D+

Would somebody please stop Garry Marshall before he directs again? True, he’s had a few successes on the big screen, and his television version of “The Odd Couple” was appreciably superior to the film that Gene Saks made of the original play. But his recent efforts have been mostly excruciating, and the trite, manipulative “Raising Helen” joins such dismal dogs as “The Other Sister,” “Exit to Eden” and “Dear God” as a well-deserved addition to the Marshall Hall of Shame.

The picture makes the same mistake so many of the director’s efforts have, of trying to mix rank sentimentality and broad comedy in what becomes an unholy brew. Like a bad sitcom, it wants to make you smile while tugging at your heartstrings, but what it induces is a grimace and heartburn. The very premise has a network or cable TV feel (indeed, a WB series called “Summerland,” based on very much the same idea, is due to debut on June 1, only three days after this movie opens): Helen (Kate Hudson) is a hard-driving career woman at the Manhattan modeling agency presided over by demanding prima donna Dominique (Helen Mirren). When her suburban sister Lindsay (Felicity Huffman) and her husband (Sean O’Bryan) are killed in an auto accident, the ambitious free spirit learns to her surprise that they have named her guardian to their three children, 15-year old Audrey (Hayden Panettiere), 10-year old Henry (Spencer Breslin) and 5-year old Sarah (Abigail Breslin). (The perfect spread in ages certainly suggests some careful family planning–or maybe a scriptwriter’s crutch.) The arrangement distresses Helen and Lindsay’s other sister Jenny (Joan Cusack), a fanatical hausfrau who considers herself the perfect wife and mother and the logical choice to take in her nieces and nephew. Helen decides to assume the responsibility, though, leading to the same sort of difficulties that single dad Ben Affleck recently faced juggling work and parenting in “Jersey Girl,” though here the problems are tripled. (Audrey’s rebellious, Henry misses his dad and Sarah feels abandoned.) Also straight out of the screenwriter’s manual is an obligatory romantic subplot, remotely unusual only in that it centers on an easygoing Lutheran minister, Dan Parker (John Corbett), in whose school Helen enrolls the children. As you would expect, there’s plenty of saccharine turmoil and soul-searching, but everything turns out okay–surprise, surprise. Cue the violins, courtesy of John Debney.

If one didn’t know better, you might swear that “Raising Helen” is nothing more than an elongated pilot for a CBS Monday night series that’s wandered by mistake onto the big screen. But Marshall and Disney’s Touchstone unit apparently believe that, in the era of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” there’s an audience out there for this kind of mawkish drivel in theatres. Perhaps they’ll be proven right, but it’s very doubtful. Even on its own undemanding terms, the script by Jack Amiel and Michael Begler (whose only previous effort was the flop “The Prince & Me”) wallows in bathos and lame family-friendly humor, and Marshall’s direction is relentlessly heavy-handed, making the poor material seem all the worse. Following the terrible “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” Hudson takes yet another step down the career ladder; her combination of giddiness and intensity here is singularly unappealing–she really needs a new script-reader to suggest more suitable projects. Corbett displays the same laid-back charm he showed in “Greek Wedding,” but his character is just a writer’s convention. Jenny, on the other hand, is a weird combination of strong mother figure and object of ridicule, and the talented Cusack never manages to get a secure hold on her; Mirren gets to snarl and sneer and wear nice clothes, but her thespian talents go completely unused. Hector Elizondo continues his string of supporting roles in Marshall movies, playing a good-natured used car dealer with whom Helen gets a job after leaving Dominique’s staff. His role is oddly appropriate, given that the picture seems like used goods itself, but the actor proves no more effective a good luck charm than he has in the director’s earlier efforts. The youngsters are a pretty pallid lot, and visually the picture is at best ordinary.

It may also be noted that while it’s a nice change for a movie that involves a man of the cloth to make him a Lutheran pastor, it would be ever nicer if the scripters put a bit of effort into getting things right about him. No Lutheran minister would ever genially acknowledge that his view of the afterlife includes a belief in purgatory, for instance; Martin would spin in his grave. In Marshall’s last movie, “The Princess Bride,” there was a similar blunder involving a Latin phrase (we can only hope it will be corrected in the upcoming sequel). Ordinarily one might be willing to overlook such apparently minor blemishes, but in the case of this director’s movies, they seem to point to a general sloppiness that infects the entire project. These flaws may be small, but the movies themselves are major missteps.