THE MARTINS (2001) * What could they have possibly been trying to do? Comedy and meaningful drama come to mind as remote possibilities, but there's nothing particularly funny about it and it's all but entirely bereft of meaning. Still, if they come to mind as possibilities, there must be at least a whiff of each; but with such divergent whiffs its all but inevitable that the resulting concoction will be noxious. Which it is, but fortunately the ingredients aren't particularly strong. To make even the most hideous characters interesting or appealing, they are best endowed with some force of humanity that is either redeeming or makes understandable. Little of that. When things get around to making their "statement" it is no more than this: everyone is a human, and has feelings. We are apparently expected to brood on this, enlightened by the poorly drawn characters on screen, in a way that the real tragedies that greet our eyes have failed to do. The Martins make the Griswalds look like a collective of fascinating artistic geniuses.