Grade: D+

Verdict: . . . and sinking Kate Hudson. Another bad career move for this appealing actress.

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
Cox News Service

In "Raising Helen," an inferior romantic comedy with an embedded message about family, Helen Harris (Kate Hudson) is sexy in the city.

An assistant at a powerful modeling agency (run by Helen Mirren), she knows the bouncers at the best clubs and the maitre d's at the best restaurants. When she visits the suburban home of her sister Lindsay (Felicity Huffman), she's the kids' (Hayden Panettiere, Spencer Breslin and Abigail Breslin) favorite aunt.

All that changes when Lindsay and her husband are killed in a car crash. Helen is given custody of their children instead of the obvious choice -- Lindsay's other sister, Jenny (Joan Cusack), who not only has two children and one on the way, but, as Helen points out, even has "the mommy haircut."

For one of those lame if-she-doesn't-there's-no-movie reasons, Helen decides she'll give it a shot and the madcap aunt is forced to become a responsible surrogate parent. Which, in this movie's terms, means moving to Queens.

Something of the same thing happened to Ben Affleck a few weeks ago in the abysmal "Jersey Girl." Actually, something of the same thing happened to Diane Keaton almost two decades ago in "Baby Boom," which is a lot sharper movie than either "Jersey Girl" or "Raising Helen."

However, lack of originality is the least of the movie's problems. With its strictly by-the-numbers script, "Raising Helen" is one of those bogus "sincere" pictures -- a schmaltz-ridden mediocrity without an honest moment in it. Predictable and smug, the movie doesn't bother developing Helen's relationship with her charges. Thus, synthetic crises suddenly arise and just as suddenly are solved, usually within seconds. Helen grows up because, well, that's what the title says she does.

Further, the movie manages to bash both career women and stay-at-home moms. Helen is an irresponsible, self-centered sprite who reluctantly learns to favor nurture (theirs) over nature (hers). As a reward, she gets to date Lutheran Pastor Dan Parker (John Corbett, the most boring love interest this side of, well, Ben Affleck).

At the same time, Cusack's character is a kind of super-mom, Martha-Stewart-clone monster. She even bosses around her unborn child when it kicks inappropriately.

Director Garry Marshall can do better than this. He has -- in "Pretty Woman" "The Princess Diaries," "Nothing in Common" and "The Flamingo Kid." But this material brings out Marshall's Evil Smarmy Twin, the one who made "Beaches," "Dear God" and "Exit to Eden." And not even a fizzily adorable Hudson or a game Cusack can withstand Marshall's dumb side.