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Steve Carell and Paul Rudd star in a new comedy that is based on a 1998 French movie, called “Dinner For Schmucks.”

Tim, played by Rudd, is a rising executive who, in order to get ahead at his firm, has to participate in his bosses’ cruel game. He literally runs into Barry, played by Carell, who is klutzy, clueless and quite possibly the king of the morons.

Barry, as stupid as he is, happens to be a very good-natured guy whose intentions and heart are in the right place. He wants to be a great friend to Tim, but unwittingly winds up messing up Tim’s entire life. That includes, among other things, destroying Tim’s relationship with his beautiful girlfriend and wrecking his nice apartment.

It’s sort of a one-joke premise that’s stretched to almost two hours and it feels much longer.

There are sporadic laughs along the way, but too often, “Meet The Parents” director Jay Roach, loads the film with too many slapstick sequences that grow tiring.

What does work is that both Rudd and Carell are such fine comedic actors that they elevate the level of the mediocre script. The opening and closing sequences are funny, and Zach Galifianakis, who’s in the movie briefly, is quite amusing and steals almost all the scenes he’s in.

The actual dinner, which is near the end of the film, is decently done, but even that is a bit over the top. If the director reeled that sequence in a bit and also cut down its length, it would have played better.

There’s a certain sweetness to this movie and that’s fine, but that might not be the best thing for generating laughs. The original French version, called “The Dinner Game,” had a mean-spirited dynamic between the two main characters that made the whole thing funnier.

As for the American version, “Dinner For Schmucks” is the kind of movie that would play perfectly late at night on TV, when nothing else is on and you’re looking for some mindless comedy that’s free to watch.

Neil Rosen’s Big Apple Rating: 2 Apples

By Christy Lemire, Associated Press

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In this film publicity image released by Paramount Pictures, Steve Carell, left, and Paul Rudd are shown in a scene from “Dinner for Schmucks.” (AP Photo/Paramount Pictures, Merie Weismiller Wallace)

NEW YORK (AP) — There’s a lot less bite in “Dinner for Schmucks” than there was in the classic French farce that was its inspiration.

Whereas “The Dinner Game” (“Le Diner de Cons”) from celebrated writer-director Francis Veber was a tight, sharp satire of societal pretension — and was nominated for six Cesar Awards in 1999 — this remake seems more interested in easy, broad slapstick.

That’s unsurprising coming from Jay Roach, director of the “Austin Powers” movies, “Meet the Parents” and “Meet the Fockers.” Still, Roach takes his sweet time getting to the big, wacky evening at the film’s climax. “Dinner for Schmucks” is 34 minutes longer than its predecessor, and feels like it. As Steve Carell and Paul Rudd get to know each other during a series of mishaps and misunderstandings, the pacing drags and the script takes this twosome through some seriously time-consuming, hit-and-miss detours en route to a predictably safe ending.

But Carell, being the smart, sensitive comic actor that he is, infuses what might have been an insufferably obnoxious character with some real humanity. You come to care about this guy, especially once you learn how he stumbled into his sad-sack life. The same can’t be said for Rudd’s character — the straight man in the equation — because he’s drawn so plainly, it’s hard to feel emotionally invested in whether he suffers or succeeds.

Rudd stars as Tim Conrad, a financial analyst on the verge of a promotion at a competitive private equity firm. But first, he must impress his boss (Bruce Greenwood) at a secret monthly dinner where the company elite compete to see who can bring the biggest idiot as their guest. Tim’s sophisticated girlfriend Julie (Stephanie Szostak) is appalled at the cruelty of this concept but — clearly being an idiot himself — he goes through with it anyway, hoping to impress her enough that she’ll finally say yes to his repeated marriage proposals. Flawed logic, but whatever.

When Tim literally runs into Barry Speck (Carell), a kindhearted IRS employee and amateur taxidermist, he knows he’s found his schmuck. In the original film, the poor, unsuspecting fool builds models of famous monuments using matchsticks. Barry makes intricate dioramas using dead mice he’s lovingly dressed up and placed in whimsical settings; the details of them, highlighted at the film’s start, are hilarious and awesome at once.

Being clueless about everything else in life, though, Barry gets his nights mixed up and gloms onto Tim early. Since he’s such a decent fellow, he tries to help Tim out of a series of sticky situations but, naturally, only makes things worse. This includes making Julie think he’s having an affair with a psycho stalker (Lucy Punch) and breaking into the loft of an arrogant artist and notorious womanizer (Jemaine Clement) who’s one of Julie’s top clients. They also run into Zach Galifianakis, underused in a one-note role as Barry’s work rival who fancies himself an expert in mind control.

Too often, these scenarios are uncomfortable for the viewer — not because of their intended awkward comedy, but because they’re just plain tedious to watch.

But Clement, best known for “Flight of the Conchords,” is a total scream here, cut very much from the same skintight cloth as Russell Brand in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “Get Him to the Greek.” It’s as if he exists in his own movie — a deliciously weirder and infinitely more interesting one.

“Dinner for Schmucks,” a Paramount Pictures release, is rated PG-13 for sequences of crude and sexual content, some partial nudity and language. Running time: 114 minutes. Two stars out of four.