Law’s charm rescues ‘Alfie’ from mediocrity

What’s it all about, this parade of remakes from Paramount Pictures?

First “The Stepford Wives,” then “The Manchurian Candidate” and now “Alfie”?

“Alfie” is the best of the lot, but it still feels like an anachronism. Despite Jude Law’s excellent title performance, “Alfie” is a featherweight update of the biting 1966 original that starred Michael Caine as a callous womanizer who begins to question his lifestyle.

The new version is playfully entertaining, mainly because Law is so charming and has good chemistry with co-stars Susan Sarandon, Marisa Tomei, Nia Long, Jane Krakowski and Sienna Miller, who makes an impressive big-screen debut.

Yet Alfie’s growing awareness that maybe he’d be happier if he treated women less like conquests and more like companions seems so outmoded, it’s tough to care whether he ever sorts out his little dilemmas of love.

Caine’s Alfie was more coolly aloof and heartless than Law’s Alfie, but he evoked greater empathy with his baby steps toward respect for women as people and not just playthings. For a pretty boy in chauvinistic Britain four decades ago, Alfie’s transition from a wolf in swinger’s clothing practically made him a revolutionary. As a Brit transplanted into today’s Manhattan, Law’s Alfie just looks like a jerk getting what he has coming.

“Alfie” is crisply directed by Charles Shyer (“Father of the Bride”) – who co-wrote the screenplay with Elaine Pope, based on Bill Naughton’s play and script for the original movie.

The movie retains the conceit of the 1966 version, with Alfie delivering much of his dialogue as asides directly into the camera. The device allows Alfie to toss off some choice nuggets of insensitive wit (“I give her my highest grade: A-minus,” or “Julie hasn’t got enough of the superficial things that really matter”).

Law’s mugging monologues eventually grow tiresome, the affectation used so often it undermines the self-searching intent of Alfie’s final “what’s it all about” soliloquy.

Still, Law’s charisma and depth lift the movie above the mediocrity of other recent remakes.