Yes, I am a fan of the Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich. I love the goofball humor, I love the nicely-paced mysteries (in the earlier books, anyway), and I love the enormous cast of wonderfully-written characters. I’d call it a guilty pleasure, except that I appear to be just one fan among thousands. Upon hitting the bookstores, each one of the novels has made the bestseller list like clockwork. As such, it seemed inevitable that someone would try to make a film adaptation.

In point of fact, Tri-Star has been developing a film for Stephanie Plum ever since the first book was released. Seventeen years ago. During that time, it seems that the script was being written by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, who brought us such fine pieces of cinema as Legally Blonde, Ella Enchanted, She’s the Man, The House Bunny, and The Ugly Truth. The credits also include such capable writers as Liz Brixius (whose sole credits are for “Nurse Jackie” and the pilot of “Insatiable”), Stacy Sherman (a couple of short films, including one called “Goodnight, Vagina”), and Karen Ray (fuck-all).

The director in charge of all this is Julie Anne Robinson, whose sole film credit is a Miley Cyrus vehicle called The Last Song. Aside from that, she has a resume of TV directing gigs that stinks to high heaven. I’ll grant her a few points for her one episode of “Pushing Daisies,” and she’s also worked on “Weeds,” which is a show I’ve heard good things about. That aside, her CV is loaded with such shows as “Samantha Who,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Private Practice,” and “The Middle,” in addition to several TV shows that no one’s heard of.

With a pedigree like this, I wasn’t exactly holding out hope for One for the Money. In fact, the film took so long to make that I wasn’t sure it would ever hit screens to begin with. Yet just a few days ago, a trailer for the movie finally surfaced. The filmmakers had finally published a look at their adaptation of this multi-million dollar book series, spanning seventeen books over two decades, with thousands of fans nationwide. Let’s take a look:

Wow, this is even worse than I thought.

Strike one: The movie has a January release date. Never a good sign.

Strike two: It’s based on the first book in the series. This might seem like the best move to make, until you stop and think about it for five minutes.

The whole point of the book series is that they’re mysteries and they’re comedies. These genres depend on suspense and humor, both of which depend on surprise. There’s no surprise in a story that the audience already knows in advance. Therefore, by basing the movie on a story that the core audience already knows, it inherently suffers right off the bat. QED.

You may argue that this is a very common problem that adaptations have to face. I would counter-argue that this particular adaptation had the very unique option of coming up with a new story entirely. After all, the chronology of the book series is extremely loose, with time gaps of indeterminate size between them. Evanovich herself has utilized this several times in the creation of her “Between the Numbers” holiday specials. The filmmakers could have easily crafted a  new Stephanie Plum story, designed it to be a good introduction to the characters, picked a couple of books to squeeze it between and kept the whole thing in-canon. The established fans get a new adventure, the newcomers get an introduction to the series and its characters, everybody wins.

But no, the filmmakers went with the laziest and most obvious option. It’s a wasted opportunity from the word “go.”

Strike three: The cast. Let’s start with the lead character.

Above all else, Stephanie Plum is an everywoman. Beautiful, but not supermodel-level gorgeous. Tough enough to survive being raised in some armpit of New Jersey, but not so tough that she can hold her own in a fight. Smart enough to make her a character we’d root for, but not smart enough that she can learn how to pick a lock. Casting such a role takes a very delicate touch and a great amount of thought.

Instead, the filmmakers just took out their Rolodexes and called Katherine Heigl. And then they gave her an exec-producing credit.

I thought we were done with Heigl, folks. I really did. After The Ugly Truth, Killers, and Life As We Know It, I thought it had been quite well-proven that Heigl is box-office poison and a vacuum of talent. Yet the “Grey’s Anatomy” director and the writers of The Ugly Truth had a mutual acquaintance, and here we are. A lead role miscast with an actress who just needs to go away.

Part of the reason why Stephanie has to be so relateable is because all the other characters are so much larger than life. We need her to be a sounding board against all the craziness and raw machismo going on around her. Which brings me to Joe Morelli.

Here’s Jason O’Mara, an Irish native playing a character who’s loudly and proudly Italian. I can let that slide, but there’s no ignoring the fact that Morelli needs way more swagger than O’Mara is capable of providing. O’Mara is clearly trying here, but he just isn’t the kind of guy your mama warned you about. Morelli is the kind of guy that men would want to be and women would want to be with. I feel confident in saying that O’Mara isn’t that kind of guy. Not by a long shot.

As for Ranger, I sincerely wish I didn’t have to dignify Daniel Sunjata with a mention. In the books, Ranger is essentially a Latino Batman. He’s tall, dark, handsome, mysterious, and extremely charismatic. This is the guy with his own bottomless fleet of black SUVs, and a small army of professional mercenaries to drive them. This is the finest bounty hunter and security expert in New Jersey, and possibly the entire nation.

And in the trailer, the only reason he isn’t shorter than Katherine Heigl is because of trick photography. FAIL.

Then there’s Grandma Mazur, easily the most popular comic relief character in the books. Debbie Reynolds was certainly a step in the right direction for the role, but I don’t think she’s quite good enough. Grandma Mazur is supposed to be a study in humorous contrast. She’s a sweet little old lady who’s trying to preserve her youth in the most shocking, violent, batshit crazy ways. Betty White has made this her schtick for however many years, so casting her should’ve been a no-brainer. As for Debbie Reynolds, I’m seeing a lot of “sweet little old lady” in the trailer, but I don’t see nearly enough of the unpredictable craziness.

The only one in the cast who seems decently fit for her role is Sherri Shepherd as Lula. They could have (and probably should have) gone with someone a few dress sizes bigger, but Shepherd is still a noted comedienne with a decent IMDB page. Based on her resume and what I’m seeing in the trailer, I’m sure she’s capable of rocking Lula’s overconfident attitude.

I’m hesitant to judge the humor or the action based on this bland and terribly-cut trailer, but I think it’s safe to assume that One for the Money will be dead on arrival. There’s a shocking lack of talent or creativity being shown so far, on both sides of the camera. Barring some miracle or other, I’m sure that this film will be ignored by fans and casual moviegoers alike when it sees release next January 27.