Rigor mortis has set in

As a rule, the idea of Hollywood remaking movies from other countries is to make a worthy but obscure film available to a wider audience.

But some films deserve to be obscure.

Exhibit A is “Death at a Funeral,” an ill-conceived farce with a lot of English people in it that has now been turned into an ill-conceived farce with a lot of black Americans in it. Not that race plays a part in this picture’s failure. It is essentially a word-for-word remake of the quickly forgotten original, with maybe a couple of R. Kelly and MC Hammer references thrown in for flavor.

As before -- the original only came out in 2007 -- the idea is to turn what should be a somber funeral into a wild, anything-goes farce. On paper, it might seem like a good idea. But actually showing it on the screen reminds of us the sarcastic old cliché “as funny as a funeral.” And if that isn’t a genuine sarcastic old cliché, it ought to be.

What we get is an hour and a half of lovers bickering, siblings squabbling and parents broadly hinting -- at every conceivable opportunity -- that they would like to see a grandchild or two. And what we especially get is a man (James Marsden in this case) who accidentally ingests a powerful hallucinogen and embarks on a prolonged and defiantly unfunny acid trip.

Chris Rock stars and shares the blame as one of the executive producers. He plays Aaron, perhaps the most normal member of a family that is grieving over the recent death of his father. Aaron tries to hold onto some dignity while everything around him is falling apart in ways that begin as tiresome and then become repetitious.

The problem is not with the cast, which includes such comedy forces as Martin Lawrence, Danny Glover, Loretta Devine, Tracy Morgan, Keith David and Luke Wilson. None can overcome the daunting deficiencies of the script, although Peter Dinklage (the only holdover from the original) manages a couple of amusing reaction shots to an extended humiliation.

That is what we are reduced to here, praising a couple of simple reaction shots. Along with writer Dean Craig, blame director Neil LaBute, whose forte is dialogue-driven, nuanced stories filled with realistic and emotionally brutal interplay between characters, particularly between men and women. In other words, what he is best at is the opposite of “Death at a Funeral.”

This movie is all physical comedy, or the verbal equivalent of it. It lazily looks for the cheapest joke and then uses that as a platform from which to search for an even cheaper joke. Or grosser.

I spent much of the film cringing.