How does the Tomatometer work 
Reviews Counted:160
Fresh:42
Rotten:118
Average Rating:4.6/10
Consensus: In exchanging the chilling satire of the original into mindless camp, this remake has itself become Stepford-ized.
Runtime: 1 hr 33 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Based on a book by Ira Levin which satirizes the roles of 1950s housewives, this is a remake of the 1975 film adaptation. Director Frank Oz presents a dramatic reworking of the horror classic,... [More]
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler, Glenn Close
Director: Frank Oz
A Frankenstein's monster of a movie: clumsy, patched together from parts that don't align properly, desperate to be loved, destined to be chased by mobs with pitchforks -- those will be the critics -- until it stumbles into its grave.
The Stepford Wives has been Stepfordized into a big-budget, star-heavy commodity, complete with computer effects and not-so-subliminal product placements.
Audiences that find themselves laughing at first will likely be fidgeting as the pic drifts toward a peculiar if oddly predictable climax, requiring -- much like the Stepford women -- that brains be checked at the door.
Top CriticAfter a promising beginning and wayward middle, Stepford pulls itself together for a snappy finale.
As a clone of a movie about clones, The Stepford Wives leaves out too much of the sinister nature of the original, and doesn't add quite enough new humor to be wholly satisfying.
The sting is gone.
At its best this is a CQ (as in chuckle quietly) comedy rather than an LOL (as in laugh out loud) affair.
All the efforts of director Frank Oz and writer Paul Rudnick to make the story funny feel slightly desperate and very strained.
This film is like me asking a woman out on date. It's trying very hard and seems to be on the verge of success, but it ends in disaster no matter how earnest the approach.
Oz has made an interesting -- and entertaining -- choice. Instead of updating the story to make it more credible, he has gone the other way: milking its passé alarmism for laughs.
Plenty of broad comedy and scenarios that are as vacant as the title characters.
The new Stepford Wives, with its chocolate-box visual style, archly heavy-handed foreshadowing and its scene-for-scene parody of the original's fright strategies ... is a gas.
The Stepford Wives fails to find a comfortable tone. The humor is never black enough, the plot never important enough.
The problem as I see it with The Stepford Wives hasn’t as much to do with the movie itself, as it has to do with the way the movie’s been marketed.
Doesn't have the bite or the kick to qualify as a memorable black comedy.
Trying to be more antic and cuttingly funny, it misses the premise's shivery tension.
A smugly scatterbrained movie development committee throws the sociological kitchen sink at anyone stupid enough to care about Ann Coulter.
does away with any of the cautionary edge the first adaptation had and replaces it with silly humor
In this `Stepford,' the threat isn't so much tradition-minded men but corporate mother hens such as Martha Stewart - the ones who want to bake their cakes and eat them too.
...a muddled movie that half-heartedly tries to land somewhere in between horror and comedy.
Subscribe to RT's YouTube channel and don't miss a second of our cracking video content.
Follow Rotten Tomatoes and join us as we tweet about the week's releases.
IGN.com |
GameSpy |
Comrade |
Arena |
FilePlanet |
GameSpy Technology
TeamXbox |
Planets |
Vaults |
VE3D |
CheatsCodesGuides |
GameStats |
GamerMetrics
AskMen.com |
Rotten Tomatoes |
Direct2Drive |
Green Pixels
IGN RSS Feeds
Comment
