I have no doubt that the Tony-Award winning Broadway musical is wicked awesome. Critics and audiences seem to agree that the experience is a romp because they keep it happy, keep it snappy and keep it gay.

This movie version, however, falls flat. Then again, the stage version came after the original Mel Brooks 1968 movie of the same name, so maybe it depends on your age, gender, sexual preference or taste in actors.

Ah, there's the rub. While Matthew Broderick is okey dokey as an actor and will always get a pass as Ferris Bueller, he can't fill the squeaky-clean shoes of Gene Wilder, who might as well have been designed for the part of Leo Bloom, the uptight accountant afraid of taking the leap into show business.

	If you got it, give it Don't be selfish, give it all a-vay Don't be shy, be bold 'n' cute Show the boys your birthday suit

When you're on stage, overacting is necessary, because the big sweeping gestures and constant movement is needed to reach the audience. On film it just becomes over acting. Broderick fails in that regard.

The rest of the cast is just as guilty, led by hams Uma Thurman and Will Ferrell, neither of whom was in the Broadway version yet the brightest flashes in the movie's shallow pan. Uma knows all too well, "ven you got it, flaunt it," as her Swedish sex kitten purrs.

Of course, I'm just the opposite when it comes to the gayer performances. I guess I come from the Homer Simpson "I like my beer cold and my gays flaming" predisposition when it comes to theater.

As a result, Nathan Lane buttered my bread with his over-the-top histrionics, and Gary Beach and Roger Bart were absolute fruity bliss as director-cum-Hitler, Roger De Bris, and his assistant, Carman Ghia, respectively.

Going on like this, I'm starting to convince myself that the movie was actually better than I felt at the time. The run time of over two hours is at least a half-hour longer than necessary, since it's not as if much actually happens in way of plot setup and follow-through.

The ending feels added on and actually left me yawning. None of those songs in the final fifteen minutes are memorable, humable or endearing. By this time the once gay farce hath deflated and turned boring.

One might blame the film's producers, though the entire cast and crew should share the blame and drop the curtain. One wonders if they decided that making a flop would be more profitable than making a hit, but that would involve paying attention to the silly premise of the movie.

I'd rather see "Springtime for Hitler," actually. Now there's a happy-go-lucky tour de force I'd pay to see!

The verdict: