“Shake, Rattle & Roll” Sunday and Wednesday nights at 9on WCBS/Ch. 2

IF you like movies about the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, you’ll really resent CBS’s miniseries “Shake, Rattle & Roll.”

This four-hour, two-parter takes elements from every rock ‘n’ roll picture you ever loved and diminishes every one of them.

“Shake, Rattle & Roll” tells the story of a group of Missouri teens who form a band in the mid-’50s called the HartAches, named for their most charismatic member, farm boy Tyler Hart.

Beginning with the group’s formation in Tyler’s hayloft, the miniseries traces the lives of the HartAches over roughly the next eight years or so, through the evolution of rock ‘n’ roll from Elvis to The Beatles.

It borrows so heavily from movies like “Forrest Gump” (which catalogued the social changes of the ’50s and ’60s) and “American Graffiti” (with its pioneering rock ‘n’ roll soundtrack) that within a few minutes of watching “Shake, Rattle & Roll,” you’ll wonder why you didn’t pay a visit to the video store to rent one of them instead.

And then there are all the rock ‘n’ roll movies to which “Shake, Rattle & Roll” owes a debt. In the miniseries, a number of ’50s rock ‘n’ roll stars cross paths with the HartAches, including Elvis, who tells the group, “You folks really rock”; Fats Domino, who exclaims, “Ya’ll are burnin’!”; Chuck Berry, who duck-walks; Little Richard, who shakes his pompadour; Jackie Wilson, who duets with Tyler; Eddie Cochran, who sings “Summertime Blues,” and Bill Haley, sporting his trademark hair curl on his forehead.

“The Buddy Holly Story” and “La Bamba” had actors playing some of the same stars, and a whole lot more authentically, too. (Take one look at Howard Huntsberry singing “Lonely Teardrops” as Jackie Wilson in “La Bamba” and you’ll know what I mean.)

In fact, inauthenticity is the big problem with “Shake, Rattle & Roll.” Not only are the rock star impersonators utterly unconvincing, the real ones are widely accessible on video in a number of ’50s rock ‘n’ roll movies, including “Rock Around the Clock” and “Don’t Knock the Rock.”

At one point in “Shake, Rattle & Roll,” the classic Platters recording of “Only You” is played to underscore a tender scene between Tyler and his girlfriend.

That’s when it becomes painfully obvious that there’s no substitute for the real thing. And the HartAches of “Shake, Rattle & Roll” aren’t even great pretenders.