WHERE does 'amusing parody' stop and 'irritatingly exaggerated copy start'.

Somewhere in the middle of this 60s-style sex comedy.

The biggest question that this film begs is 'why?'.

Why did anyone feel that the kind of films that made Doris Day a star needed dragging out of Sunday afternoon matinees, dusting down and remaking?

And why did they think that anyone would really want to watch it.

That's not to say that Down with Love is all bad. It has its moments and its modern take on the battle of the sexes story is vaguely interesting. But this is just too self-knowing to be charming, and charm is the best quality of the original sex comedies.

On the upside, the film does have some funny moments and with Zelleweger and McGregor at it's centre, it's relatively watchable, but that's not really enough to hold our attention until the credits roll.

I know this is a bit of a clich criticism, but this really is a case of style over substance. Everything about this film is cleverly well-observed and knowing but that doesn't mean it's engaging or even that amusing.

For example, whenever Barbara (Zellweger) walks around she swings her hands in front of her as if she's half-heartedly conducting an orchestra.

This may be exactly what Doris Day did in movies like Send me no Flowers, but so what? That doesn't mean it's actually funny.

But the biggest problem with this film is that it's so busy being clever and knowing, with all it's characters saying just the right thing, wearing just the right outfit and behaving just the right way that it forgets that although all this might get our attention, in order to enjoy the film we need characters we care about.

And it's hard to care about characters that, although clever, are totally superficial. And without characters that we care about and whose lives we are interested in, this just becomes a protracted sketch.

The lesson to be learned is some nice ideas should stay as nice ideas and nothing more.

Rating: 5/10