The brainless trend to take TV shows from the 1970s and turn them into feature films continues with Starsky & Hutch, a spoof of the cop team series that is pure drivel.

Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson star as the buddy cop team. Stiller is Starsky, the neurotic, by-the-book cop, and Wilson is the laid-back dude known as Hutch. Their roles were played 30 years ago by Paul Michael Glaser (Starsky) and David Soul (Hutch).

On a parody level, the film has a couple of laughs -- sloppy stunt edits reminiscent of the era, ridiculous '70s hair and clothes -- that sort of thing. That stops, however, and the comedy just becomes self-conscious, with so many 'winks' at the camera that the whole thing gets stale fast.

Snoop Dogg shows up as local informer Huggy Bear.

The bad guy/drug dealer is played by Vince Vaughn, whose louche screen persona is amusing, as always, and Juliette Lewis has a small role as a gun moll. Carmen Electra plays a cheerleader.

Starsky & Hutch has several writers attached to it, none of whom, apparently, could come up with a script.

The heroes go after the players in a drug deal.

Being cops means wearing wigs and false moustaches (yuk, yuk!), re-enacting a motorcycle snippet of Easy Rider, making fun of the '70s disco scene and driving around in a mint Ford Grand Torino muscle car, the original Starsky & Hutch car from TV. The car is like the centre of the film.

Boy, that's funny.

There are about three good laughs in Starsky & Hutch; we checked with members of the target audience (adolescent males) who confirmed their general sense of disappointment with the movie.

Starsky & Hutch appears to be some lame attempt to take advantage of Stiller and Wilson's chemistry, a la Zoolander, with a dash of nostalgia and a pinch of Will Ferrell (as an effeminate convict) thrown in for good measure.

The one truly hilarious aspect of the film is the soundtrack, which involves heinous pop hits of the era.

You'd think that reworking something as easily ridiculed as the original, deeply self-important Starsky & Hutch -- mired as it was in some of the more ludicrous aspects of mid-'70s American culture -- would be like shooting fish in a barrel. You'd be wrong.

(This film is rated 14-A)

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