"The Heartbreak Kid" **1/2 (out of four): The real heartbreak in this Farrelly Brothers remake of 1972's Neil Simon comedy trifle is that the second half is so much worse than the first.

The 1970s were a Neil Simon golden age. He had a string of movie hits to his credit (from “Barefoot in the Park”, “The Odd Couple” and “The Out-of-Towners” to “The Goodbye Girl” and “Seems Like Old Times”) each featuring his signature blend of light comic complications and scattershot cornball humor. That his films are being remade is inevitable. That they’ve been so universally bad (1998’s dreadful “The Odd Couple II”, 1999’s limp “The Out-of-Towers”) is a shame. It could be that Mr. Simon’s comic touch was a product of its time; more often than not, the remakes lose something in translation. Like Woody Allen, he brought his Borscht belt stylings to the age of women’s lib, Watergate and free love, a recipe exemplified in his 1972 trifle “The Heartbreak Kid” (itself based on a Bruce Jay Friedman short story). Starring Charles Grodin and Cybill Shepherd and directed by Elaine May, “Kid” was the story of a Jewish newlywed (Grodin) who, on his honeymoon, dumps his wife to pursue a tall blonde shiksa (Shepherd). Much hilarity ensues. If “The Heartbreak Kid” had to be remade, I’m glad it’s the Farrelly Brothers at the helm. And I’m glad they cast Ben Stiller in the lead. I just wish they could have sustained the comic build-up of the first half throughout the film.

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