'Arthur' remake isn't in tune with original

By Claudia Puig, USA TODAY

A little Russell Brand goes a long way.

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  Warner Bros. Pictures

  Russell Brand takes up the Dudley Moore role of charming drunk whose love interest could cost him his inheritance. Helen Mirren plays his nanny.

Warner Bros. Pictures

Russell Brand takes up the Dudley Moore role of charming drunk whose love interest could cost him his inheritance. Helen Mirren plays his nanny.

His best performance to date was in 2008's Forgetting Sarah Marshallin a very funny supporting role as a self-indulgent British rocker. Then came the wildly uneven Get Him to the Greek, about the antics of that same rock star. The charm started to wear thin.

And now, as the eponymous star of Arthur, he would be well-advised to go back to well-chosen bit parts.

It's not that Brand doesn't have appeal. He's intermittently amusing and even has bouts of sweetness. But the movie ? about a charming drunk who will lose his huge trust fund if he doesn't marry rich ? is at best mediocre. Why someone decided it was a good idea to repurpose this minor (if popular) 1981 comedy with Brand and the estimable Helen Mirren in the John Gielgud sharp-tongued butler role is mystifying. Despite his cockney-accented verbosity, Brand does not convey the effortless conviviality that Dudley Moore did in the part.

Brand can easily play the overgrown adolescent, dithering sot. But is this really an adorable character? Moore's Arthur was mildly entertaining, even oddly quaint, three decades ago. Now the guy just seems out of touch.

The filmmakers must have realized a movie about an inebriated spendthrift might not sit as well with recession-era audiences. So they rebooted the immature egomaniac, adding a rogue philanthropic streak and threw him in AA to clean up. Where Moore was unapologetically drunk with a capital D, Brand is more PC ? he gets sober, renouncing his dissolute life of nameless hook-ups.

Arthur
* * out of four

Stars: Russell Brand, Helen Mirren,
Jennifer Garner, Greta Gerwig,
Luis Guzman, Nick Nolte
Director: Jason Winer
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Rating: PG-13 for alcohol use
throughout, sexual content,
language and some drug references
Running time: 1 hour, 49 minutes
Opens Friday nationwide

Though it's a challenge to fashion a movie around a sloshed hero ? and cleaning up his act is laudable ? it gives the movie even less edge. And speaking of edge deficiency, the movie recycles Christopher Cross' cloying "Arthur's Theme" (Best That You Can Do), a tune far better forgotten.

Arthur lives in palatial digs. His nanny, Hobson (Mirren), is around to make sardonic quips. While Mirren has some drily witty lines, she's a tad too kindly to pull off the acerbic dismissals that Gielgud did, making Arthur's revised saga sloshily sentimental.

Speaking of sentiment, Arthur falls for Naomi (Greta Gerwig), a sweet blonde who we know is Hollywood's version of quirky because she wears ankle socks with heels and short Minnie Mouse-style dresses. She also runs tours of Grand Central Terminal without a license.

What an eccentric scofflaw! Arthur is instantly smitten. But even at the height of their romance, they have little chemistry. In fact, Brand might as well be doing a one-man show for all he connects with his co-stars. Gerwig, so good in Greenberg and other indie films, comes off bland and slightly befuddled.

Arthur's mother (Geraldine James) arranges a propitious marriage for her carousing son with the ambitious Susan (Jennifer Garner), the daughter of a construction magnate (Nick Nolte). When Arthur balks at the forced union, his mother threatens to take away his fortune. Guess who he'll end up with.

Brand seems to channel Moore in some of his speech patterns. Scanning his pale face as he garrulously delivers his lines, one wonders, is there more behind those dark eyes, some greater depth and originality within?

We'll never know the answer until Brand takes on something other than remakes of the same tired characters.

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