Starring Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Jennifer Lopez, and Stanley Tucci. Rating unavailable.

I read once that some men prefer "blank canvas" women, those with no discernable personality, in order to project their own dream-girl attributes onto them. Jennifer Lopez must have heard that too, just before she rushed out and underwent a lobotomy in preparation for her new movie. I'm kidding. But if her po-faced incarnation in Shall We Dance? is "the new J.Lo", as some movie mags are claiming, then strap me into a time machine and rocket me back to Selena. Throughout her surprisingly small role in Shall We Dance?--the agreeable if not soul-stirring remake of Masayuki Suo's 1996 superior Japanese charmer--Lopez's character possesses about as much energy as the slain Tejano singer herself does today.

Oh, wait. Richard Gere is the star of this film. In Audrey Wells's updated screenplay, the actor plays John, a Chicago lawyer who, despite a solid marriage, normal teenagers, and a lustrous head of hair, is unfulfilled. When he espies moony dance instructor Paulina (Lopez) gazing blankly out a window on successive evenings, he hops off the subway and signs up for ballroom-dancing lessons with a view to finding a little horizontal action. Fortunately, for moral and spiritual reasons, he falls in love with dance instead. As John then advances to the glamorous world of competition, his infectious life transformation gradually awakens--somewhat--Paulina's own spirit, long squelched by a nasty episode in her past.

If, right now, you're imagining dance routines on a par with Gere's Chicago, you're building yourself up for an awful letdown. There are some pleasing ballroom numbers, but the value of self-actualization and the dangers of conceit take precedence over the fancy footwork. So how come fellow patrons of the dance class then respond to Paulina and John's low-key glide around the studio with a rapture suggesting that it's J.Lo herself deigning to cut a rug in front of them?

Mercifully, Shall We Dance?'s supporting actors two-step, rumba, and tango with explosive vigour into the breach. Susan Sarandon's agreeable wife, who hires a delightful private detective with a romantic streak to find out if John is cheating on her, is the real sex kitten here. Alas, her oft-photographed bountiful cleavage offers only superficial justification for why her husband couldn't possibly be straying. Comedic foghorn Lisa Ann Walter's lusty dance competitor shows us that sexy need not equal nubile. But it's Stanley Tucci, as an uptight dancer rabid with talent, and nearly unrecognizable behind a yam-orange tan, brunette wig, and false teeth, who injects the oomph, comedy, and pathos to lead us through the film like Fred Astaire after a double espresso. Now that's entertainment!