For a movie called “Music and Lyrics,” it’s astonishing how little the filmmakers seem to care about the words their characters say, or the tone that accompanies their saying.

If Alex and Sophie had been as clumsy, no one would have wanted to sing their song in the first place.

A sloppy, uninspired and meandering hodgepodge of preposterousness, here’s a movie that not only fails to convince us that its leads would fall in love, but fails to even convince us that such humans could exist on planet Earth. It’s a mindless diversion that seems tailor-made for the Valentine’s Day crowd – as blasé as a box of chocolates, as bland as a pre-made “I love you” greeting card.

It will surely be the No. 1 hit of the weekend. That said, we’re not here to debate how much money it will make, but rather why that money would be better spent on a Netflix subscription or a nice bottle of wine.

With $20, one can buy a very nice bottle of wine - or even a cheap bottle of wine and a romantic CD – and kick back for a night-long conversation with that special someone, forging a real Valentine’s connection. Or, with $20, you could invest in a month-long Netflix membership, and slip a few reliable classics into your queue – such enjoyable titles as the moody “Casablanca,” the quirky “Annie Hall,” the nostalgic “Lost in Translation” or even the mindless joys of “About A Boy” or “Pretty Woman.”

How nice that Valentine’s night would be, either immersed in the thoughts of the one you love, or wrapped up in a story that knows how to create characters, drama and genuine emotion.

Either way, it’s better than the brain-dead characters and situations that comprise “Music and Lyrics.”

The problems start with its very premise, which brings together Alex Fletcher (Hugh Grant), a fallen pop idol who today never seems to work, and Sophie Fisher (Drew Barrymore), a goofy girl whose only purpose on this planet seems to be to act irrational and water plants.

Yes, she shows up as Alex’s plant waterer – his “plant girl.”

While I’m sure plenty of wealthy Hollywood types hire people to do their plants, this meeting between faded icon and water girl is no doubt is no doubt one of the unlikeliest meet-cutes in the history of the movies.

Alex is writing a song for a Britney Spears-like music star, Sophie overhears his awful lyrics and chimes in with her own vapid – er, brilliant – words of poetry, and together they craft a song so awful that this seems less like a romance and more like an all-out comedy, tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee both pretending to be Elton John.

Their transformation into lovers isn’t so much believable as it is assumed, and their mandatory conflicts are equally arbitrary and absurd. And while one later scene strikes a note of genuine heartache and affection, it doesn’t quite reduce us to sobs as reveal to us how little about these people we really knew.

How can they sing of dreams and broken hearts, and where are those tears coming from? They just met each other.

But no doubt the $15-$20 million this weekend will sing a different tune.

Today’s movies have become less about the what, and more about the who and when. Here, you’ve got Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore in a romantic comedy on Valentine’s Day. No one really needs to know whether the story’s any good – the decision to head to the theater has already been made.

But with efforts this bad, studios should realize that next time they might decide differently.

by: Steven Snyder steven@zertinet.com, Published 2007-02-14