No doubt it looked good on paper. Remake the Oscar -winning comedy "Arthur." Sub in Britain's hot comic flasher Russell Brand as the drunken billionaire playboy that Dudley Moore made so effortlessly appealing in the '80s Cinderella story. Instead of John Gielgud 's bitingly brilliant butler, have the bad boy be tended by Britain's reigning queen, Helen Mirren . The cherry on top: a current cover of "Arthur's Theme" — you know, "When you get caught between the moon and New York City…."But paper and possibilities do not a movie make. I'm guessing even Christopher Cross is cross.Where to begin with what went wrong when just about everything did? For those unfamiliar with the story, Arthur (Brand) is a big boy with family money who is throwing away his life, and considerable amounts of cash, on booze and broads. Hobson (Mirren) is the nanny who picks up after him. His dilemma: Should he choose the penniless girl he loves and lose his inheritance or acquiesce to family demands and marry the rich girl he doesn't? Basically, will this inebriated Peter Pan grow up and sober up?But "Arthur's" problems actually begin with Peter Baynham's update (downgrade?) of writer-director Steve Gordon's original screenplay, which wasn't perfect to begin with. Baynham was one of four hands stirring the very inventive pot of 2006's "Borat" But where that film was the epitome of political incorrectness in the best possible way, "Arthur's" been strangely cleaned up.The sanitizing is handled so artlessly it seems driven by fear of offending rather than by any true cultural sensitivity. So, for the addiction crowd there's a new AA story line. In deference to celebs with embarrassing shoplifting tendencies, instead of the clever tie-snatching that creates the meet-cute between Arthur and Liza Minnelli 's hard-working waitress Linda, there's Greta Gerwig — badly underused but with a better name, Naomi — and a lesser crime, a tour guide permit infraction. Where Linda hopes to be an actress, Naomi wants to write and illustrate children's books. It's all veryWhatever the story issues, and there are more, the lion's share of the grief will have to go to director Jason Winer — I think he did get caught between the moon and New York City.Though "Arthur" is Winer's first feature film, it's not as if he's never been in the director's chair, having helped shape the exceedingly satisfying ABC comedy "Modern Family." What works for "Family" is exactly what undercuts "Arthur." Winer, it turns out, is a master of small, tightly constructed moments, and when those come along, particularly if Brand is in them, the director does an excellent job of capturing the eccentric comic brand of Brand.But there are no commercial breaks in "Arthur" (though they might have come as a welcome relief) and the action and narrative interplay are not strong enough to hold up the sheer weight of a film. Instead, there are sags so deep they would defy the scalpel of even Beverly Hills' plastic surgery best. Director of photography Uta Briesewitz, perhaps sensing a catastrophe in the making, tends to keep a distance from the proceedings. There are lots of wide shots, which dilute the emotional moments so necessary to balance Arthur's excessive debauchery, particularly in a modern day grown tired of substance-abuse-induced tabloid train wrecks.Brand, an ingenious comic on his best days, has his moments. But his Arthur is more brutish than boyish and harder to love. However, if you're in the mood to watch him make the difficult journey from substance-abusing entitlement to human being, you'll find a far more nuanced and affecting performance as the rock renegade in writer-director Nicholas Stoller's "Get Him to the Greek."The women in the film are all squandered. Gerwig, whose flightiness was so charming in "Greenberg," Noah Baumbach 's comedy of love and depression, simply comes untethered here. No chemistry, no connection with Brand, despite the über-short skirts. Jennifer Garner , who plays the cachet-climbing fiancée that Arthur so dislikes, goes to such extremes you wonder if she was told this was a cage-fighting film. (The role of maniacally protective father, so crafty in Stephen Elliott 's hands in the original, was bleached and shrunk before Nick Nolte even had a chance.)Meanwhile, Mirren, that grande dame of cinema, just seems tired. And who could blame her? She's in the midst of this disaster, literally and figuratively dying right in front of us. Made me want to cry, just not for Arthur. ||||| Arthur 
 
 'Arthur' review: Russell Brand's take on Dudley Moore classic is just a rough hangover 
 
 There's plenty of Russell Brand awareness in the remake of Dudley Moore's 1981 hit 'Arthur.' 
 
 With Russell Brand, Greta Gerwig, Helen Mirren. A wealthy playboy drinks himself silly until he meets the right woman. Director: Jason Winer. (1:50) PG-13: Language, sexuality. At area theaters. 
 
 
 
 There are two signs that the new "Arthur" is a badly slurring shadow of the 1981 mini-classic starring Dudley Moore. 
 
 
 
 The first is a small but notable difference on the movie poster. On the original, the "a" in "Arthur" is leaning precariously against the "r," as if recovering from a tough night out. The new logo is straight-ahead, boring, typical. The second and more crucial alteration is that this "Arthur" is missing a soul. 
 
 
 
 A genuine melancholy ran through the story the first time, which made its title character's drunken-playboy antics more than just clownishness. That grounding sadness has been replaced by a chintzy sentimentalism as clunky as its comedy. 
 
 
 
 Russell Brand is Arthur Bach, a 30-ish billionaire cavorting through New York like it's his personal playpen. His nanny, Hobson (Helen Mirren), scolds him, but boozing and partying are Arthur's reasons for being. Not even his detached mother, forcing him to marry twitchy businesswoman Susan (Jennifer Garner), can sober Arthur up. 
 
 
 
 Then he meets poor, artistic Queens resident Naomi (Greta Gerwig, in the Liza Minnelli role), and Arthur has a reason to change. But the wedding to Susan is fast approaching, and Arthur faces a real life — in other words, he'll be poor — if he doesn't marry her. 
 
 
 
 The late Steve Gordon's original script had its heart in the unconventional rhythms of screwball comedy, while director Jason Winer's new take makes the tale nothing but conventional. 
 
 
 
 Scenes of Arthur dressing up as Batman and joy-riding in a Batmobile feel like a studio in-joke, while Garner's psycho sex kitten and Gerwig's dopey bohemian are dull distillations of a million other rom-com specimens. 
 
 
 
 This showcase for Brand's lanky, steamrolling personality comes up far short of 100-proof laughs. He plays Arthur as clingy and clownish, and the British comic aims for one click above moronic. Garner, Gerwig and Luis Guzman, as a simpleton chauffeur, follow suit. (Mirren, in the haughty-caregiver role that won John Gielgud an Oscar, simply looks bored.) 
 
 
 
 When a scene of Arthur attempting to get a job falls embarrassingly flat, the movie's idea of a save is to dress him up as a giant gummy bear. 
 
 
 
 That underscores the biggest reason the movie fails: Aside from a handful of amusing riffs, the movie is about a joke machine who (literally) runs down the street in his underwear, not a flawed person running from himself. It's hard to tell when this Arthur is drunk and when he's not, because he is, always, as phony and as funny as a two-dollar bill. ||||| Russell Brand, Helen Mirren and Jennifer Garner star in Jason Winer's film about a lovable drunken billionaire playboy. 
 
 It's still an open question whether in this day of increased concerns about alcoholism and health you can do a remake of 1981's Arthur, a comedy about a lovable drunk, because the new Arthur, with Russell Brand playing the Dudley Moore role, is a mere burlesque riffing off the old Arthur rather than an actual remake that has reconceived or rethought the original film. 
 
 The story hasn't changed much, nor have the characters. But the comedy is now crude instead of whimsical and its characters overblown caricatures instead of screwball personalities. A movie has been reduced to a sketch. 
 
 One's enjoyment of Arthur-- and its box office chances -- may depend on a new audience having little if any knowledge of the earlier work. As a Russell Brand Show, fans and followers may enjoy his extravagant mugging and nuttiness. Those with any memory of 1981's Arthurwill be severely disappointed. 
 
 That movie -- let's call it OldArthur -- came out of nowhere. TV veteran Steve Gordon created an ineffable, charming comedy that defied movie traditions even of that time. Comic intoxication was usually reserved for the Animal House kind of comedies, and rich guys were seldom heroes. Gordon insisted that his incredibly rich anddrunk protagonist was a gentle soul, looking for love but willing to accept a night of fun if that didn't pan out. 
 
 Moore, a British import who had just hit it big as a leading man in Blake Edwards' 10, gave Arthur a sweetness to go along with his prankster personality. It was a knowing performance, full of wit and grace and savvy observation. 
 
 Brand shares a British heritage with Moore, but his comedy is much different. The guy is a talent, no doubt. Only last week, he put an undeniable comic jolt into Universal's animation/live-action mix Hop. But there is edginess to Brand's humor, even an aggressiveness. His Arthur creates scenes, not laughs. He's a pathetic, bratty little boy who refuses to grow up rather than a genial alcoholic who wouldn't harm a fly. 
 
 Peter Baynham's new script has done even more damage to the key relationship in Arthur's life. Perhaps the filmmakers thought it was very clever to turn Hobson (John Gielgud), Arthur's fatherly butler, into a nanny, played by Helen Mirren. It certainly does further emphasize Arthur's infantilism. But unlike Gielgud's character, Mirren's Hobson is in constant conflict with her aging charge. She prods sharply where the butler steered with the gentlest of touches. Old Arthur's butler was subtle and unflappable, while Mirren's nanny has a bit of Mary Poppins in her. 
 
 The story again revolves around a billionaire parent (Geraldine James) demanding Arthur grow up enough to enter into a loveless marriage to a rich WASP (Jennifer Garner), mostly for business purposes, or he'll be disinherited. (Here again the New Arthurinsists on a gender change from a male to female parent.) At the same time, Arthur meets the love of his life in unlicensed Grand Central Station tour guide Naomi (indie film stalwart Greta Gerwig). 
 
 So both Arthurspresent a thoroughly conventional romantic-comedy about love vs. money with a predicable outcome. This humdrum story line therefore allows, or at least it should, a completely unpredictable and outlandish character to take over. 
 
 Neophyte feature director Jason Winer turns things over to Brand all right, but it's a rough, out-of-focus performance. Not helping matters, the movie relies on its props far too much -- from an incongruous Batmobile, borrowed from a fellow Warner Bros. movie, to a magnetic floating bed. These tend of underscore showiness over comedy, brashness over subtlety. 
 
 Perhaps encouraged by his props and toys, Brand goes full bore in every scene, almost as if the movie isn't so much about a drunk as an eccentric billionaire, who would be loopy if he drank only lemonade. In fact, no one working on New Arthurseems completely comfortable with this protagonist. So you get AA meetings and lines tsk-tsking over "free spending during a recession." The movie keeps throwing up PC signs along the way to demonstrate how shocked everyone is, to borrow from Casablanca, that gambling is taking place in a casino. 
 
 Guys, your character was always going to be a profligate drunk if you remake Arthur, so get over it. And Hobson's admonition to Arthur to scrub his private parts to prevent disease following unprotected sex just blows your mind. This is the advice of his sagacious nanny? 
 
 When tragedy overtakes Arthur as Hobson falls fatally ill, the film becomes cloying rather than touching. There's no heart in any of this as the tenacious bond between the man-child and his governess has never been convincingly established. 
 
 In Old Arthur, all supporting players had great moments; in New Arthur, everyone hits his marks, and that's about it. The spontaneity and gentle whimsy is missing. And so is the luxurious wit of Gordon's original screenplay. Baynham's script prods along without memorable lines or scenes even when it imitates Old Arthuras closely as it can. 
 
 In the end, it isn't so much that the New Arthurisn't the Old Arthur. Rather it's the anti-Arthur. 
 
 Opens: April 8 (Warner Bros.) 
 
 Warner Bros. Pictures presents a Kevin McCormick/MBST Entertainment/Benderspink production 
 
 Cast: Russell Brand, Helen Mirren, Jennifer Garner, Greta Gerwig, Luis Guzman, Nick Nolte, Geraldine James 
 
 Director: Jason Winer 
 
 Screenwriter: Peter Baynham 
 
 Story by: Steve Gordon 
 
 Producers: Larry Brezner, Kevin McCormick, Chris Bender, Michael Tadross 
 
 Executive producers: J.C. Spink, Scott Kroopf, Russell Brand, Nik Linnen 
 
 Director of photography: Uta Briesewitz 
 
 Production designer: Sarah Knowles 
 
 Music: Theodore Shapiro 
 
 Costume designer: Juliet Polcsa 
 
 Editor: Brent White 
 
 Rated PG-13, 110 minutes ||||| It would be conventional to describe “ Arthur ” as a vehicle for the talents of Russell Brand , who plays the boozy billionaire of the title, but that would be to get it backward. Mr. Brand, with his stringy hair, stretched-out body and nutty British demeanor, is more like the beast of burden, charged with hauling this grim load of mediocrity to the box office. The film, directed by Jason Winer and based on a fondly recalled 1981 comedy of the same name starring Dudley Moore , has been made according to a lazy and cynical commercial blueprint. You’ve seen it in the lesser work of Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler and most other male comedians who walk the line between popularity and overexposure. The star does his patented shtick, supported by a handful of blue-chip supporting performers, as the story lurches through contrived, seminaughty comic set pieces toward a sentimental ending. 
 
 The original “Arthur” followed this formula too but with enough inventiveness and sincerity to make it an enduringly enjoyable experience, if not quite the “classic” it is sometimes claimed to be. In addition to Mr. Moore, it had Liza Minnelli as Arthur’s wacky love interest and John Gielgud as his butler. The new version has Greta Gerwig and Helen Mirren in analogous roles, which should have yielded something refreshing rather than dispiriting. 
 
 Ms. Mirren, playing Arthur’s nanny, Hobson, acquits herself with just the blend of starch and mischief you would expect. Ms. Gerwig, who when given a chance has an intriguing way of mixing slyness and sincerity, cannot quite slip out of the prison the filmmakers have built for her — a locked room at the Zooey Deschanel Institute for the Cute and Quirky. Her character, Naomi, is a waifish aspiring children’s book author from Queens who conducts wide-eyed, clandestine tours of Grand Central Terminal for visitors from Tweeland. But of course Naomi’s real job is to be charmed by Arthur and then hurt by him, repeating the sequence until he has resolved his issues and we can all go home. 
 
 Those issues are, at least superficially, alcohol and money, about which the movie, like the rest of American culture, has a great deal of ambivalence. We love money because of all the carefree fun we imagine having with it — Arthur rents out Grand Central for a date, stages bidding wars with himself at antiques auctions and buys as many cars, toys and clothes as he wants — but we don’t much like to think about how it is acquired. Luckily, the ugly, greedy side of wealth is incarnated by the movie’s villains. Arthur’s cold, disapproving mother (Geraldine James), who runs the giant corporation that feeds his whims, strong-arms him into an engagement with Susan (Jennifer Garner), a grasping heiress with a mean, macho, self-made dad (Nick Nolte). Next to all of them, Arthur, who has proudly never done a day’s work in his life, is meant to seem irresponsible, sure, but also authentic — a harmless hedonist. 
 
 And also a harmless drunk, a notion the film has a bit more trouble sustaining. Drunkenness, it is widely agreed, is funny: people fall down, slur their words and do crazy stuff they can’t remember the next day. Alcoholism, however, is sad. It wrecks lives, families, cars and livers. The first “Arthur,” the product of a less anxious age, managed to find a workable balance of poignancy and pixilation, making its hero at once a lovable free spirit and a pitiable lost soul. This one, trying to repeat the trick, inadvertently affirms a truth definitively established in an early episode of “The Simpsons,” namely that most drunks, however sparkling they may appear to themselves, are boring and tiresome to others. 
 
 And so it is with Arthur, who insists against all evidence that he is actually charming and who is supported in that judgment by Hobson and Naomi. His only other friend is his chauffeur, Bitterman (Luis Guzmán), who is not Robin to Arthur’s Batman (despite an early superhero-costumed scene suggesting as much), but rather Winnie the Pooh to his Tigger. Arthur may have grown-up appetites for liquor and sex, but his defining trait is childishness. He is not so much adolescent as almost literally infantile, talking in a high-pitched baby voice and dependent on a squadron of mommies. 
 
 Naomi makes a show of spurning that role, but who is she kidding? Hobson at one point extols the joys of taking care of Arthur, and while the movie pretends that he must grow up and learn to care for others (and stop drinking), its momentum is all in the other direction. What is supposed to be Arthur’s maturation is actually regression, as if he were trading in the whiskey bottle for the baby bottle. He rejects the corruptions of adulthood imposed by his ruthless mother and his sexually predatory fiancée in favor of a relationship characterized by unthreatening, childlike innocence. He and Naomi eat Pez candy on their first date and share their happy-ending kiss in a room full of kindergartners. Never have I needed a drink so badly. 
 
 “Arthur” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has some naughty language and sexual situations. 
 
 ARTHUR 
 
 Opens on Friday nationwide. 
 
 Directed by Jason Winer; written by Peter Baynham, based on a story by Steve Gordon and the movie “Arthur,” written and directed by Mr. Gordon; director of photography, Uta Briesewitz; edited by Brent White; music by Theodore Shapiro; production design by Sarah Knowles; costumes by Juliet Polcsa; produced by Larry Brezner, Kevin McCormick, Chris Bender and Michael Tadross; released by Warner. 
 
 WITH: Russell Brand (Arthur), Helen Mirren (Hobson), Greta Gerwig (Naomi), Jennifer Garner (Susan), Geraldine James (Vivienne), Luis Guzmán (Bitterman) and Nick Nolte (Burt Johnson).
– Arthur, a Russell Brand-powered remake of the film about a drunken billionaire man-child, fails miserably at recapturing its predecessor’s magic: It’s a “grim load of mediocrity,” writes AO Scott, “made according to a lazy and cynical commercial blueprint” of Brand's “patented shtick,” “contrived, semi-naughty comic set pieces,” and sentimentality, he notes in the New York Times. “Never have I needed a drink so badly.” Betsy Sharkey agrees in the Los Angeles Times. “Where to begin with what went wrong when just about everything did?” she asks. It “made me want to cry, just not for Arthur.” “This Arthur is missing a soul,” notes Joe Neumaier in the New York Daily News. “A genuine melancholy ran through the story the first time,” but “that grounding sadness has been replaced by a chintzy sentimentalism as clunky as its comedy." “The comedy is now crude instead of whimsical and its characters overblown caricatures instead of screwball personalities," writes Kirk Honeycutt in the Hollywood Reporter. “A movie has been reduced to a sketch.”