Take away the lengthy opening and closing credits sequences and "Laws of Attraction" clocks in at just under 80 minutes, which still doesn't explain why it defines its characters in the slightest terms possible, but it does offer a clue.

The movie's romantic leads, Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore, are likable enough, but the whole enterprise is so slight as to be barely there. It's a movie you forget while you're watching it.

The main problem with "Laws" is that you don't believe even for one nanosecond that Brosnan and Moore's characters would ever be attracted to each other. You don't even particularly want to see them wind up together.

Brosnan and Moore play divorce attorneys. She is Audrey Woods, first in her class at Yale, never lost a case. He is Daniel Rafferty, described as such: "Some say there is a method to his madness, some say there's a madness to his method - he has never lost." She eats candy corn and Hostess Sno Balls and watches the Weather Channel in lieu of a social life. He's supposedly this rakish slob, though this being Brosnan, you never confuse the character with Walter Matthau.

They meet in court, they wind up in bed, he takes notes on her panties and beats her at trial. She's bitter, he's smitten, they argue, meet again in court and then wind up pitted against each other in a divorce case involving a Johnny Rotten rocker (Michael Sheen) and his fashionista wife (Parker Posey). There's a trip to Ireland, a Guinness-chugging contest and one heck of a surprise on the morning after.

I could go on, but why bother? Nothing much happens, you know how it's going to turn out and you couldn't care less.