The depressing thing about remakes is that all too often they remind us of how little has changed. As I write this, we are four days closer to the second George W. Bush term, with all its attendant 14th century social mores and bellicosity, its worship of war and tough guys who talk like "real men." No more of that squishy business about caring about feelings, in Bush's America, the Real Man credo is "If you can't fuck it or eat it, kill it, then fuck it, then eat it."

As we embark on this trip in the Republican Wayback Machine, today's sociocultural stop is the mid-1960's, that period right before feminism and just on the cusp of the counterculture, when the pill had just become commonplace and men began to realize that they could behave badly with impunity. When we stopped in 1966 the last time, we had Lewis Gilbert's stylish Alfie, which became one of those emblematic movies of an era. With a decidedly blue-collar, and icily charming Michael Caine in the title role, the original film attempted, however half-heartedly, to slap its protagonist on the wrist just a bit, instead of merely revelling in his laddishness. This task was made easier by the fact that abortion was still illegal in 1966, which gave the film a larger moral context in terms of the real consequences of Alfie's recklessness, as well as the film's ability to portray the women he so casually uses and then discards as victims.

At least for the moment, these concerns no longer apply, and so Charles Shyer's updated remake of the film, with the androgynous Jude Law re-interpreting the role, must rely on more subtle emotional consequences to make its point.

Law is still Alfie Elkins, only now he's been upscaled somewhat. This time he's a limousine service driver with a closet full of natty designer threads, purchased on sale, of course. The first five minutes of the film are essentially "Jude Eye For the Not-As-Gorgeous Guy", with Law as Alfie making acquaintance with the audience by providing a guided tour of his wardrobe and lifestyle. It's clear that Carson Kressley has been here, as Alfie is well aware of the "I'm comfortable with myself" vibe offered by wearing a pink shirt with one's Armani suit. Law makes quick work of achieving intimacy with the audience by his ease in speaking directly to the camera, and the in the first twenty minutes of the film Alfie's effortless charm and ability to flatter a woman, even his blowsy landlady (Renee Taylor in a funny small role) and her friends are on full display. Over the course of the film, Alfie introduces us to the sometime girlfriend who finally runs out of patience (Marisa Tomei), the love interest (Nia Long) of his best friend Marlon (Omar Epps), the party girl who becomes the girlfriend from hell (Sienna Miller) and the self assured older woman (played inevitably by Susan Sarandon, in the role made famous by Shelly Winters in the original) who finally gives Alfie exactly what he gives his conquests. One decidedly sour note is a completely gratuitous racial stereotype in the person of car service owner Mr. Wing (Gedde Watanabe, and oh how the Donger has fallen since Sixteen Candles). I used to think Italians were the last ethnic group it was OK to stereotype; I was wrong: pidgin English is still OK to put in the mouths of Asian-American characters as well. The role is appalling, and it is equally appalling that there are so few roles for Asian-American actors that Watanabe felt he had to take it.

As I've written elsewhere, Jude Law is a fine character actor who also happens to bear the misfortune of being arguably the beautiful human being on the planet. For much of his career thus far, he seems to have been trying to escape his looks, doing much of his best work in roles in which he could hide behind bad prosthetic teeth (Road to Perdition) or plasticene makeup (A.I.: Artificial Intelligence). In last year's Cold Mountain, which was supposed to be his breakthrough into the kind of leading man stardom that would seem inevitable for someone who looks the way he does, he was peculiarly lackluster. It's therefore surprising, then, that he would be attracted to a role like this, which in breaking down the third wall, requires the actor to seduce the audience as well as the women in the film. What's more surprising is that he does a fine job, seeming at last to be comfortable in the skin God saw fit to give him, and even having some fun with it.

The problem with casting someone like Jude Law in this role is that it's not difficult to imagine women falling head over heels for someone with his face, hair, catlike grace and purring voice before he even turns on the charm. It's easy to forget that Michael Caine, who became quite handsome in middle-age, was actually quite ordinary-looking as a young actor. HIS Alfie had to rely on intangibles to win his conquests, whereas this one simply has to walk out of his trailer. But if the women, both in the film and the audience, are attracted to him, Shyer is clearly besotted with him. This creates an interesting dynamic in which the camera becomes yet one more conquest, except this one never loses patience with him. If this Alfie were just a garden variety cad, or even a pretty cipher with charm up the wazoo, which he uses to manipulate both women and his friends, and then toss them away like used condoms, it would be easy for the audience to obtain the distance needed to dislike him and hope he gets his come-uppance. But Law is such a likeable screen presence, and his Alfie seems so much more a clueless boy than a manipulative man, that when he finally does find out the consequences of his actions, and get the smackdown he so richly deserves, instead of applauding, we want to take him home and make him soup.

The other characters in the film are simply moons in Law's orbit, easily forgettable, except for Omar Epps, who after portraying a hapless schmuck for most of the film, gets One Terrific Moment that you won't soon forget; and Susan Sarandon, who is a role model for Women of a Certain Age everywhere. She looks every bit of fiftysomething, but is one of those not-quite-beautiful women usually only seen in Europe, so confident in her sexual allure that you just know she'll stil be a bombshell at seventy. Marisa Tomei seems pinched, miscast, and shrewish as Alfie's single-mom girlfriend, and Sienna Miller seems an empty Guess model of a bubblehead, with an unfortunate resemblance to Britney Spears, until the moment she must come to terms with the wreckage of life with Alfie.

The production itself looks great, although Shyer clearly can't decide in which decade he's shooting. With splashy, blocky opening graphics, and bright 60's pinks and oranges dominating the color palette, and the women all wearing the kind of teased hairdos, frosted lipsticks and heavy eyeliner that were common in the mid-60's, it would seem he's striving for a retro look, for all that the story is clearly set in the here and now. Shyer does have too much fondness for trite cinematic tricks, which he thinks are stylized, but instead come across as "Whoo! Look what I can do!" He's so enamored of the visuals, including his leading man, that the story's narrative gets lost along the way, so at the end, we're still unsatisfied, yearning for ever more eye candy.

At its core, ALFIE is essentially the response to all those diner lunches and martinis consumed by the girls of Sex and the City for six years. If the perennially clueless Carrie and Miranda and Charlotte wanted to know what made the men who flitted in and out of their lives tick, Alfie could give them the answer -- and they wouldn't like what they find out.

-- Jill Cozzi

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