by CHRIS BARRY

Don't confuse this for what is likely to become one of countless reviews lamenting the demise of much celebrated director Kevin Smith. I never liked Smith's films to begin with. All right, maybe 1994's Clerks had one or two decent moments, but it ends there. Dogma was sophomoric, pretentious and ultimately stupid, while Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back simply wasn't very funny. And don't even get me started on Mallrats.

So when I say Jersey Girl is nothing more than a syrupy second-rate romantic comedy, don't think it's because I was expecting anything special from Smith and feel betrayed. It's because this is, um, a syrupy second-rate romantic comedy, a chick flick of sorts, created with the most undiscerning of chicks in mind.

Ben Affleck plays a successful NYC show biz publicist whose lovin' woman, Jennifer Lopez, dies while giving birth to their first child, leaving Affleck, now a single dad, with a lot more than he bargained for. Rather than hire a nanny like other professionals in his situation might do, he totally stresses out, gets fired from his job, is forever banished from the entertainment industry and finds himself forced to move out to New Jersey to live with his young daughter and alcoholic father, George Carlin.

Seven years later he's still there, working a blue collar job, being the perfect dad to his predictably precocious little girl, yet still finding himself yearning to get back to NYC and the entertainment biz. He finally gets his chance, but after seven years of fatherhood in the 'burbs combined with the romance he's been cultivating with local video store clerk Liv Tyler, well, could it be that city slicker Ben has unwittingly developed an affection for the simple joys of life in the hinterland, making the decision to leave that much harder? I'll leave it for you to guess.

It's unlikely hardcore Smith fans, or anyone else for that matter, will be too pleased with this film. In the admirable effort to stray from the "stoner" sensibilities of his earlier flicks in favour of this grown-up attempt at sophistication, Smith has created a film that, at best, can only be described as vapid.

Jersey Girl opens Friday, March 26

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