Does somebody smell bacon?

Like a bad wine, no amount of aging can soften the stink of a bad movie. Though “Penelope” sat on the shelves for about two years after its production, it is now painfully clear that the people in charge were merely delaying the inevitable flop of this fractured fairy tale.

Certainly not without its merits, “Penelope” is a lovely movie to look at, and the leads are as charming as anyone can be reciting subpar dialogue. But no amount of eyelash batting by Christina Ricci nor sexy smirking from James McAvoy can save this one.

Ricci plays the title character, a 25-year-old woman trapped in her own home. Through a long-standing curse on her high-society family, Penelope (Ricci) has come to possess a pig’s snout and ears. Legend has it the curse can only be broken by one of her own kind, so her mother has spent the last seven years ushering in one blue-blooded suitor after another to speak at Penelope through a one-way mirror. Of course, at first sight of the pig nose they immediately jump out the window or run away. That is, until one man (McAvoy) sticks around. From then on, a series of liberating events help the pig-faced girl to strike out on her own and appreciate herself.

Though the premise is promising, the movie falls flat. The main problem is that too many stories are being told at once, and they are all over the place – a journalist (Peter Dinklage) will stop at nothing to snap a picture of Penelope, she becomes a celebrity, her mother won’t accept her, gambling is bad, etc. Add in the filmmakers’ strained attempts to make the movie look so whimsical that every element seems at once appropriate and anachronistic, and you have the makings of a straight-to-DVD release.

Unfortunately for Reese Witherspoon, who acts in and produces “Penelope,” this is only her second offering post-Oscar. (The other was “Rendition,” which was also a disappointment.) If she doesn’t want to go the “Catwoman” way of Oscar winner Halle Berry, Witherspoon should chuck this from her resume and consider a new agent.