Boy, drugs sure are funny.

What? Oh, you wanted a little something more, some keen insight into the boundless depth and comic subtlety of this film? I don't know if I can manage it but I'll give it a try. Allen Covert seems to actually be a pretty funny guy. However, he's spent the last 600 years playing second fiddle to Adam Sandler in his cavalcade of media masturbation and I think it's starting to take its toll (or else he's just a freaking idiot). Thanks to Sandler's Happy Madison productions it's now Covert's turn to masturbate on film, and unfortunately for the rest of us, he takes that metaphor quite literally (sigh, that poor, poor Laura Croft doll).

Poised to be the next Office Space (if Office Space were written by a team of severely moronic twelve year old virgins with busy schedules) this is a film about video game tester extraordinaire Alex (Allen Covert) who's recently lost his apartment because his roomy blew their rent money on Filipino hookers... er massage therapists.

So he's off looking for a place to stay and, well, the plot's not particularly important here, what's important is that we get to that part with the weed, the un-funny random nonsense that high people think is funny AND the kung-fu monkey. Because as every Homer Simpson knows, all you really need in life is a good monkey joke. Thankfully this delightful little segue only lasts from between 1/2 way through the opening credits until just about before he beats the bad guy and gets the girl, the rest is filled with cold hard comedy.

The real tragedy of the film is that the insipid plot and mundane humor overshadows some actually pretty outstanding performances. Shirley Jones is the slutty 80 year old Grace who's nailed some of the big names in 1920s Hollywood like Charlie Chaplin (that "Little Tramp") along with Alex's best friend Jeff (Nick Swardson). Shirley Knight is loony as a kite and Doris Roberts (who plays Grandma Lilly) is one bad-a$$ gamer. Covert and Swardson play well off each other but Swardson really stands out (and in his PJs no less) as the only real source of genuine comedy in the film. His character had a caustic wit, which was offset by the fact that he had the mentality of an eight year old -- he also had a sweet hot-rod bed.

So basically an entire cast giving excellent performances effectively gets wiped away because, obviously, they were all high when they wrote the script. Leaving us with a movie that we'd have to be high to enjoy. Now, to be fair, it seems that there was, in fact, a Cypress Hill concert at near by theater because the laughter was pretty profuse from the crowd. So maybe I'm wrong and bong jokes are hilarious and monkeys have a certain subtle sophistication. But I still think there is a place in movies for the quiet dignity of the thumb sucking thirty year old that can dance up a storm, lives with his parents and who, occasionally, gets funky with the odd grandma.

Grandma's Boy opens nationwide Friday January 6th 2006

Grade: C+