Alfie is 'alf the movie it used to be in its 1966 incarnation, still misogynistic but now devoid of charm or a sense of zeitgeist significance that it had in the Swinging Sixties.

Michael Caine has made way for the shorter, prettier Jude Law in the role of the cheeky cabbie chappie Alfie, ladies' man and lad mag's lad.

The cocksure rake plies his trade not on the old London manor but in New York in what is presumably 2004, although there is nothing that defines Alfie for this age beyond a watering down of the shock factor in Bill Naughton's original story. Out goes the abortion storyline, in comes a retro Vespa scooter and old-school sharp suits.

Law looks like a Loaded magazine prize winner let loose on his dream ticket: getting to re-make Alfie in his dreams. Trouble is, he is burdened with pulp comedy director Charles Shyer. So, as well as being stuck with Alfie being a London geezer abroad, he has to contend with a film-maker whose idea of comic high art is Father Of The Bride.

It starts breezily, all Phil Daniels insouciance in Blur's Park Life video and Alfie talking of life's essentials being FBB - face, boob, bum - but by the time lovely Jude has grown his stubble, scruffed up his widow's peak and tried his scalded puppy look, he is more reminiscent of Phil Collins in Buster. Not good news.

Caine's Alfie was a man on a working-class mission to join the Sixties party. There was danger and energy. New Alfie still talks to the camera ad nauseam, eyebrow arched, but he looks a mere fashion clothes horse; his only danger is to chain-smoke. Dialogue is clipped, brusque, and reminiscent of comic books.

"He's younger than you," explains toyboy-eating Susan Sarandon, trading him in for a younger model. What's more that's all she needs to say, not because Shyer's movie is so shallow and fallow but because this Alfie truly isn't worth any more. We know Jude Law can play sweet, pretty, sexy, but he is a limited actor by comparison with Caine, and he is not helped by Shyer's movie lacking a distinctive tone. It is not ironic or post-ironic, merely manufactured and synthetic.

Alfie's downward progress should move you, but it has nothing new to say. What's it all about, Alfie? Who knows and who cares.

Updated: 09:52 Friday, October 22, 2004