Tenors fail to hit high notes in ‘Stuck on You’

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In theaters

STUCK ON YOU, directed by Bobby Farrelly and Peter Farrelly, written by Charles B. Wessler, Bennett Yellin, Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly, 118 minutes, rated PG-13.

The new Farrelly brothers movie, “Stuck on You,” stars Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear as conjoined twins Bob and Walt Tenor – or the two Tenors, as they’re called in the movie, not that anyone should expect the film to hit any high notes.

They also shouldn’t expect it to intentionally hit any low notes, or for it to slide through the Farrellys’ influential brand of crude humor, which peaked in their breakout hit, 1998’s “There’s Something About Mary.”

In that film, Cameron Diaz famously showcased her ghastly spray of organic hair gel, giggled into the camera

and watched her own star

soar because of it. After

years of imitators, the movies haven’t been the same since.

It’s been tough for the Farrellys to top that gag – and they haven’t, not even in “Osmosis Jones,” their 2001 gross-out comedy that toured the human body, roaring through its orifices. When the movie bombed, they softened their edge with “Shallow Hal.” Encouraged by that modest box-office hit, they’ve grown even softer in “Stuck on You” – and have lost their way in the process.

In short, the movie follows Bob and Walt – owners of Quickee Burger on Martha’s Vineyard – to the bright lights of Hollywood, where Walt, an aspiring actor, hopes to hit it big. Bob is stage-shy and prone to anxiety attacks onstage, but since he loves his brother fiercely – and is, in fact, attached to him at the waist, he decides to go along with it.

Soon, Walt is in a hit in a television show with Cher, who plays a high-strung version of herself, and the two brothers, who share a liver, start talking about the possibilities of surgically splitting for good.

Five years ago, when the Farrellys took risks, Bob and Walt would have been joined at their unmentionables, never mind their waists, and we can only imagine that at some point, some part of them would have been caught in a zipper, as was the case with Ben Stiller’s character in “Mary.”

Low comedy, for sure, but not timid comedy, which is worse. Still, that’s just what’s served in “Stuck on You.” The movie is safe and bland, a damp piece of milquetoast that so unreasonably well-meaning, it’s sapped of whatever energy it might have had as the Farrellys try for earnest, warm-hearted entertainment.

Too bad their own hearts aren’t in it. As likable as Kinnear and Damon are in their roles, “Stuck on You” is a strangely laughless affair, suggesting that the Farrellys might indeed be better suited to tickling us through the gastrointestinal tract.

Grade: D+

On video and DVD

THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, directed by Stephen Norrington, written by James Dale Robinson, 110 minutes, rated PG-13.

Loosely based on Alan Moore’s popular series of comic books, Stephen Norrington’s “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” takes a terrific premise and squanders it. It follows a handful of the Victorian era’s more infamous heroes and villains as they fight an evil force called the Fantom from conquering the world.

The books were smart, brutal, high-minded fun. But Norrington dumbs down the proceedings with an overkill of action cliches. His film is rigged with so much TNT, it always seems to be blowing up. In it, whole cities explode, submarines explode, mountainsides explode and people explode, and yet the movie, without the assistance of an explosive script, quickly counts itself among the destruction.

Set in 1899, “LXG” imagines a world on the brink of war, with Britain and Germany gearing up for a major battle after the mysterious Fantom lays waste to each with his endless supply of bombs. With both countries blaming the other, the head of British intelligence – not coincidentally named M (Richard Roxburgh) – is ordered by the queen to get to the bottom of things.

M does so by reaching out to Sean Connery’s Allan Quatermain, the roguish adventurer from H. Rider Haggard’s “King Solomon’s Mines,” who reluctantly agrees to join the fight by forming a literary league of superheroes.

The team he gathers is impressive: Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray (Stuart Townsend), Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer (Shane West), H.G. Wells’ Invisible Man (Tony Curran), Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo (Naseeruddin Shah), Robert Lewis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde (Jason Flemyng), and Bram Stoker’s Mina Harker (Peta Wilson).

With special effects that are just a step above what you see on the Sci Fi Channel and a script by James Dale Robinson that favors flash and fire over nuance and logic, “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” is a disappointment that admittedly has its moments, particularly with the charismatic Connery, but even he isn’t enough to lift this film to the extraordinary heights suggested in its title.

Grade: C-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, 5:30 p.m. Thursdays on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6, and are archived at RottenTomatoes.com. 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. Those in bold print are new to video stores this week.

A Mighty Wind ? B+

Anger Management ? C-

Bad Boys II ? C-

Bend it Like Beckham ? A-

Bringing Down the House ? B

Bruce Almighty ? B+

Down with Love ? C+

Dreamcatcher ? C-

Dumb and Dumberer ? D-

Finding Nemo ? B+

Freaky Friday ? A-

Gigli ? D+

Holes ? B+

Hollywood Homicide ? D-

How to Deal ? C-

The In-Laws ? C

The Italian Job ? A-

Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life ? B

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen ? C-

Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde ? C+

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers ? A-

Man on the Train ? A-

The Matrix Reloaded ? A-

Nowhere in Africa ? A

Pirates of the Caribbean ? A-

Real Women Have Curves ? A-

Santa Clause 2 ? C-

Seabiscuit ? C

Shanghai Knights ? B

Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas ? B-

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines ? B

2 Fast 2 Furious ? C-

28 Days Later ? B+

View from the Top ? C+

Winged Migration ? A

X2-X-Men United ? A-