You don't have to be Mexican to be offended by "Beverly Hills Chihuahua."

The film for children in their formative years runs through all the stereotypes about Mexicans that the filmmakers apparently find hilarious (lazy, shifty, lying, dogfighting, pi?ata-bashing thieves. They even throw in a stray celebration of the Day of the Dead).

Shockingly, the filmmakers get a number of established Hispanic performers to participate. George Lopez we can understand, because what else does he have to do? But Andy Garcia? Cheech Marin?

The movie also presents Beverly Hills residents as obscenely wealthy people who pamper their pets to a ridiculous degree. That's also a stereotype, of course, but somehow it's hard to get worked up about it. Besides, in some few cases it's true.

Writers Analisa LaBianco and Jeff Bushell have taken a few subgenres and combined them in a predictable way. They start with the talking animal subgenre, which most adults find vaguely unsettling but some unaccountably find delightful. To that they add the talking fish-out-of-water subgenre, the journey-home subgenre and the maturity-through-experience subgenre.

Chloe is a pampered Beverly Hills Chihuahua who sounds like Drew Barrymore -- though she can be understood only by other animals and the audience. She is the beloved pet of cosmetics queen Jamie Lee Curtis, who entrusts Chloe to the care of her niece Rachel, played by Piper Perabo.

Dog and niece do not get along. Each knows the other's failing, and Chloe calls Rachel irresponsible at the same time Rachel calls Chloe spoiled. Both are right, and through an ill-advised trip to Mexico, Chloe learns humility while Rachel learns responsibility.

The premise isn't bad, except perhaps the talking-animal part. But the jokes are not worthy.

After Chloe is nosed into a dirty puddle and says, "I smell like a wet dog," a canine friend says, "you are a wet dog." Ha ha. And even more cringingly, Chloe's Chihuahua beau inspires courage by saying, "We're Mexicans, not Mexican'ts."

Surprisingly, some of the movie isn't that bad, though most of it is. Perabo has a wonderful little scene in which she imitates a dog into a cell phone -- in the middle of a Tijuana police station. Chloe's protest that "Dog-eat-dog's only an expression" is kind of funny. And some of the scenes in which big, mean dogs chase sweet, little dogs have an element of suspense.

The computer animation of a rat and an iguana is exceptional, although some of the other animated scenes are less successful, particularly a scene containing hundreds of Chihuahuas and Aztec ruins. The real-life animals do look as if they are actually talking, but that is just kind of creepy.

"Beverly Hills Chihuahua" does not seem quite as dreadful as you might fear it would be. It is hard to say, though, whether this faint praise is due to actual quality or incredibly low expectations.