Nicole Kidman and Bette Midler Enter Housewife Hell

June 11, 2004 -- Now in theaters: The Stepford Wives, Garfield: The Movie and The Chronicles of Riddick.

The Stepford Wives

You know the gimmick. The term "Stepford Wives" has become part of the language.

This is a remake of a 1975 film. The original had a horror movie ending. A young couple from Manhattan moves to the idyllic suburb of Stepford, Conn., where the housewives dutifully cook, clean and cater to their husbands. But it turns out that the women have been replaced by easily programmed, look-alike robots, and Stepford's newest male resident wants his wife remodeled.

The new Stepford Wives, according to the buzz, would be a dark comedy. Very dark. With sharp edges. And the buzz was the remake was a disaster. Test audiences didn't like a three-hour first cut. The studio paid for a very expensive reshoot, according to The New York Times.

As a result, they've softened the edges, lightened the darkness, and made it a flat-out comedy. And it works: It's funny.

Nicole Kidman and Bette Midler are the odd girls in town. Kidman tries on a bubble-gum seersucker frock just like the other ladies' candy-colored outfits. "You look like Betty Crocker at Betty Ford." Midler says.

If you like these jokes, you'll like the film, and if it's a hit, Christopher Walken and Glenn Close could get Oscar nominations as the townies who impose Stepford's social order.

Country singer Faith Hill, in her first film, gets star billing though she's barely in the movie, which leads me to believe one thing they did was an awful lot of cutting.

The film seems to have three separate endings and the last one looks tacked on, and tacky. Grade: B.

Garfield: The Movie

I have a rule: I don't take my son Dylan to a movie unless I see it first, and when I saw Garfield: The Movie was I glad. I couldn't believe the stuff I was seeing in what's supposed to be a kids' film. The story is the same as Toy Story 2. There's a newcomer, in this case a puppy, in Garfied's house. Instead of being stolen by an evil toy collector like Buzz Lightyear, this pup is kidnapped by an evil animal trainer. They even rip off a bit from Toy Story when the characters hide under traffic cones.

Voiced by Bill Murray, Garfield the cat is part puppet and part computer-generated images, but he lives in a real world and his pals are real. Bad idea. For physical humor to be funny, the audience has to be made to understand that no one really gets hurt. That's why cartoon violence can be funny. But imagine Tom and Jerry with a real cat and mouse. It's not something you'd want young kids to see.

Is watching Garfield smack a puppy supposed to be funny? And why, in a kids' film, would you show a cat falling out the window of a 40-story building? Hey, kids, want to try this with your cat? Are the people who made this movie nuts?

At one point, the animal trainer puts an electric collar on the dog and zaps him with 200 volts of electricity. That's how he gets the pooch to do back-flips.

In a month, they'll be selling this film as kitty litter. One positive, though; I did learn how to say Garfield in Italian. It's "Gigli." Grade: D.

The Chronicles of RiddickIn The Chronicles of Riddick, Vin Diesel plays a man of very few words, and he speaks them in an indiscernible accent. The story is incomprehensible. The violence is over the top. Three more movies like this one and he'll be governor of California. Grade: D.