In theaters

“Black Knight,” directed by Gil Junger. Written by Darryl Quarrles, Peter Gaulke and Gerry Swallow. 95 minutes. Rated PG-13.

Hopping onto the short list of this year’s worst movies – “Freddy Got Fingered,” “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” and “Josie and the Pussycats”- chief among them is Gil Junger’s “Black Knight.” The stunningly bad Martin Lawrence comedy is about a theme park employee who reaches into a moat to retrieve a gold necklace – and is inexplicably transported back to 14th century England for his trouble.

The film, from a screenplay by Darryl Quarrles, Peter Gaulke and Gerry Swallow, is one of the laziest comedies Hollywood has released this year, a cynical, unfunny, run-of-the-dump disaster whose one-joke premise consistently hits an uninspired wall of stupidity – and falls flat on its medieval butt in the process.

After bombing in June with Sam Weisman’s “What’s the Worst that Could Happen?” Lawrence finds out exactly what can happen when your legendary ego becomes bigger than your talent – you spin out bad movies one after another – and gradually lose your audience (“Black Knight” opened fourth in last weekend’s box office).

What’s so irritating about the film is how clear it is that Lawrence is just coasting here. He’s been good before, particularly in “Life” and “Big Momma’s House.” But in his latest, there’s never a moment when it isn’t obvious that he’s just showing up for a paycheck.

The film, a crude cross between “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” “Just Visiting,” “A Knight’s Tale” and “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” stars Lawrence as Jamal Walker, an inner-city flunky who zips into the past and finds himself in the middle of a Middle Age conspiracy, one that involves the potential murder of a king (Kevin Conway), the restoration of a queen (Helen Carey) and a whole lot of sex in between.

The amazing lack of attention Jamal draws as he struts through this world of knights and skullduggery is one of the film’s biggest oversights. Wearing jeans and a bright green football jersey, he’s greeted and treated as if he’s just another Moor from Normandy. Not Normandy, France, we eventually learn – but the corner of Normandie and Florence, the infamous location of the L.A. riots where Rodney King was beaten by police.

With Tom Wilkinson, Marsha Thomason and Vincent Regan all slumming in supporting roles, “Black Knight” is a black mark against all of its performers’ careers.

Grade: F

On Video and DVD

OSMOSIS JONES, directed by Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly, written by Marc Hyman. 98 minutes. Rated PG.

In “Osmosis Jones,” the poster boys for Beano, Peter and Bobby Farrelly, take audiences inside the body – Bill Murray’s body, to be exact – a vile place where wet-sounding rips, braps and honks are, not surprisingly, in ample supply.

The film, from a script by Marc Hyman, is a bawdy mix of live action and animation for the PG crowd. Because of its family-friendly rating, it doesn’t have the raunch of other Farrelly films, but some parents of younger children might find themselves cringing at the film’s ongoing infatuation with Bill Murray’s business end.

The film follows Frank (Murray), a hygienically challenged zookeeper who abides by a peculiar rule – any food that hasn’t been on the ground for longer than 10 seconds is good enough to eat, even if that food is a hard-boiled egg previously sucked on by a chimpanzee before being spit out onto the bottom of the chimp’s filthy cage.

Clinging to the egg are all sorts of nasty germs, but none worse than the virus Thrax (voice of Laurence Fishburne), an evil, sneering menace that “makes Ebola look like dandruff,” and which intends to wreak havoc on Frank’s gastrointestinal track.

In a film filled with its share of small moments, the big question is this – will the white blood cell, Osmosis Jones (Chris Rock), and the stuffy 12-hour cold capsule, Drix (David Hyde Pierce), be able to rid Thrax from Frank’s body? Not without loads of vomit, exploding zits, wayward boogers and other unmentionables.

As anyone who remembers Joe Dante’s “Innerspace,” Richard Fleischer’s “Fantastic Voyage” or even Woody Allen’s “Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask)” can attest, traveling inside the human body is hardly new, so what do the Farrellys offer?

Not much. In spite of a handful of clever moments, a good deal of “Osmosis Jones” is flat, particularly the live-action scenes, which are in such sharp contrast to Piet Kroon’s and Tom Sito’s inventive animation. The film would have been lifted considerably if the Farrellys had picked their script as carefully as they ask Bill Murray to pick his nose.

Grade: C-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, Tuesdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5” and Thursdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30” on WLBZ-2 and WCSH-6. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.

The Video/Dvd Corner

Renting a video or a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores.

Bread and Roses ? A-

Divided We Fall ? A

Made ? B

Pootie Tang ? D+

Osmosis Jones ? C-

Dr. Suess’ How the

Grinch Stole Christmas ? D+

Planet of the Apes ? C-

America’s Sweethearts ? D+

crazy/beautiful ? B

Tomb Raider ? D+

Doctor Zhivago

(DVD debut) ? A-

The Golden Bowl ? C+

Legally Blonde ? B+

Shrek ? A-

Aimee & Jaguar ? A

The Animal ? B

Swordfish ? C

With a Friend

Like Harry ? A-

Dr. Dolittle 2 ? C-