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'Creatures' Discomforts

The maddening thing about "Fierce Creatures" isn't that it's puerile, klutzy, simplistic and incredibly corny; but that it's also painfully funny -- or can be. This reunion of John Cleese, Kevin Kline, Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael Palin -- the team from the 1988 "A Fish Called Wanda" -- spends most of its time honoring a banal, farcical storyline. And it often lapses into sophomorically sexual antics which don't always work.

But, as with much British-based comedy, something wickedly inspired will come along. For one thing, the production is blessed with Cleese, who pulls out his characteristically deranged mannerisms. There's something about the compressed mouth, acutely strained voice, apopletic expression and bulging eyes that can reduce anyone to hysterics.

As Rollo Lee, the newly appointed director of the Marwood Zoo, he has the unpleasant job of informing his employees that their beloved animals are in big trouble.

It seems the zoo's tyrannical new boss, an Australian mogul called Rod McCain (Kline), has announced some radical measures. Only those creatures who are deemed vicious -- in other words, the real crowd-pleasers -- will be allowed to remain. The rest of the collection -- the lemurs, meerkats and coatis -- will have to be, uh, retired.

The zoo keepers, including chatty Adrian "Bugsy" Malone (Palin), are naturally outraged. They decide to stage a revolt. But their plans are complicated by two newcomers. Willa Weston (Curtis), a slinky, ambitious new hire in McCain's empire, wants to take over the zoo and turn it into a chain of theme parks. She's helped by McCain's estranged, egomaniacal son, Vince (Kline again), who's unrequitedly in lust with Willa; he's also determined to find some way to impress his nasty, aloof father, so Dad will give him all that inheritance money.

The movie, written by Cleese and Iain Johnstone, isn't a sequel to "A Fish Called Wanda." But it's meant to evoke the same spirit. Unfortunately, we never reach that level. Kline, an inventive performer who works on a seat-of-the-pants, hit-or-miss basis, creates some amusing moments. And Curtis exudes a comically sexy presence. But they were better in the previous movie. Cleese and Palin enjoy some fleeting, quasi-"Monty Python" moments together. Palin doesn't stutter this time, but he's a talkative nut case with a special attachment to his tarantula. Most of the time, though, the actors look like tired remnants of their former selves.

"Creatures" also pays homage to the old Ealing Studios-style British comedies, in which sexual misunderstandings and double entendres were the prime source of humor. (In keeping with this nostalgia, coproducer Cleese has recruited Ronnie Corbett, a wonderful comedic staple on English television in the 1960s and 1970s.) For instance, when Willa and Vince overhear Rollo speaking to a cache of wild animals he has saved from slaughter, they conclude the director is talking to a harem full of hot women.

For the rest of the movie, Rollo, who keeps getting caught in compromising -- but innocent -- positions, can do nothing to dissuade the Americans that he's a sexual pervert with a voracious appetite for multiple partners. This silly, naughty-schoolboy humor is somewhere between quaint and tedious; and it's only Cleese's wonderful range of expressions that redeems it. You leave "Creatures" with the unsettling sensation of being highly tickled yet greatly dissatisfied.

FIERCE CREATURES (PG-13) -- Contains comically sexual situations, some strong language and macabre humor.