"Alfie"

But the movie invites us to revel in Alfie's stylishness, and then slaps us on the wrist for reveling in it a little too much. There's disreputable pleasure to be had in seeing the way Alfie, with that elf-mad gleam in his eye, is able to lure any woman he fancies into his bed -- yet we're supposed to melt as he stands outside the restaurant where the child of one of his many lady friends is having a birthday party, alone and forlorn and missing out on the pleasures of family. You see, this urban playboy really has heartland values -- he just doesn't know it yet.

If you can unsucker yourself from the gooey, messagey aspect of "Alfie" -- and ignore its stone-age presupposition that it's only men who play sexual games, while women are all just fragile, delicate flowers yearning to be loved -- the picture is actually, at times, good, shallow fun. Because to decry the objectification of human beings, you have to first objectify them, and if nothing else, "Alfie" pulls that off beautifully. The women in Alfie's sordid life include Jane Krakowski, whose killer figure is no match for her seductively long-lashed eyes; Marisa Tomei, who is, as always, outlandishly adorable; newcomer Sienna Miller, who looks and dresses something like the young Anita Pallenberg, but without either the elan or the teeth; Nia Long (a stunner to look at, and also capable of delivering lousy dialogue so it's infinitely believable) as the girlfriend of Alfie's best friend (Omar Epps); and the fiercely sexy Susan Sarandon, as the older woman Alfie dallies with. (Puzzlingly, Graydon Carter shows up in a cameo, as her sugar daddy. What, David Remnick wasn't available?)

If cinematographer Ashley Rowe ("Calendar Girls") makes the women in Alfie's life look like stone foxes, he lavishes just as much love on Law, and the sturdily handsome Epps gets plenty, too: This is equal-opportunity objectification, which is, after all, the lifeblood of movies as popular entertainment. Law is the movie's most fascinating object, if you can inure yourself to the way he mashes his lips together when he's trying to convey what passes, in Alfie's world, for being conscience-stricken.

But Law is more likable here -- and, when he's allowed to be naughty, more believable -- than in any other major role he's had. His Alfie isn't so much appraising (as Caine's was) as ingratiating: He knows we expect him to be a lout, so he plays the role to the hilt -- he'd never want to disappoint a lady, you see. Law is considered in some quarters to be devastatingly good-looking. Some people may even consider him sexy. In "Alfie," I think he's admirably specimen-like: His suits mold to his frame with sharp elegance -- in his pink shirts and almost-too-short jackets, he's a mod peacock. His hair stands up in dark-gold tufts, like that of a downy chick -- he looks, perpetually, as if he's just spilled out of a love nest.

Whatever appeal Law's Alfie has may be all surface. But I'd much rather watch Jude Law (a mediocre actor at best) scootering around Manhattan in his cool suits than sit through two hours of Paul Giamatti (a wonderful actor) schlepping around in saggy trousers and ill-fitting jackets, as he did in Alexander Payne's much-lauded "Sideways," playing a character who feels so much pity for himself that there's barely any room for ours. Both characters are lost men struck by the realization they're missing out on life -- the difference is that we're asked to feel pity for the misfit and moral superiority to the rapscallion-about-town. Neither pity nor moral superiority count as the deepest, most complex responses movies can bring out in us. And if we can't have complexity -- then good God, at least give us a great-looking suit.

• View blog reactions