IN far-out 1967, short order cook Dudley Moore was saved from suicide by Peter Cook's phlegmatic Mr Spiggott, with the unbeatable bargain offer of seven wishes in exchange for his soul.

Add Raquel Welch and leaping nuns, and that was Stanley Donen's Bedazzled swinging Sixties style: a camp star vehicle for Dud and Pete.

Now, Groundhog Day director Harold Ramis - no stranger to repeats - re-makes this Faustian pact in the dumb, cumbersome 21st century Hollywood style. In an unlikely pairing, he puts together Brendan Fraser - second only to Jim Carrey in America's league of geek actors - and Liz Hurley, a poster still struggling to convert herself into an actress.

Fraser, not for the first time and probably not for the last, is cast adrift as a socially inadequate loser, Elliot Richards. Slow and witless, always the butt of his irritating colleagues' jokes, the goon desperately wants to woo and wow office girl Alison (Mansfield Park's Frances O'Connor).

For no particularly logical reason, the Devil offers him his chance in a novel deal: Elliot's soul in return for a Big Mac and fries and six more wishes besides.

The Devil is Liz Hurley, and that is not a pro-Screen Actors Guild comment on her unwitting strike-breaking in America.

This Devil in assorted Private Shop disguises and Austin Powers fantasy outfits does not play entirely straight, as simple Elliot is transformed into a cuckolded Colombian drug baron; a numb-skull, peroxide baseball superstar deficient in the downstairs department; a dandy, gay darling of the glittering literati and more besides.

All these personality changes and self-contained vignettes let Fraser show off his character-acting skills: the subtlety of Gods And Monsters counterbalanced and alas swamped by the goofing antics of George Of The Jungle.

By contrast, Liz Hurley does little more than show off her horny wardrobe: her problems come as soon as she has to move. Too camera conscious, she walks as if going the wrong way on an escalator, and the frozen seductive sexiness of the face of Este Lauder evaporates like powder pack dust.

A diabolical performance indeed.