The glossy, soporific ensemble dramedy He's Just Not That Into You manages to drain most of the fun out of modern-day romance -- a tall order given its attractive, moderately talented cast and considering the accepted definition of a romantic relationship seems to be expanding all the time.

Don't expect to encounter anything progressive or transgressive in this mainstream feature. The script, adapted from a book by two writers who toiled on HBO's Sex and the City, fakes incisiveness as it disabuses a clutch of Baltimore residents of their shallow preconceptions vis-à-vis dating and marriage. All the major players are heterosexual, Caucasian and financially secure, not that there's anything wrong with that.

In a nutshell, Jennifer Anniston wants to marry Ben Affleck, Scarlett Johansson wants to conquer a married man, and Ginnifer Goodwin wants to be loved. What else is new? Moviegoers relieved to learn there's nothing terribly crass or raunchy in the film might welcome some smut halfway through just to enliven the proceedings.

As far as I can tell, the overarching message is "Don't try so hard," yet that's precisely what the movie does, creating a deflationary effect. Gender wars don't materialize and it takes a long time and a lot of characters to say very little. There's certainly nothing cinematically noteworthy on offer. While he bathes his handsome cast in a pleasing golden light, director Ken Kwapis is in no hurry to have them deliver their lines and is unable to generate appreciable amounts of humor, passion or insight. The film has a big-screen sheen (it's obvious when LA is standing in for Baltimore) but its awkward structure and stilted pacing suggest that one season of a cable TV series has been compressed and sanitized for the multiplex.

The main storylines are traceable to three co-workers at an advertising agency who, occupying adjacent cubicles, advise and console one another about their love lives. Gigi (Goodwin) is a single twenty-something with a sweet disposition and an idealistic outlook. She's frustrated by all the men she meets or dates who say they are going to call but never do. Alex (Justin Long), a womanizing bar manager, takes pity on her and decides to school her on the habits and mindset of males in the meat market.

Beth (Anniston) has lived with her boyfriend Neil (Affleck) for seven years and desperately wants to get married. Aware of Neil's thoughts on the subject -- that is, why spoil a good thing? -- she has never insisted on a proposal until now, the eve of her sister's nuptials.

Janine (Jennifer Connelly) and her husband Ben (Bradley Cooper) are in the midst of renovating a row house when he meets a hot young woman in the supermarket checkout line. Equally smitten, Anna (Johansson) pursues Ben, aware of his marital status yet unbothered by her home-wrecking aspirations. Meanwhile, she strings along her sometime boyfriend Conor (Kevin Connolly), who lets himself be a doormat because he's in love.

On the periphery of this circle is Anna's friend Mary (Drew Barrymore), who sells advertising for a gay newspaper. Encouraged by her effete co-workers, she's trapped in cyberspace when it comes to romance, only able to meet and communicate with eligible men on the Internet and via electronic devices. It's one thing for a movie not to take on any subversive subjects and to, save adultery, stay on the straight and narrow; it's another to use homosexual stereotypes as window dressing and think it will give you cosmopolitan cred.

The main characterizations aren't much deeper. Although he only appears in a handful of scenes, Affleck's Neil is the movie's version of a prince on a white charger. He's unrealistically accommodating; and while there's a certain logic to his behavior, it wouldn't surprise me if he turned into a homicidal maniac. The upbeat resolution to Gigi's storyline goes way beyond predictable, while the Anna-Ben-Janine triangle, the only situation that generates anything approaching pathos or drama, ends in a way that's more capricious than meaningful.

At the conclusion of He's Just Not That Into You, you're left with Scarlett Johansson in a red negligee, Jennifer Connelly's tear-strewn face, Bradley Cooper's abs, and Ginnifer Goodwin's bubbly personality. These pleasures are not to be sneezed at. But you don't have to leave home to enjoy them. Just turn on your television. 

(Released by New Line Cinema and rated "PG-13" for sexual content and brief strong language.)