Grade: B

Verdict: Jude Law does Michael Caine proud.

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
Cox News Service

What's it all about, "Alfie?"

It's all about Jude Law. Just as it was all about Michael Caine 38 years ago.

And rightly so. Law, who's been in danger of overexposure (three films this fall and another, "Closer," in early December), reminds us what made him so hot in the first place. He gives a bravura performance as the Cockney charmer and inveterate womanizer that was Caine's breakthrough role in 1966.

Charles Shyer's updated remake shifts Alfie's prowling ground from London to New York, but keeps him the same heartless heartthrob we met in the original film. For Alfie, marriage is still a fate worse than ... anything.

In direct-to-the-camera monologues, Alfie, now a limo driver, dispenses advice on how he's remained unattached, despite a thousand and one nights with different women. They range from the obligatory post-coital cuddle (one 1,000, two 1,000 he counts, glancing at his watch) to the problem with dating single moms. They come with accessories, i.e., kids.

But here's the ultimate irony of adapting a '60s heel to today's mores. What was once an edgy comedy-drama with a swinish but personable anti-hero enjoying the darker side of the sexual revolution, is now, well, more or less ... a chick-flick.

Or, at the very least, a good date movie with a kinder, gentler cad who has a decided soft spot for kids (despite his protestations) and is open to a stroll along the beach with a wise widower (Harry Dean Stanton, the Chris Walken of the '70s).

Perhaps that softening is to be expected from director Shyer, whose previous films include mashmallowy fare like "Baby Boom," "Father of the Bride" and "I Love Trouble." Still, his "Alfie" isn't the desecration some feared. Not in the least. It's well-acted, well-crafted and, well, kinda upbeat in an inoffensive way.

Alfie's "birds" -- yes, he actually calls women that -- include a number of fine actresses in one-dimensional roles. There's Jane Krakowski, as a sexy but lonely woman married to sexless Phil the Pill ("Best take a mint," Alfie advises her, "so Phil won't smell Alfie on your breath"); Nia Long, as his best friend Marlon's (Omar Epps) on-and-off girlfriend; Sienna Miller (now Law's real-life squeeze), as the party-girl epitome of Alfie's FBB philosophy (it's all about face, boobs and buns); Marisa Tomei, big-eyed and poignant as his "semi-regular, quasi, sort of girlfriend"; and Susan Sarandon, sniffing around a best supporting nomination as the smart, chic, gorgeous older woman who really does know what it's all about.

Shyer's "Alfie" takes place in a world without AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and, apparently, birth control. But social context isn't the point. Jude Law is the point.

After avoiding his own innate sex godliness by choosing interesting roles like the creepy assassin in "Road to Perdition" or the creepy sex robot in "A.I.," Law is splendid as a swaggering ladies' man whose ego serves as a shield against the harsher realities of life. His grin is devastating, and his eyes alone do more acting than Vin Diesel has done in his entire career.