SHALL WE DANCE

[] (One star)

Lost in translation. Running time: 106 minutes. Rated PG-13 (sexuality, brief profanity). At the E-Walk, the Cinema 1, the Chelsea, others.

JENNIFER Lopez’s butt-hugging costumes are the most memorable thing about “Shall We Dance,” a lead-footed and otherwise in stantly forgettable remake of the charming 1997 Japanese musical of the same title.

As the sad-eyed ballroom dancing teacher Paulina, the erstwhile Flygirl doesn’t exactly set off sparks with Richard Gere, who sleepwalks – and sleep-dances – his way through the role of John, a bored, middle-aged estate attorney.

You see, the zest has gone out of John’s marriage to Beverly (Susan Sarandon), the beautiful mother of his two daughters.

So when he spots Paulina gazing wistfully out the window when he passes by the studio where she works on his way home on the Chicago El, John gets off and impulsively signs up for lessons.

Anyone expecting these two to eventually get horizontal is going to be mightily disappointed – they don’t even kiss.

Paulina haughtily rebuffs John’s invitation to dinner, and he is instead left in the capable hands of Miss Mitzi (Anita Gillette), the studio’s aging and tippling owner.

Lopez is consigned to the background for much of the movie – we’d guess most of her footage was consigned to the cutting-room floor as a form of damage control, given a performance that’s stiff even by her usual standard – as the initially awkward John interacts with the studio’s other stereotypically wacky clients.

They include a large, clumsy and sweet black man named Vern (Omar Miller) and the somewhat more coordinated Chic (Bobby Cannavale), a closet case who invariably boasts about his love for the ladies.

The pros at Miss Mitzi’s are Bobbie (Lisa Ann Walter), a blowsy blonde, and the tango specialist, Link (Stanley Tucci, in a making-straw-of-hay performance), who turns out to be a colleague of John’s hiding under a hideous wig – a heterosexual with a yen for sequins.

Meanwhile, John’s suspicious wife, Beverly, hires a private detective (Richard Jenkins), who leads her to the big – and totally anticlimactic – dance competition, where the much-improved John fills in as Bobbie’s partner.

At a recent paid advance screening, much of the audience was yawning or nodding off by this point – there isn’t even any exciting dancing here, and what hoofing there is has been heavily edited, usually with the dancers’ feet cropped off.

Compare that with the extended clip of Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse in “The Band Wagon” – uncropped and unedited – that has unwisely been included by the uninspired director, Peter Chelsom (“Town and Country”).

The screenplay, attributed to Audrey Wells (“Under the Tuscan Sun”), follows the original closely, which is another mistake. The Japanese story took place in a culture where touching is avoided and it actually made sense for the husband to sneak off for dance lessons.

The low point of the new “Shall We Dance” comes when Miss Paulina finally confesses why she’s so sad.

It may be the first time that an actress who gets a reported $10 million a movie has her big dramatic monologue demoted to narration over a lame montage.