A Simple Wish

Little Anabel (Wilson) loves New York, but her careworn dad (a widower) threatens to drag her off to Nebraska if he doesn't get the lead in a Broadway musical. Enter Murray (Short), the first male fairy godmother, and hopeless to boot. Anabel's confused about her wishes, and with the appearance of megalomaniac Claudia (Turner) - a good godmother turned bad - it seems like curtains. Murray looks interesting (think Emo Phillips impaled on Maurice Gibb's teeth), but is he a super-modern wit or the traditional lovable clown? It might've been nice if he'd become emotionally connected to Anabel or, indeed, to any of the other characters. His antics, however, are uninvolving, and Claudia, though a similarly lazy construct, steals the show. Like Frankenstein, director Ritchie has begged and borrowed from too many sources.