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If you're going to bring a phenomenally successful stage musical about a New York City squatter community in the late '80s to the big screen, then surely Step One would be dialling up the agents of every thrusting up-and-comer flirting for a place on an It-list and finding out if they can sing. Step Two would be trawling MTV for the brashest, funkiest directing talent making waves in the music-vid biz. Surely the last director on your wish-list to adapt Jonathan Larsen's adrenalised rock opera would be Chris 'Harry Potter: The Boring Years' Columbus? (Though it's probably Trey Parker and Matt Stone, whose inspired Rent spoof in Team America: World Police - "Everybody's got AIDS!" - ruled them out of the gig.)

Point is, Rent's braintrust hobbled its chances of striding out of the musical ghetto, à la Chicago or Moulin Rouge!, by hiring not only the dependably dull Home Alone director, but most of the original Broadway cast to play the main parts. Yes, that's right - in 1996, they could sing, dance and convincingly portray impoverished-but-sexy young misfits. In 2006, they can sing, dance and convincingly portray ageing adults with pension plans, timeshares and aches and pains. You can practically smell the smoky staleness of a thousand nightly performances waft onto screen.

Indeed, the whole cast ably nail their dance moves and hit the high notes - but it's a turgid experience akin to watching a well-drilled army platoon marching past. A wasted opportunity, because while Rent may be a dated time capsule, set in the days when New York was still funky and being HIV+ was still a death sentence, there was much in its tragic story and vigorous showstoppers to recruit a few new Rent-heads.

It took Zellweger and Zeta-Jones to bust Chicago into the mainstream; Columbus' faithful but mediocre adap will only preach to the converted.