This disappointing would-be romantic comedy is neither comic nor particularly romantic. Its biggest problem is a sitcom-style script with too much emphasis on the situation and not enough on the comedy. It fails to create a single believable or sympathetic character. What it gives us instead is a string of barely related skits about people whose behavior ranges from inconsistent to random. The result ranges from dull to annoying, with the few comic bits already overly familiar to us from the commercials.

Jennifer Lopez is a talented and attractive performer, but she does not have the acting or comedy skills to transcend the limits of the script. She looks beautiful, but a little remote and unsympathetic.

Lopez plays Mary, a wedding planner who is so organized that she has all the essentials strapped to her belt, including smelling salts and superglue. She is also so cynical that she can predict the length of the marriage based on the song selected by the couple (“I Honestly Love You” is a bad sign). Mary is supremely competent and confident at work, negotiating for a partnership in the firm if she can land an assignment for a dot-com zillionaire bride Fran (Bridgette Wilson-Sampras). But at home, Mary eats alone in front of the TV, watching “Antiques Roadshow.”

Prince Charming arrives in the person of Matthew McConaughey as Steve, a pediatrician who saves Mary from an onrushing dumpster. They go out with Mary’s friend for a movie and a dance under the stars, and Mary is smitten.

Then she discovers that Steve is Fran’s groom-to-be. How cute is that! Not very. Meanwhile, Mary’s father (Alex Rocco, who struggles valiently with the unforgiveably hackneyed role of choleric ethnic dad who just wants his daughter to get married) is trying to fix her up with a horrendous loser from the homeland.

There is no real narrative, only different locations for the characters to get into faux-adorable fixes. Here’s one example: Mary and Steve knock over a nude male statue and his genitals break off. Much hoped-for hilarity but no actual laughs ensue as they try to glue it back on. Here’s another example: Mary and Steve run into Mary’s former beau and Mary hides under a table to avoid him. But they run into him (with his pregnant wife) anyway, and Mary responds by getting drunk. Two weddings have to be disrupted before it can all get straightened out and even that never-fail standard of the romantic comedy drags on until we can go home to find something better to watch on UPN.

Parents should know that the movie includes some strong and graphic language (typical of PG-13’s, that means one F-word and scattered lesser words). The movie includes comic drunkenness and a character’s alcohol abuse is also played for laughs. The scene with the statue includes a fairly graphic depiction of male genitals, which at one point get superglued to a character’s hand.

Families who see this movie should talk about how we know when we have met the person we truly love. Was the behavior of the main characters responsible? What hardships did their behavior impose on others? How is what Mary does to Massemo different from what her old boyfriend did to her? Families should also discuss Mary’s reaction to seeing her old boyfriend with his pregnant wife. First she hides, then she embarasses him, and then she gets drunk. Why does she behave this way? How could she have behaved in a way that preserved her dignity and self-respect?

Mary describes herself as a “control freak.” Families should talk about the way that people who have been hurt sometimes try to protect themselves by exercising a lot of control. Families may also want to ask why Lopez, an Hispanic actress, played an Italian character. Was it because audiences might feel more comfortable with a WASP-Italian romance than with WASP-Hispanic?

Families who enjoy this movie will enjoy the superior, “The Runaway Bride.”

Producer William Castle is better remembered for his outrageous marketing. schemes than for the content of the movies. He would do anything to attract attention, from taking out a million-dollar insurance policy for anyone who died of fright while viewing one of his movies to the “Coward’s Corner” set up to refund the ticket price of anyone who wanted to leave before the movie revealed its big secret. My favorite of Castle’s gimmicks was in “13 Ghosts,” where audiences were presented with special “ghost viewers” to hold before their eyes. If you looked through the red cellophane, you would see the ghosts, but if that was too scary, you could just look through the blue and then you would not see them.

In its television broadcasts, of course, this was impossible, and the movie has been shown since its 1960 theatrical release without this special effect. Now, the new DVD edition, which comes complete with one ghost viewer and an order form for those who want extras, enables you to see (or not see) the ghosts just as Castle intended, and the cheesy fun makes this just right for family movie night or a teenager’s Halloween party.

A family inherits a haunted house and a mysterious pair of spectacles from a reclusive uncle. It turns out that 12 ghosts occupy the house, including a lion and his headless tamer, a jealous chef and the wife and her lover that he killed with a meat cleaver, a hanging woman, and the ghost of the uncle himself. A Ouija board tells them that a 13th ghost will be added soon. Who will it be?

The special effects were low-budget even for their time, and today’s audiences will find them more silly than scary. But there are a couple of jump-out-at-you moments and plot twists that still work pretty well. The DVD includes both the version that requires the glasses and the one that does not and a brief documentary about Castle that is as much fun as the movie, especially the selection from the movie’s original introduction, which explained how to use the glasses.

Parents should know that this movie does include occult material, including a Ouija board and a seance, which may be upsetting to some children. There is an attempted murder of a child, and another character is murdered. Some families may be uncomfortable with the father’s irresponsibility about money.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy a movie inspired by Castle’s wild gimmicks, Matinee, starring John Goodman. They might also like Castle’s Homicidal(the one that was shown in theaters with the Coward’s Corner and ushers dressed in nursing uniforms), but parents should know that it is scarier than “13 Ghosts” and has more mature themes. They might also enjoy the big-budget remake with terrific (and very graphic) special effects but an even dumber plot, starring Matthew Lillard and Shannon Elizabeth.

Minnie Driver does her best, but, sadly, she gets no help from the movie’s producers (14 of them!). She gets no help from the screenwriter, whose only previous credit was Jerry Springer’s “Ringmaster.” Driver does not even get much help from first-time feature director (but two-time Best Actress) Sally Field. In other words, this is a bad movie.

The people in this movie can’t even be referred to as “characters” because they do not behave like any human being who ever thought, spoke, or breathed. The actors might as well be wearing signs that say, “Plot device!” as they are moved around the set like chess pieces, because that is the only possible explanation for their behavior. And basic elements of plot are slapdash or just missing.

Mona is a little girl who lives with a mother who does not seem to care much about her and with her mother’s out-of-work boyfriend, who does not like her at all. So, she makes her bedroom into a private world, decorated with cheery little signs that say things like, “Never give up!” and “U can do it!” For her, beauty pageants are a vision of perfection, grace, and validation. So, she decides that what she needs to make her feel beautiful and loved is to win one or maybe all of them. She earns money for lessons and braces and does statistical analysis of each year’s winners. She picks just one girl from school to be her friend — the one who can sew costumes for her.

When she grows up, Mona (Minnie Driver) is relentless. She is incapable of any thought that does not relate to winning a pageant. Her friend Ruby (Joey Lauren Adams) is happy to devote all of her efforts to Mona’s competitions, too. When obstacles arise, Ruby takes care of them, from smoothing over allegations of cheating at a pageant to becoming the mother of Mona’s child (Hallie Eisenberg, the little girl from the Pepsi commercials). A parent or guardian is ineligible to be Miss American Miss. And nothing must get in Mona’s way.

Beauty pageants certainly provide material enough for several movies, and some, like “Smile,” manage to do them justice. But this movie has no point of view, a wildly inconsistent tone, and no understanding of its characters — I mean people.

Is Mona supposed to be a caricature? Then you can’t expect all of America to adore her at the end. Is she supposed to be a likeable person with flaws? Then she can’t possibly be as overwhelmingly self-absorbed as she is throughout the movie. It isn’t just that she responds to a question about “human interest” by admitting that there just aren’t that many humans she finds interesting. It is more that her best friend is in prison on a murder charge and it never even occurs to her that she might want to, say, get her a lawyer? Come to the trial? Try to help her in any way? And does anyone think that it is a good thing to confess your biological relationship to your best friend’s daughter on national television? Or that the daughter would consider this good news?

The movie has some funny moments. Kathleen Turner is magnificent as a beauty pageant diva. One pageant contestant announces that she has a double degree in genetic engineering and cosmetology, and another has a ventriloquist act. When a woman goes into labor in a grocery store, Mona seizes the opportunity to get some good publicity and pushes her to the hospital in a shopping cart, singing, “Wind Beneath My Wings.” But these bright spots are just not worth the sloppy mess that comes along. Maybe sixty years ago Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins or Mary Astor might have pulled off this kind of a plot (come to think of it, they did, in “The Big Lie” and “Old Acquaintance”). Maybe thirty years ago, Carol Burnett could have pulled off a parody version. But with these people and in this decade, it is not just bad — it is positively annoying.

Parents should know that the movie has occasional strong language and sexual references (mild by PG-13 standards, but still vivid). Mona cheats in the pageants, causing serious damage to another contestent’s hand, without any remorse. Indeed the injured woman’s bitterness is portrayed with as much callousness as though the screenwriter shared Mona’s conviction that all that counts is winning. There is an out of wedlock pregnancy and a minor character commits suicide by taking pills.

Families who see this movie should talk about Mona’s comment that love is a language that has to be taught, and Ruby’s comment about letting bad things go. More cynical family members may want to count up the logical inconsistencies and plot holes.

Families who enjoy this movie will like “Smile” even more. And they may also enjoy “We’re Not Married,” a cute comedy in which Marilyn Monroe plays a married beauty queen who all of a sudden becomes eligible for the single woman competitions when it turns out that her wedding ceremony was invalid.