For all the obvious time, money, and talent that went into "Leatherheads," I'm surprised "being memorable" wasn't higher on the list of George Clooney and Co.'s list of things to do.

This is a strange bird here; it's not poorly made or offensive or bad in any stereotypical sense of the word. It's just kinda ... nothing. It plays out and leaves no impression. It's like watching a dying star implode on itself from a telescope. I am no better or worse for having seen it.

I imagine this is what being in limbo feels like. That, or being flashed with one of those memory-erasing devices from "Men in Black."

I'm surprised. With 2002's "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" and 2005's great "Good Night, and Good Luck," Clooney was proving himself to be just as formidable behind the camera as in front of it. This flick seemed like it would be a nice change of pace for him to stretch his comedic chops.

The movie's a loopy period farce that focuses on the attempts of Duluth Bulldogs star player Dodge Connelly (Clooney) to legitimize football by enlisting the help of war hero and college football sensation Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski). Along the way, both men end up competing for the affections of Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger), a sassy reporter charged with finding the truth behind Rutherford's war record.

That's a lot of material — a nostalgic throwback to the rough and ragged days of pro football, a love triangle straight out of "The Philadelphia Story," a fable on the notions of heroism and personal ethics, but none of it quite meshes. I found myself increasingly indifferent to any of these threads as the flick chugged along.

As a filmmaker, Clooney wears his influences proudly on his sleeve. "Confessions" is his homage to the paranoid thrillers of the late '60s and early '70s; "Good Night" his ode to the world of live television dramas. "Leatherheads" is his "Bringing Up Baby," his fast-plotted, fast-moving love letter to the screwball comedies of the 1930s and '40s, except he makes one fatal mistake.

It's not fast.

He pitches everything at half-speed. Scenes drag out too far, actors play the dialogue too slowly, and we lose the pace and energy crucial to a flick like this. There's a dreamy languor present, particularly in Clooney and Zellweger's scenes together — we expect them to snap like Tracy and Hepburn, but they're a half-step behind the dialogue, a half-second too slow.

If ever was a movie that would benefit from being watched on fast-forward, this would be it. Doing so wouldn't actually improve the genial, aimless script by Sports Illustrated writers Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly, but it might feel like it did. The one scene that does work exactly the way it should, I think, is a bar brawl late in the flick that brilliantly shifts from madcap violence to over-the-top camaraderie.

Clooney's uncertainty with pace harms his actors. They perform with a kind of naturalism that, again, does not befit the material. We don't want realism here; we want exaggeration and humor in characterizations, and instead everyone acts like they're doing period drama. Only Stephen Root and Keith Loneker, as a boozy sports journalist and the Bulldogs' massive "kicker," respectively, give off anything resembling the screwball energy this flick needs.