OxfordPress.com

A loose remake of the mildly funny 1979 comedy "The In-Laws," which starred Alan Arkin as an uptight dentist and Peter Falk as a CIA agent, the current film substitutes Brooks as Jerry (now a podiatrist, for all those terrific foot-fungus jokes) and Michael Douglas as Steve (still an agent). As in the original, the pair are in-laws-to-be; Jerry's daughter, Melissa (Lindsay Stone), is marrying Steve's son, Mark (Ryan Reynolds).

A total neurotic, Jerry is overly involved in the wedding, trying to control everything from the flowers to the food.

Steve, an absentee dad his whole life, is trying to fit the wedding in while he saves the world from a rogue arms dealer (David Suchet) who's trying to buy a nuclear submarine. Inevitably, Jerry gets caught up in Steve's world of derring-do. He's stalked by other CIA agents who think he's some kind of scary superagent, and he's courted by Suchet, who thinks he looks really cute in a red thong.

The movie trots along amiably for a while. Then, about halfway through, it just stops. It keeps going, of course, but it's a zombie-movie, staggering along with no brain.

As always, Brooks is very funny -- especially when he's delivering lines he must have written or improvised himself. But the role is so one-note that, fuss and whine as he might, he can't pull anything more out of it. Douglas is pretty amusing as he goofs on his own dashing image. But he faces the same problem, and his parody gets weaker as the plot gets ever more ludicrous and overblown.

The original "In-Laws" didn't need a nuclear sub. This doesn't either, but it thinks it does, and that's the problem.