BY LARRY CARROLL | Kirk Douglas and his son Michael, both among the most recognizable actors of their generations, have been asked thousands of times when they'd appear on screen together. Like Paul Newman and Robert Redford, Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis, or Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, the actors always took the easy way around the question, saying that they were waiting until "they found the right script". Well, now they've finally made their movie, called It Runs in the Family - and if this was the "right" script, one can only assume the others were written in crayon and involved talking dogs.

The agonizingly slow Family tells the story of the Grombergs, three generations of men blessed with good looks and affluence, who seem to have nothing better to do than make one another miserable. The film doesn't really have a plot, per se, so much as it has a series of scenes with the family bitching at each other and the world around them. This, of course, leads to the big finale where they can all bind together, even though none of them seems to have changed a single bit. Watching Kirk and Michael Douglas on screen together is enjoyable to some degree, but the novelty wears off fast and is soon replaced by the tedium and nausea one would expect to get while watching someone else's home movies.

Family begins with the clan getting together for Passover Seder, each arriving in a way that puts their individual stories on display. Family matriarch Mitchell (Kirk Douglas) leaves his doctor's office (like the actor, Mitchell is trying to overcome a recent stroke), picks up his sickly brother at a retirement home, and comes with the intention of overseeing an earnest, respectful ceremony. His son Alex (Michael Douglas) enters the picture drinking heavily, the result of a mid-life crisis that has him on the brink of falling into the arms of another woman. Alex's wife Rebecca (Bernadette Peters, The Jerk) is doing her best to keep the peace between the two of them, while she also wonders what to do with their two sons. The younger of the boys, Eli (Rory Culkin, Signs), sits quietly at the table and behaves far too maturely for his own good. The older one, Asher (Michael Douglas' son Cameron, in his acting debut), shows up late for the gathering and clearly has enough immaturity for the both of them. Sitting next to Mitchell and his brother, trying to maintain a sense of grace and dignity despite her sickliness, is the frail matriarch Evelyn (Diana Douglas, Kirk's former wife and co-star).

Together, the Gromberg clan watch as their holiday turns into a disaster. Asher, who was supposed to have picked up Grandma after her dialysis treatment, forgot because he was too busy selling weed to co-eds. This incenses his father, who segues that argument into screaming at his own dad for never having been there for him emotionally. Mitchell counters with the argument that Alex never follows through on anything. You get the idea - and unless your own family is so blissfully perfect that your idea of escape is to see one that constantly bickers, you'll most likely find all this drama to be insufferable.

What's even worse is that the Grombergs bring it upon themselves, making it impossible to have any sympathy for them whatsoever. They have a huge, gorgeous house located on a lake in Connecticut. The kids get thousand-dollar checks from their grandparents as a holiday present. Mitchell founded an extremely successful law firm and gave Alex a plum job there, while Cameron DJs at a dance club and sells drugs apparently because it's a way to meet women - none of these people seem to have ever worked for a real boss in their lives! They drive vintage cars, eat at fancy restaurants, and give each other airline tickets for birthday presents. Yet, fatally, rookie screenwriter Jesse Wigutow and director Fred Schepisi (Last Orders) expect us to feel sympathy for them.

This is the type of movie where the grandfather dispenses "crazy old man" advice, and we're expected to think he's senile, ignore the advice, be surprised when it is successfully implemented by the grandkids later, and then get a big laugh out of it. But you can see the set up a mile away, so instead you just sit there and count the scenes until Eli beats up the bully by using Grandpa's moves, or when Ashley gets a woman in bed and then cuts the act short to leave her wanting more. It's the type of movie where subplots involving Alex's temptress, the fate of Asher's girlfriend, and a tense standoff between renters and landlords are completely abandoned, apparently just because they might involve (gasp!) an entire scene without a Douglas in it.

What could be more annoying, you might ask? Well, put aside your emotion and imagine a movie in which an actor delivers his lines so excruciatingly slowly that you always finished each sentence of his predictable dialogue in your head while he was about three words into it. Yes, it's tragic that Mr. Douglas suffered a stroke and yes, it's also commendable that he is still trying to act after it - but when his lines are this poorly written, his dawdling delivery just makes it all the worse. Then there's twenty-four year old Cameron Douglas, who seems to be doing an imitation of Matt Dillon for some reason that you'll spend two hours trying to figure out. The Culkin kid seems to be more believable as a member of the Gromberg family, or even the Douglas family for that matter, because at least he's got talent. Look no further than the big climax, when Cameron needs to cry and the scene is purposefully cut so that we only see him from behind in each shot. He seems to have two modes - cool dude from a Gap commercial and penitent puppy dog - and he responds to any acting command beyond that by taking off his shirt. The youngest Douglas' acting is enough to make you long for the charmed subtleties of fellow nepotist Sofia Coppola.

Nobody is better at playing an asshole in a suit than Michael Douglas, and he proves that once again here in a role that he could sleepwalk through. Bernadette Peters also holds up her end of the bargain with a frequently touching portrayal of a woman who no one seems to appreciate. Diana Douglas also does a decent job with her small role, but other than that the pickings are slim.

There are some moments where Family actually flirts with making us care. The most effective is when Evelyn passes away, leading to a series of scenes where Kirk Douglas (mostly without speaking) evokes some sympathy for his character by glancing at an empty sink, putting pillows in his bed to lie beside, or simply looking in the refrigerator. Another good subplot has the buttoned-up Ian falling for a twelve-year old runaway with a nose ring (Irene Gorovaia, The Royal Tenenbaums), and it also seems like some good material could have been mined from the perspectives of the two wives, desperately trying to hold together this family of pig-headed men. But all the women in this movie only seem to appear when the plot needs them to, the Ian-runaway girl love story is barely given three scenes to grow, and just as Kirk Douglas seems to be building up to a climax over his deceased wife, the director redundantly kills off another character.

It Runs in the Family is exactly the kind of nightmare that you'd envision when you hear that an actor is making a movie to be with his family. Warmth on the set is not a catalyst for art, and it never will be. By the end of the movie, you'll be thinking of the Douglas family and the title and wondering what it is, exactly, that runs in this family. Judging by the careers of Kirk and Michael, you wouldn't think it would be a desire to bore people to death, but this film would argue otherwise. Five years from now, when the dust settles, this will be remembered as the most expensive home movie ever made by a family. The DVD will look great on the Douglas family shelf, I'm sure - but God knows it won't be on anybody else's.

GRADE: F