For old people too scared of Wire Fu and mutants, Hollywood is offering up a toothless comedy called The In-Laws, which turns out to be even less funny than all of that heady gobbledygook Neo has to say and listen to in The Matrix Reloaded. It's safe counterprogramming for those who still think Friends is at the top of its game and that Will and Grace are just the zaniest pair going. In other words, The In-Laws is chock-full of extremely dated humor and derogatory gay jokes with punch lines so glaringly obvious, you can see them through walls.

You might remember the original 1979 version of The In-Laws, in which Arthur Hiller directed Peter Falk and Alan Arkin in a story about two very different fathers-in-law meeting right before the big wedding of their respective spawn. For its time, the comedy was firing on all of its cylinders, but to go back and watch it now is just plain depressing. Keen observers, though, will recognize its plot was "borrowed" to make the highly successful Meet the Parents. Instead of focusing on the relationship between one secret agent father-in-law (Falk) and his nebbishy dentist counterpart (Arkin), Parents rode box office success by showing the secret agent dad getting to know the nebbishy nurse marrying his daughter.

In this completely unnecessary new version, dentistry is replaced with the only girlier medical field out there – podiatry. That's how Jerry Peyser (Albert Brooks, The Muse) makes his living, which allows him to throw a huge wedding bash for his daughter Melissa (Lindsay Sloane, Bring It On), even though she says she just wants a small, quiet ceremony (what girl actually means this, by the way?). Melissa is marrying a handsome Andy Sipowicz partner-type guy named Mark (Ryan Reynolds, Van Wilder). Neither Jerry nor Melissa have met Mark's dad when the film opens, but that quickly changes when Steve Tobias (Michael Douglas, It Runs in the Family), a CIA agent posing as a copier salesman, roars into town like an Oklahoma twister.

Before you know it, Jerry is accidentally caught up in a world of international espionage that involves stolen arms, a Russian sub (mmmm...Russian sub) and, most importantly, Robin Tunney (Vertical Limit), who plays Steve's foxy partner. Basically, every gag in the film boils down to Douglas gnawing on the scenery over and over again, and Brooks screaming, "Oh my God – he's still gnawing!" This isn't exactly cutting-edge stuff here, unless maybe you count the scene where you have to watch Brooks getting out of a hot tub wearing a thong (and it's in the trailer, of course), which must be some kind of cosmic payback for seeing Kathy Bates nude in About Schmidt.

Brooks is a very funny guy, but this kind of material is way beneath him. Douglas may never have been more irritating (but I never saw It Runs in the Family), and you know that in real life he'd probably bust a hip just watching some of the stunts we're supposed to swallow him doing here. Candice Bergen (Sweet Home Alabama) once again proves she's cornered the market on wacky mothers-in-law, while both of the talented kids are largely wasted in poorly written parts. But not as wasted as Tunney, the only character in the film that is even remotely interesting.

The In-Laws is a disappointing step for writer-director Andrew Fleming, who crafted the slyly comedic Dick and the Tunney-led teen witch drama The Craft, which has long been a guilty pleasure of mine (What?!? It has a great soundtrack!). I think somebody must have had a gun to his head, forcing him to make the film more like My Big Fat Greek Wedding. The bad news is that The In-Laws is just about as funny as Greek Wedding, and that means there is no good news.

1:35 -

for suggestive humor, language, some drug references and action violence