MAID IN MANHATTAN (2002). As its title (a three-way pun, and the cleverest thing in the movie) suggests, Maid in Manhattan is a product. Take the main ingredient, the fabulously popular Jennifer Lopez, put her in a shoddy retread of the already shoddy Pretty Woman, and add a cute little boy and a cute older boy and a few cynical stabs at social consciousness. It should be a big hit, especially with its moral that the poor and despised among us are just the same as the rich and celebrated. After all, isn't J. Lo a little of both? Here she's Marisa Ventura, a domestic at a swank Manhattan hotel where the staff are encouraged to be "invisible." Shades of Ralph Ellison? Hardly. Marisa has upwardly mobile ambitions, so it takes only a little arm twisting from a co-worker to get her to try on a set of fancy duds discarded by a haughty guest and so be mistaken for a guest herself by Senate candidate Christopher Marshall (Ralph Fiennes). Director Wayne Wang, stung no doubt by the poor reception given his NC-17 fit of boldness The Center of the World, tries to freshen up this stinker through confusion and implausibility. It's never clear who's in on Marisa's imposture -- or why -- so all the revelations and confrontations come off like foggy introductions at a dull cocktail party. And in a desperate attempt to fudge stereotype, Wang makes Marisa's son, Ty (Tyler Garcia Posey), a fan of Richard Nixon and the liberal, womanizing Marshall a Republican. As for whether J. Lo can act, she looks equally hot in a maid's uniform and a $5000 Dolce & Gabbana suit -- and equally uncomfortable. (97m)

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