Aaron Spelling has produced more television shows than 10 normal men. He’s older than Moses and twice as dusty. But not as dusty as most of his ideas.

Back in the day (late ’60s, early ’70s), one of his fresher ideas was about a police squad made of young hippie kids who could easily infiltrate the youth culture of the time, gain the confidence of young radicals and dopers and then bust them.

This was called “The Mod Squad.” It was basically “21 Jump Street” (another Spelling show) without the “very special” Johnny Depp-gets-a-tattoo episode every other week.

As with most old things, someone had to do a film remake and modernize a “classic.” This whole trend is kind of fun on the face of it. But the remakes getting done are just too cheesy and never live up to the mystique the originals held.

This is the case with “The Mod Squad.”

“The Mod Squad” starts off with an opening sequence straight from TV. A brief definition ala “Pulp Fiction” of what “mod” means — necessary since no one knows what that archaic phrase is in reference to.

This is accompanied by one of what “squad” means — essential for anyone who liked this movie. This intentional tube tie-in does nothing to add to the experience. Mostly it aids the heavy MTV video sequence feeling “Mod Squad” shoots for endlessly and without appropriate shame.

The plot goes something like this: Cool kiddie cops take crap from the real ones and bust teenagers, while corruption in the department gets their boss killed.

The three “hipsters” go on the run in an attempt to find the bad guys, clear themselves and their boss. All the while looking cool in their fly Levi’s gear, which gets so much screen time it should have been given credit before Michael Lerner’s Greer the good cop and Josh Brolin’s Billy the pimp.

Other stiff performances were given by Omar Epps, whose main function in this movie as Lincoln was to look cool with his brooding attitude.

The fault was undoubtedly with the script. He couldn’t have had much more than a handful of lines to find his motivation. “You’re mad at the world and you love your car … go!” So it is no surprise he could do little more than pose.

Giovanni Ribisi did better work on “Friends” than in this movie. He plays Pete Cochran, a rich boy gone bad, but for most of the film, he just plays the goofy jackass.

He is comic relief in a movie with nothing to be relieved from. He is like sorbet to cleanse the pallet after a heavy meal of bubblegum ice cream.

Apparently, his motivation was just to wreck Linc’s car and screw up. He got a few laughs, but at what price? Too high, frankly.

Claire Danes should just take some time off after this turd. Her character, Julie, is a recovering alcoholic whose purpose is to walk around all cool and sexy in slow motion.

Frankly, it’s been hard to think of Danes as sexy since she was in “Romeo and Juliet.” She’s cute, but you ned a little more than that to go on in a movie about people who are supposed to be clever criminals capable of undercover work.

Danes gets involved with Billy the pimp, he breaks her heart and not even the most sympathetic audience member could give a damn.

There is no time in this movie to get inside anyone’s character. There is too much posing and mugging and preening to get serious.

Crime dramas need to spend at least a few minutes letting the audience know why these people are partners. Why are they the good guys? Why we should care if they get shot at?

The actors in this movie are skilled performers and, given the right material and proper direction, this movie could have been more than the clich‚ it identifies itself as.

In one particularly expository scene, Pete and Julie are talking about how all of this feels like a lame-ass cop movie cliche. I guess this was someone’s way of trying to take the audiences mind of the fact that they paid over five bucks to watch a lame-ass cop movie FULL of clich‚s.

There is no substance here beyond the soundtrack. The soundtrack is a prerequisite for a majority of the scenes, which are nothing more than videos.

And not even particularly well-done videos, just slow pans of slo-mo coolness, which are as interesting as the average jeans commercial can be these days.

The crowning choad in this waste of celluloid came near the end when one of the good guys asks our three heroes: “So what are you guys, like some kind of Mod Squad?”

It was all one could do to not throw rotten vegetables at the screen and shout “YOU SUCK!”

1 star out of five

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Greg Jerrett is a graduate student in English from Council Bluffs.