David Ross’ “The Babysitters” is an ugly affair masquerading as either a black comedy or, even more cynically, a peek into the misunderstood psyches of teenage girls and the middle-age men who’d love to have sex with them. An unfunny waste of at least a couple of talented actors, the movie - which opened in limited release this weekend - is too safe to be prurient and too leering to be convincing as an after-school special.

For reasons that appear to be purely monetary, a group of high-school girls transform their “baby-sitting” service into a call-girl ring catering to the lustful and disaffected dads of their charges. The 16-year-old Shirley Lyner (played by Katherine Waterston) is the waif-turned-madam whose dalliance with a client’s dad (played by John Leguizamo, also the film’s producer) earns her a guilt-inspired big tip and sparks an idea.

Justification or character motivation appears to be of little interest to writer/director Ross. The 94-minute film is on a veritable sprint to get Shirley and Michael from first handshake to forbidden kiss to copulation.

The leap from that improper tryst to Shirley enlisting her friends - and Michael lining up his - is equally speedy, with every male character over the age of 18 (including Anthony Comeau, Ethan Phillips and Adam LeFevre) more despicable than the next. The girls, who are either all business or severely damaged, aren’t much better.

Shirley, we are to understand, is working through the slings and arrows of her first love while socking away some college money (she writes the word “Trouble” on the bills, bless her moral soul) in the process. Apart from some take-charge bristling when her girls threaten to cut her out, Waterston (the daughter of “Law & Order’s” Sam Waterston) is utterly un-credible as a high-school misfit.

An even greater crime is the presence/waste of “Sex and the City’s” Cynthia Nixon, who, playing Leguizamo’s devoted but unknowing wife, interjects the film’s only bit of believability.

“We made a mess,” giggles Shirley immediately following her deflowering. Where “The Babysitters” is concerned, truer words were never spoken.

The young cast of “Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” are getting a royal workout as they traipse around the globe to promote the feature that opens today (5/16)  “We just got back from Mexico City.  We go to Japan Saturday, then back to L.A., then Israel, Prague, Paris, London, Madrid and Munich,” reports William Moseley, a.k.a. Peter Pevensie, a.k.a., King Peter the Magnificent of Narnia.  His schedule goes into July.

“But I’m absolutely fine, ready to rock and roll.  The promotion is actually fairly glamorous; you’re treated wonderfully and you get to stay in nice places.  I always find a couple of hours here and there to look around.  It’s pretty intense — but it’s fantastic that Disney and Walden Media are so happy with the movie they want to push it this much.”

For Moseley, the sequel meant stepping up his acting, since his character shows more maturity and dimension – “struggling with his insecurities.  He almost can’t believe that he was this high king once.”  He’s also dealing with a loss of faith, as he finds himself unable to see the lion Aslan, the spiritual ruler of Narnia, “and he becomes this ego-driven young man, kind of dimension.

“I worked with an acting coach, Sheila Gray, for three and a half months in New York before starting…I worked my guts out,” he says. The handsome 20-year-old, who’s the subject of internet fan sites set up by young female admirers, seems to be taking fame in stride.  “I love it when people say they like our work – especially children.  I care much more about the opinion of children than adults because they’re so honest and genuine.  If you’ve got them on your side, you’re all right.”

THE VIDEOLAND VIEW: “America’s Most Wanted” host, John Walsh, feels very proud that his show has captured its 1,000th fugitive – a landmark that’s being recognized in a special broadcast on Saturday (5/17) — but the host admits he would trade it all to have his son Adam back.

“I would trade everything in two seconds to go back to having Adam alive and to be a hotel developer and be in that business that I was,” says Walsh, who lost his six-year-old son Adam in 1981 when he was abducted from a Sears in Florida and killed.  ”You look back and see how heartbreaking and life-changing it was, but the positive side of it is, it gave me a huge way to make sure that Adam didn’t die in vain.  I think the celebrity and the hard, hard work involved in this show gives me a great platform to change things, so despite seeing the worst of society, I also get to see the best.”

Having reached such a huge milestone has cemented the “Most Wanted” team’s purpose, Walsh says.  ”We were the first reality show and people said it will never last - they’ll never catch one guy.  It’s amazing after 20 years that we’re still chugging along so strong.  No one could have ever predicted that the show would still be as popular as it is and as effective,” he notes.  ”Now we’ve got 1,000 criminals caught.  It only took us 20 years, but we made it.”

THE BIG-SCREEN SCENE: Though British star Colin Firth co-stars in “Mamma Mia,” one of the hottest anticipated summer movies, he’s most excited about what he considers a little gem of a film upcoming from “A Mighty Heart” filmmaker Michael Winterbottom.

“It’s called ‘Genova’  and I think there is no director more interesting right now,” says Firth, who stars in the film with Catherine Keener.. “It’s about a family in America. The mother dies in a car accident in the very beginning and the father takes their two daughters to Italy to get away from the scene of great sadness and give them a new life for awhile. I don’t know if you’ve seen ‘A Mighty Heart’ with Angelina Jolie, but Winterbottom shoots in an incredibly, beautiful way. I’ve seen ‘Genova’ twice now and I think it’s one of the best pieces I’ve ever done.”

STRANGE: Katherine Waterston, whose performance in the current “The Babysitters” has garnered lots of attention, recently wrapped the independent feature, “The Factory” – which has eerie parallels with the horrifying recent headline story about an Austrian woman held captive in a dungeon for decades.  Says Katherine, younger daughter of Sam Waterston, “It’s really grim.  I play a pregnant paraplegic girl who has been kidnapped and spent over three years in a basement.  She’s suffering from Stockholm syndrome, so she thinks her digs are luxurious, even though they’re not at all.”  The film, starring John Cusack as the cop who’s chasing after the serial killer suspect – frantically, once his own daughter goes missing — does have a tie to reality, Katherine says.  “It’s based on a case in Pennsylvania in the 1970s, an extreme right wing guy who wanted to start a family, but whose values went wrong.”