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Mismatched from the beginning, they just keep digging a hole until there’s no plot to uncover.

Considering it’s based on “The War of the Roses,” that’s too bad. The first film��— with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner��— had force and style. This just boasts a Nancy Meyers-like house and a clever cameo by Allison Janney.

Cumberbatch and Colman play the Roses, a couple who have different interests in life. He’s an architect, she’s a chef. When his career seems like it’s on a high, he helps her launch a crab restaurant. His career tanks, hers thrives and the bickering begins.

While she racks up success, he throws himself into their children, making them athletic machines. Meanwhile, she funds his home dream. The house is amazing (it even features a control unit that adjusts everything but their fighting) and a tipping point. She gets Julia Child’s stove; he embraces an antique table with a dagger imbedded. Get where this is going?

Friends try to referee but that doesn’t work until a dinner party starts the food fight and leads to divorce court.

Theo Rose gets representation from an old friend (played by Andy Samberg, who also seems misplaced); Ivy Rose gets Janney — who steals every minute she’s there.

Then the two enter destruction mode and “The Roses” becomes a fight to the finish. Literally.

Independently, Cumberbatch and Colman have had great success with comedy. In play with one another, they’re deadly. Both speak too quickly; both look like they’d have nothing in common. Even some age-erasing AI (to recall the early years) doesn’t make them remotely attractive — to us or each other.

Director Jay Roach tries to temper��the smackdown by tossing in others — like Kate McKinnon as Samberg’s lusty partner — but diversions don’t dilute the nastiness that never lets up.

She tosses crabs in his bathwater; he ruins her beloved culinary creations. The battle gets worse (you’ll cringe when the stove becomes a plot point) and the children are largely forgotten. When the children go off to compete, the parents don’t even bother to follow their progress. They’re too bent on revenge and can’t quite get past their own egos.

That house (and a museum Theo designs) are great fun to explore. An Architectural Digest walk-through would be infinitely better than a home-cooked meal.

Perhaps with other partners, Cumberbatch and Colman could have raised a better film. This one, however, has been left in the sun too long to even consider pruning.