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Verdict: So bad it verges on the legendary.

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
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"Gigli" makes "Hudson Hawk" look like a hiccup, "Ishtar" like a minor misstep. It's the stuff "Mystery Science Theater 3000s" are made of.

Before it opened, it was infamous for being the movie that spawned L'Affaire Jennifer Lopez/Ben Affleck. Now that it's arrived at the multiplex, it can be judged for what it is: a disaster of spectacular proportions.

Larry Gigli (Affleck) is a lunkheaded mob enforcer with an unpronounceable name ("It rhymes with 'really,'" he keeps saying). His new assignment is to kidnap the younger brother of a federal judge who has the power to put some crooked New York-based mob boss away for life. Next thing you know, we're in a bargain-basement version of "Rain Man." The brother, Brian (Justin Bartha), is a brain-damaged kid, irritating but a sweetheart, and as obsessed with "Baywatch" as Dustin Hoffman was with BlueLight Specials.

Gigli takes Brian to his apartment for safekeeping. That's when Ricki (Lopez) - not her real name - shows up. She's a hot-chick hit woman and has been sent to baby-sit Gigli in case something goes wrong. Which has got to be the flimsiest excuse for a plot turn in recent memory. (But, then, things get flimsier. . . .)

As far back as Aristophanes, romantic comedies have needed obstacles to work. It used to be traditional notions of women's sexuality - no sex before marriage, etc. - were obstacle enough. But in the wake of birth control, women in the workplace, and a shifting social climate, that no longer works. Thus, the obstacles have become increasingly far-fetched - opposite coasts in "Sleepless in Seattle," or a wedding planner falling in love with the groom-to-be in Lopez's "The Wedding Planner." The roadblock in "Gigli" is that Ricki is a happy lesbian and even a sex god like, um, Gigli may not be able to sway her.

Please.

The movie is airless and inane. You feel suffocated by scenes that have no weight. For instance, Gigli and Ricki drop by his mother's (Lainie Kazan) for some spurious non-reason. The real reason, of course, is so director Martin Brest can have a scene in which Mom gives her blessings to lesbianism, yet encourages the idea that lesbians can go both ways when the right fella comes along. (All the while, Kazan eyes J. Lo like a whale courting a piece of plankton.) And whatever chemistry Lopez and Affleck have in real life curdles on-screen. Watching him try to distract her sexually while she's reading a book is embarrassing. Think: Winnie the Pooh coming on to Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Lopez is the only one who gets out of this alive - and even so, she's pretty badly maimed after delivering a sexual-politics monologue while doing some sort of exercise/meditation that must've been culled from the Kama Sutra.

The script, written by Brest of "Scent of a Woman" infamy, gives her zilch, so Lopez falls back on her diva power, in all its tawny sexuality and ferocious me-ness. She gives you something to watch, even if it's something you'd prefer not to see.

Christopher Walken stumbles through a small scene, trying to charge a superfluous character with some kind of oomph. And just when you think things can't possibly get any worse, Al Pacino shows up in a performance so ripely hammy you half expect him to turn into a pork rind.

Finally, there's Affleck. Matt's Ben. Gwyneth's Ben. Now, J. Lo's Ben. Ben, who has the blockiest head in movies next to Ted Danson, James Van Der Beek, and Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's Monster. The Affleck effect is akin to a black hole, sucking all the energy and life out of every scene he's in. Somewhere along an L.A. expressway, he's lost the dexterity, the self-deprecating sense of humor he had in earlier movies like "Chasing Amy" or even "Changing Lanes."

One recurring metaphor Gigli employs for the battle of the sexes, gay or straight, is that it all comes down to bulls (him) and cows (her). Maybe that explains why "Gigli" is such a pile of manure.