Like Warren Beatty making a prize tit of himself in "Town & Country", this vacuous vanity project is a warning about what can happen when Hollywood's aristocracy decide to listen to sycophantic yes men instead of people who know the difference between making "Titanic" and re-enacting the sinking of it.

With three generations of the Douglas family trying to outdo each other in the mawkishness stakes, it's hard to imagine what could make "It Runs in the Family" any less appealing. It even boasts a Culkin among the cast - Rory, the teenage brother of Macaulay - just to help ease the sentimentality into sickly overdrive.

In fact, the only good thing to be said about this winsome drama of family togetherness (both real and fictional) is that it doesn't star Catherine Zeta-Jones. She presumably decided that starring alongside father-in-law Kirk, hubby Michael, Kirk's ex-wife Diana and Michael's son Cameron wasn't part of her pre-nuptial agreement. Sensible girl.

The multiple-strand plot sets up the Douglas clan as the Grombergs, a dysfunctional New York family used to the finer things in life, but completely unable to cope with each other's all-too-fragile feelings. Under strain as his father recovers from a stroke, his son is arrested for drug-dealing and his wife accuses him of being an adulterer (ahem), Alex Gromberg (Michael Douglas) finds himself trapped in a familial mess of epic proportions.

Which pretty much sums up this misguided enterprise.

For a while, director Fred "Last Orders" Schepisi tantalisingly suggests that he may be about to open up the Douglas family closet and dust off a few of their skeletons in public view.

Ultimately, though, "It Runs in the Family" plays like an inferior clone of Fonda family weepie "On Golden Pond", gearing itself up for a set-piece scene in which Michael and Kirk (whose real-life stroke means he can barely slur, let alone speak) do some on-screen father-son bonding. All together now: Aaarrgh!