There's no shortage of wit or sass in the new battle-of-the-sexes comedy, Laws of Attraction and boy is that refreshing.

Like those vintage sparring comedies that starred Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert or Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, Laws of Attraction holds few plot surprises.

What it offers is actors who know how to play the situations for maximum fun and maximum laughs.

Audrey Woods (Julianne Moore) has put her private life on hold to become one of New York's most feared, but respected, divorce attorneys.

In the courtroom, Audrey is part determined pitbull and part sly fox.

She finally meets her match in Daniel Rafferty (Pierce Brosnan), who catches her off guard in the bedroom, as well as the courtroom.

The refreshing thing in this relationship is that it is Audrey who suffers from commitment phobia and Daniel who longs for the security of marriage.

It's inevitable that Audrey and Daniel will progress from lust to love and it's so much fun watching Moore grapple with feelings she thought were dead.

Moore has built her reputation on dramatic roles in which she lays bare the inner turmoil and sufferings of her characters.

This time she relies more on pratfalls to demonstrate Audrey's escalating dilemma.

Moore seems as natural and confident in Audrey's comic skin as she has in her most famous dramatic roles.

It helps that she has such a great sparring partner in Brosnan, who can be slick and charming without ever seeming sleazy.

It's fun to watch Brosnan play the love-sick puppy when he has practically built his career on being the rakish seducer.

While Moore and Brosnan play the sophisticated lovers, Parker Posey and Michael Sheen get to go way overboard as fashion diva Serena and rock star Thorne Jamison, the feuding artists who hire Daniel and Audrey to handle their volatile, high-profile divorce.

They claw, scratch, hiss and spit like a pair of wildcats, providing great moments of farce.

Frances Fisher manages to upstage everyone in the film as Audrey's youth-obsessed, much-married mother, Sara Miller.

Fisher delivers her lines either dripping in acid or coated with satiny seduction.

The only time Laws of Attraction threatens to stumble is when the action switches from New York to Ireland.

Director Peter Howitt, who keeps the fun bubbly and breezy in Manhattan, slows the pace to allow the audience, as well as the lovers, to absorb the rural beauty of Ireland.

Even Moore and Brosnan seem momentarily bewitched by their visit to the isle of the leprechauns, but get back on track when they find themselves back in New York.

Laws of Attraction is a movie about adults for adults and that is as beguiling as it is rare.

(This film is rated PG)

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