Starring Leslie Nielsen and Kelly Lynch Directed by Stanley Tong Rated PG, with cartoon violence, mild profanity Running time 85 minutes Marshall gives this film a rating of 2 out of 10

(Dec. 25, 1997) -- The one time I laughed during Mr. Magoo came after the film was over, when the film company flashed a message to the audience by way of apology.

It explained that the film we had just seen was not intended to reflect badly on the visually impaired, who make contributions to our society yadda yadda yadda. It was inspired by threatened protests against the film by organizations for the blind and visually impaired, who take umbrage at the character of the near-sighted Mr. Magoo.

Which made me giggle at the irony: Here was the Walt Disney Co., going out of its way to show its sensitivity to a minority that it had just spent 85 minutes making fun of. Yet it showed no such concern about actually including anything remotely humorous in this painfully unfunny movie.

Directed by Stanley Tong from a screenplay by Pat Proft and Tom Sherohman, Mr. Magoo casts the usually reliable Leslie Nielsen as the near-sighted millionaire, who used to be voiced by the late Jim Backus in all those witless cartoons of the 1950s and 1960s.

Nielsen is at his funniest when he's playing it straight in the midst of absurdity, as he did in the Naked Gun films. As Mr. Magoo, however, he's called upon to be both active and ignorant, which is a different thing.

The minimal story involves a plot to steal a giant ruby, which accidentally lands in Magoo's possession, unbeknownst to him. So he becomes the target of both the jewel thieves (principally, Kelly Lynch) and a pair of squabbling government agents (Ernie Hudson and Stephen Tobolowsky) who are on the gem's trail.

It's as though the entire script were coated with laugh repellent, so effectively do Tong, Nielsen and the writers fend off every urge to amuse. The near-sighted jokes grow old quickly; as deft a physical comedian as Nielsen may be, he can't sell this shtick, though he tries mightily. The harder he works, the less funny he is.

Which is true of the whole sorry movie. To quote the central character himself, "Magoo -- you dog.''