There’s nothing wrong with wanting to see a film based solely on its star power. Movie moguls count on it. And I must admit I was looking forward to seeing The Ages of Love simply to watch Robert De Niro and Monica Bellucci working up a little chemistry as tentative new lovers attempting to bridge the age gap.

De Niro, in his first Italian-speaking film – and romantic comedy – for many years, is in fine form in Giovanni Veronesi’s light-as-air third instalment of the popular Italian trilogy Manual of Love.

As his beautiful but melancholy paramour, Monica Bellucci doesn’t have to do much, other than pout and look sexy, which – let’s face it – she can do in her sleep. In fact, all of the characters in this film, perhaps with the exception of De Niro’s ageing professor, are so one-dimensional, such caricatures, that it’s impossible to appreciate them as anything more than almost cartoonish cardboard cut-outs.

The first segment, Youth, is so superficial as to be almost meaningless. Roberto (played by the very-easy-on-the-eye Riccardo Scamarcio) is on the verge of settling down with his long-term girlfriend Sara (Valeria Solarino) when he meets wild child beauty Micol (Laura Chiatti) on a work trip to a remote village and has one last fling. The implication seems to be rather basic: get it out of your system, boys, because once that ring is on your beloved’s finger, this kind of spontaneous excitement will no longer be so readily available.

The second segment, Maturity, is where things start to go a bit haywire.

Ostensibly a study of the male midlife crisis, it takes the farce element just a little too far, tipping over into unintentional absurdity.

News presenter Fabio (Carlo Verdone) seems to have it all – a prestigious job, a loving wife, angelic children and a fantastically good hairpiece. But he has a spur-of-the- moment one-night stand with an intensely passionate woman, Eliana (Donatella Finocchiaro), who turns out to be a bit more of a handful – and much less of a one-night stand – than he had originally anticipated.

As a cautionary tale, it works; Eliana turns out to be rabbit- boiling, Fatal Attraction-style crazy. As any deeper comment on why men stray at a certain point in their married lives, it doesn’t have much to offer.

But the film redeems itself in its final segment, with a charming, if slight, story based around the blossoming relationship between De Niro’s Adrian and Bellucci’s Viola, his concierge’s daughter.Sure, it’s a hackneyed premise – it’s never too late and you’re never too old to fall in love – but at least this section is handled with some finesse.

Watching De Niro’s Adrian tentatively and self-consciously strip before Bellucci’s dancing Amazonian seductress is poignant, funny and awkward all at once.

A good romantic comedy will have its share of belly laughs, but it will also say something meaningful about human nature.

Manual of Love may have enough of the first quality to keep audiences mildly entertained, but it has little of the depth and intelligence needed to make it memorable.