French flop: the always-stunning Catherine Deneuve can't save this limp and unnecessary retread of Les Liaisons Dangereuses.

Dangerous Liaisons * Written by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt * Directed by Josee Dayan * Starring Catherine Deneuve, Rupert Everett, Leelee Sobieski, Danielle Darrieux, and Nastassja Kinski * WE * March 15 and 16, 8 p.m. Eastern/Pacific

A moviemaker better have one hell of a compelling reason to have another whack at Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos's 1782 novel that has already spawned a 1959 film version with Jeanne Moreau; Christopher Hampton's incomparable play starring Lindsay Duncan and Alan Rickman; director Stephen Frears's elegantly spidery 1988 film starring Glenn Close and John Malkovich; and Milos Forman's 1989 also-ran Valmont. And how can we erase the memory of Cruel Intentions, that revved-up and occasionally intentionally funny 1999 spin on the tale?

Just when we might have thought that moviemakers had pretty much exhausted the possibilities of De Laclos's treacherous game of sexual chess, along comes a '60s-set miniseries boasting a mouthwatering cast that includes two icons of French cinema, Catherine Deneuve and Danielle Darrieux, not to mention such expert schemers as Rupert Everett, Leelee Sobieski, and Nastassja Kinski. That cast, in this type of material, practically dares you not to rub your hands together in anticipation of the possibilities.

The fabulously rich Valmont (Everett) woos a weepy, fabulously rich wife (Kinski) after he seduces, impregnates, and abandons a lovely, fabulously rich virgin (Sobieski), who is engaged to a fabulously rich old artist (Andrej Zulawski) but who ends up falling for a talented, utterly boring young violinist (played by untalented, utterly boring Tedi Papavrami). Meanwhile, the fabulously rich Madame de Merteuil (Deneuve), Valmont's former lover and absolute equal when it comes to intrigue, challenges Valmont to prove that he's worthy of worming his way back into her bed by heartlessly betraying both women.

Promising stuff, right? Well, no. Director Josee Dayan's take on the tale is to make it lumber like a TV version of a Danielle Steel novel. The dialogue--often dubbed and almost always disembodied-sounding--thuds, courtesy of such clunky Valmont epigrams as "Love's got nothing to do with happiness" and "I have principles--they're all rotten."

Deneuve, who often looks handsome in her Jean Paul Gaultier getups, kisses her De Merteuil with icy cool, but a distracted and desexed bitch on wheels is a contradiction in terms and hardly what the job description requires. Everett fares even less well. Although his hauteur is right on the money, his frozen expression and congealed snarl sometimes alarmingly suggest the most recent face of Sylvester Stallone. The absence of any visible erotic heat between Deneuve and Everett throws saltpeter on the whole affair. When these two ought to be snarling like sexual gladiators, they instead look ready to fire their agents for landing them in this mess.

By now you've probably heard the four-hour, two-part miniseries being advertised breathlessly on cable TV with the phrase "only on WE." Make that only ennui.

Rebello also writes for Playboy, Spin, and Movieline's Hollywood Life.