Yeah, that's it, Ben. Give us the ol' thumbs-up, buddy.

If there's an actor alive today who's squandered his gifts more thoroughly than Ben Stiller has, I'd sure like to know who he is. Anyone who’s old enough to remember Stiller's Emmy-winning sketch comedy extravaganza, "The Ben Stiller Show," realizes that this guy has the potential to generate satire on the order of Peter Sellers at his twisted peak. But you sure wouldn’t know it from his film work.

Is it really evolution to move from a brilliantly acerbic TV series to lukewarm big-screen fodder like "Meet the Fockers," "Night at the Museum," and the new Farrelly brothers contraption, "The Heartbreak Kid?"

Well, no. It’s not. It’s pandering to make a lot of money. You know exactly what you’re in for when you watch a Farrelly brothers picture, and, for many people, that’s more than enough. Which is why it’s so demoralizing that Stiller is so often involved in this sort of thing. His TV work was really original and full of promise— he seemed like a performer who could raise the satirical bar. By now, though, he’s a walking, talking Quarter Pounder. He has his “embarrassed in front of a large group of people scene,” and his “screaming meltdown” scene, and his “intense physical pain” scene. Then the movie’s over. See you again in seven months.

“The Heartbreak Kid” is based on a famously mean-spirited Elaine May film from 1972. That one is a Jewish horror-comedy, in which Charles Grodin gets married to a sweet but unbearably tacky young woman (Jeannie Berlin), then, during their honeymoon trip, falls in love with a manipulative shiksa goddess (Cybil Shepherd) who plays his lust like a violin. This makes for very troubled viewing, since Grodin’s character is an obvious self-absorbed jerk. You hate yourself when May gets you snickering at his slow drowning, but you’re compelled to watch nonetheless. It’s a disconcerting little picture.

The Farrellys, however, completely sidestep that uneasiness by having Stiller’s character (a San Francisco-based sporting goods salesman named Eddie) get hitched to Lila (Malin Akerman), a gorgeous blonde who turns out to have a gutter mouth and a taste for violently histrionic sex. Due to a cocaine-created deviated septum, she also spews food from her nostrils when she eats. You can’t really blame Eddie when, during their honeymoon down Mexico way, he finds himself falling for Miranda (Michelle Monaghan), a spunky young brunette from Mississippi who’s visiting with her pseudo-hick family.

Now, it might be a rotten thing to dump your new bride a couple of days after the wedding. But the deck is so completely stacked in Eddie’s favor, you can’t imagine why he doesn’t just hand Lila a few bucks and tell her to get lost. She’s loud, abusive, not very bright, and something of a liar. Miranda, when she shows up, isn’t Eddie’s downfall. She’s his savior. And the story loses every ounce of the bite that was found in the original.

It’s not a total washout. The Farrellys fire so many jokes at you, they’re bound to at least wing you on occasion. There’s a funny sequence in the early going, during which a pair of teenage brothers try to determine whether or not Eddie is gay. And a montage of Eddie slowly being driven insane by Lila’s singing as they drive down the highway generates a solid, extended laugh. Akerman is also good during those moments when Lila seems to be spinning completely off her axis. You can easily imagine her suddenly stabbing Eddie with an ice pick.

The rest is the usual Farrelly’s sampler of diligently offensive gags. Jerry Stiller, type-cast as Ben’s dad, says “pussy” a lot. Carlos Mencia, as a sleazy Mexican hotel employee, gets an unsuspecting Lila to grope his genitals. Rob Cordrry, as that guy who used to be on “The Daily Show,” doesn’t do much of anything at all. When the Farrellys first started making movies, you could sometimes laugh at their audaciousness in spite of yourself. By now, though, it’s basically rote booger-flicking.

Easily the most exasperating new development is the brothers’ broadened inability to carry momentum from one scene to the next. Sequence after sequence begins with a catchy pop song blaring away as a sort of aural wipe-effect. I mean, this thing is wall-to-wall with tunes. The fact that a lot of the music is pretty terrific (David Bowie, World Party, Bruce Springsteen, etc.) still doesn’t excuse such an utter lack of narrative imagination. After the tenth or twelfth song, the soundtrack winds up being the hot dog, and the movie is the bun, when it should really be the other way around.

“The Heartbreak Kid” contains nudity, cursing, surprisingly blunt sex scenes, bad language, and a woman peeing on Ben Stiller. It’s about time, too. Rated R, of course.

- Paul Tatara