''Hitch takes place in a brightly lit New York City where all the men are well groomed and feckless, where all the women nervously clutch a copy of ''He's Just Not That Into You, and where everyone is connected by an invisible grid of instant messages, Blackberry alerts, and Friendster links. It's a place where any potential mate gets Googled, and where men are so scared of being themselves that they're willing to hire a total stranger to do it for them.

Enter Alex Hitchens, aka Hitch (Will Smith). To the women of this candyland Manhattan he's an urban legend, the ''date doctor they keep hearing about. To his clients, he's a savior who teaches them how to make it from date one to date three without going down in flames. Wholesale lying is not involved -- some minor chicanery to meet the woman, to be sure, after which Hitch coaches his clients into being a better, more attentive version of who they already are. He's a straight eye for the straight dork, and he earns a nice living off it.

It's easy to dismiss ''Hitch, the movie that surrounds Hitch, as predictable, shallow chick-flick fluff. The truth is that's what's good about it. Every so often you simply want a movie set in movie-land, featuring attractive people saying things that, if not witty, at least don't need a laugh track to prop them up, and you want it to play fair within the context of its tiny universe. For most of its running time, ''Hitch is that movie: a painless romantic comedy that provides Will Smith with an opportunity to do what he does best, which is be Will Smith.

Last year was not a good year to be Will Smith. The actor made an unconvincing hard-nosed action hero in ''I, Robot, and in ''Shark Tale he played an obnoxious smelt. His best performance was as himself in a brief, charming hospital waiting-room scene in Kevin Smith's ''Jersey Girl, a Ben Affleck movie even Ben Affleck's mother might not have seen. So Smith's already ahead of the game in February.

Hitch keeps running into Sara Melas (Eva Mendes), a gossip columnist for a Post-like tabloid called the New York Standard. Stylish and whip-smart and lonely but afraid to admit it, Sara's a movie cliche that goes back to Rosalind Russell in ''His Girl Friday and beyond, but Mendes plays her with lived-in wariness and a minimum of goo. The scene in which Sara and Hitch meet meta-cute at a downtown lounge -- literally, since their conversation revolves around what he would say to her if he were trying to pick her up -- is the smartest bit in the movie, and it's Mendes who hones the banter to an edge.

Sara is investigating rumors of the ''date doctor even as she's unknowingly cozying up to Hitch in a series of disastrous encounters. For his part, he should know that taking a woman jet skiing in New York Harbor works about as well in movies as it would in real life, which is to say not unless you have your shots and a notarized will.

Have I mentioned that Kevin James swims through ''Hitch like Shamu the Killer Whale doing a water ballet? The star of TV's ''King of Queens plays the hero's newest referral, an accountant named Albert who peers with terror from the boxy, all-consuming totality of his nerdiness. In the film's biggest stretch, Albert carries a torch for his firm's client, the super-rich, super-fabulous super-celebrity Allegra Cole (supermodel Amber Valletta, proving she can act her way just outside of a paper bag). What exact accomplishments Allegra is celebrated for are never specified; she's offered up to us as a kind of Paris Hilton with class, and if your brain doesn't cave in from that contradiction, you are ready for this movie.

Smith and Mendes keep ''Hitch watchable; James makes it entertaining. I'm not a regular watcher of ''King of Queens -- all right, I've never seen it -- but I can understand why people might be. James has the forward drive of a trash-compacted Ralph Kramden with some of Ed Norton's random gentility and, here at least, he has a knack for fine-tuned physical comedy that gets you laughing even when the script's not there. So what if you've already seen his best scenes in the TV ads? The angle with which Albert cantilevers toward Hitch as he's learning how to kiss Allegra goodnight is de facto funny no matter the setting.

After a while, the enjoyment leaks out and ''Hitch starts running on fumes. Director Andy Tennant (''Sweet Home Alabama) doesn't know when to quit, or maybe it's just that the unyielding machinery of Hollywood romantic comedies has him in its death grip. Complications crop up, secrets are bared to the world, the cast mills around waiting for the final clinch so the end credits can roll. A sequence in which Hitch crashes a speed-dating event and angrily tells Sara off is the last worthy moment, and it's also the last to touch the jangling neurotic nerve of modern singlehood that ''Hitch taps before turning complacent.

For a while, though, the movie looks to be the very model of the modern major date flick, and again, that can be OK even if you're the one stalking into a multiplex carrying the collected essays of Camille Paglia. It's nice to have an anti-''Closer -- provided, of course, that you've seen ''Closer -- if only to be reminded of why sex, love, and silly Hollywood romances exist in the first place (because they feel good and because they make us forget about death). ''Hitch is the kind of singles-bar hookup of a film where you don't have to hate yourself in the morning. Much.