SQUEAKY WIVES GET GREASE IN 'STEPFORD'.

Byline: Evan Henerson Staff Writer

ALL THAT CRITICAL praise notwithstanding, there's always been something kind of lethal about Nicole Kidman. That Amazonian stature, that pale skin, those frosty eyes. Jeopardized or otherwise, the lady radiates a certain sense of ``Get too close and I'll rip off your legs and feed them to the closest thing with teeth.'' Do we buy her as a gorgonistic, former network head who becomes the target of a sci-fi, anti-feminist conspiracy? Can Nicole Kidman be convincingly Stepfordian?

Bet your 4-inch stilettos she can.

The casting and production design are the master strokes of the otherwise pro forma ``The Stepford Wives,'' Frank Oz and Paul Rudnick's adaptation of the Ira Levin novel. As its outsider and first couple respectively, Kidman, Christopher Walken and Glenn Close play their ghoulish roles to the absolute hilt. And in the creation of Bobbi Markowitz and Roger Bannister (Bette Middler and Roger Bart), screenwriter Paul Rudnick (``In and Out,'' ``Jeffrey'') appears to have cloned two versions of himself and inserted them directly into the film to launch bitchy stink bombs.

Stepford, Conn. - as imagined by production designer Jackson De Govia - is a sparkling city behind a guard gate, a convenient drive from menacing Manhattan. The houses are enormous, remote-controlled and high-tech, and big, obscene-looking flower arrangements are everywhere. The ladies all wear floral print dresses over which Donna Reed would have slobbered. Their hair and bodies - Close's included - are perfect. The smiles and vacant expressions are a bit off-putting (guess why!). Oh, and although the film honors them in its title, the wives of Stepford don't actually show up all that much in the film. Mostly we see the men, Kidman and her Snow White barrette. And muffins. Lots and lots of muffins.

Kidman's Joanna Eberhart ends up in Stepford because the big bad city has chewed her up and spat out the remains. A reality show created by Joanna called ``I Can Do Better'' goes wrong. Joanna is fired, her nebbishy husband, Walter (Matthew Broderick, also smart casting), quits his job and moves the family to the 'burbs of Connecticut, where the women shop and go to the day spa and the menfolk have their secret club on the hill. Joanna is quickly creeped out by these smiling, anachronistic Stepfordians, but at her husband's insistence, she agrees to start baking.

``No more black!'' Walter says. ``Only neurotic, high-powered, castrating Manhattan career bitches wear black. Is that what you want to be?''

``Since I was a little girl,'' returns Joanna wistfully.

Now, whatever else her talents, Nicole Kidman is not a natural comedian. But she does imperiled quite effectively, and Oz's satiric touch here dovetails smartly with his leading lady's abilities. The real heavy lifting - comically speaking - falls to Midler and Bart as a couple of Stepfordian outsiders: her, a salty New York Jewish author, him a gay architect.

``The Stepford Wives'' could be blacker, out for more blood and with a less sunny ending. You wonder what someone like Danny DeVito or the late Michael Ritchie would have done with this material. All the same, the current offering is brisk, occasionally snarky and genuinely fun. We'll let Kidman play Lizzie Borden another time.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

THE STEPFORD WIVES - Three stars

(PG-13: language, sexual content, thematic material)

Starring: Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, Christopher Walken, Bette Midler, Glenn Close.

Director: Frank Oz.

Running time: 1 hr. 33 min.

Playing: Citywide.

In a nutshell: Nicole Kidman gets to play both dangerous and imperiled in the brightly colored revamp of Ira Levin's satiric novel. But be prepared for more husbands and Kidman - and fewer of the title ``Wives'' than you might expect.

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Photo:

Nicole Kidman, left, and Bette Midler are Manhattan-to-Connecticut transplants who aren't exactly with the program - yet - in this scene from ``The Stepford Wives.''