Smaller. Thinner. Still Greek.

The audience laughed and laughed.

They didn't just laugh at the jokes in "My Life in Ruins," they said the jokes before the characters did and announced what was going to happen before it occurred, and then they laughed when what they knew was going to happen, happened.

I guess there's something to predictability, to having their expectations met. And no more. The big news is if you can make it through the first hour-plus, the film does improve. But that's a big if.

Nia Vardalos takes another big step back from the freshness of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" with this lesser comedy. Svelte and lovely, she plays Georgia, a Greek-American professor now living in Athens.

Laid off from the University of Athens, Georgia now makes do giving tours to busloads of international stereotypes. It's a job she hates -- we're supposed to think this is because she is uptight, but it's really because she is a full professor in Ancient Greek culture and she is giving rudimentary tours to incurious tourists who just want to shot for souvenirs.

Along for the "If It's Tuesday, It Must be the Parthenon" ride are ugly Americans (Harland Williams and Rachel Dratch), tipsy Australians, bickering Brits and their sullen teen daughter, slow-moving seniors, Spanish divorcees on the prowl, a stupid American student, a businessman who we assume is supposed to be gay so we brace ourselves for the inevitable gay jokes (these come instead at the expense of a couple of gay Greeks), and Richard Dreyfuss in an unconvincing fat suit.

Dreyfuss plays a tourist who thinks he is funny, but isn't -- actually, a number of characters spend considerable time telling each other that they are not funny, and they're all right. Then, when it is convenient to the script, he abruptly changes character altogether and suddenly becomes a wise old sage who never makes another joke. He also undergoes what appears to be a major new phase in his life, which is promptly ignored by writer Mike Reiss.

Reiss' excuse is that his considerable previous work has all been in television. But director Donald Petrie is an old pro of strikingly uneven quality, from the soaring highs of "Miss Congeniality" and "Mystic Pizza" to the disastrous lows of "Richie Rich," "Just My Luck" and "Welcome to Mooseport." "My Life in Ruins" lies between the two extremes, but is definitely on the "Mooseport" side of the scale.

On the other hand, it does boast a middlingly appealing performance by Vardalos and a couple of funny lines -- one about Australian accents and one about Uncle Phil. These jokes provoke laughs, in part, because they are unexpected.

For the rest of the movie, feel free to recite the jokes along with the characters.