself and not her otherworldly powers.

Isabel thinks she's found such a partner in Jack Wyatt (Will Ferrell), an egoistic, onetime movie star whose career is in such a downturn that he's forced to take the part of Darrin in a TV remake of ``Bewitched.'' Jack doesn't want anyone to upstage him on the new series, so he hires Isabel to play Samantha solely on the basis of her nose-twitching talents. She goes along with the idea, swooning to Jack's line that ``if you do the show, we'll be together forever.''

Jack, of course, was talking about syndication, not matrimony. As Ephron, who shares screenwriting credit on the movie with sister Delia and Ferrell's writing partner Adam McKay, homes in on show-biz pettiness and eccentricities, the movie springs to life. The cast and crew remark on how ``incredibly dialed in'' Isabel is to her part. (Later, Jack asks her, ``Do you have some Daniel Day-Lewis thing happening here?)

For her part, Isabel gamely goes along with Jack's star turn until she finds out the truth. Her revenge is swift and sweet, and it also sets up the least convincing and most forced element of the film - the romance. No doubt Ephron felt compelled to bring her fictional Darrin and Samantha together, but she never makes a case for why we should root for that to happen.

This isn't fatal, though it does undercut the effectiveness of the movie's last half-hour. A subplot involving Isabel's father (Michael Caine, doing the doting paternal thing again with charming ease) and the actress playing Samantha's TV mom, Endora (Shirley MacLaine), gets lost in the frantically paced ending, a shame since both Caine and MacLaine nail their roles. So do Kidman and the manic Ferrell, who goes with the flow even as the filmmakers mix and match his character to fit the requirements of the plot.

That Ferrell is at his best lampooning the vanity of a Hollywood down- and-outer (there's a great scene where he sits down with James Lipton, a frequent target during Ferrell's stint on ``Saturday Night Live'') indicates where the strength of this ``Bewitched'' lies, gently spoofing the spells that celebrity - not love - casts in these mixed-up times.

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

BEWITCHED - Three stars

(PG-13: some language, including sex and drug references, and partial nudity.)

Starring: Nicole Kidman, Will Ferrell, Michael Caine, Shirley MacLaine.

Director: Nora Ephron.

Running time: 1 hr. 40 min.

Playing: In wide release.

In a nutshell: Frothy hit-and-miss effort that works best when focusing on the vanities of Hollywood. Just enough laughs and fun performances to recommend.

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Photo:

Nicole Kidman, left, Shirley MacLaine and Will Ferrell become the stars of a TV remake of the original ``Bewitched'' series in the movie of the same name.