I hate to kick a great man when he's down--and surely Jiminy's blink-and-you'll-miss-it tenure in theaters is a downer to that last of the all-around showmen, Mr. Martin Short--but, really... Clifford, WTF?

An odd, unwieldy jumble of dire improvisations (I hope) wrapped around a hugely unengaging murder mystery. With an excess of truly unfunny bit players. And a shockingly prominent David Lynch impression. And sub-UHF movie parodies. To the film's credit I can say that it does fill in the blanks of Jiminy and Dixie Glick's much-discussed sex life, but that's probably not for all tastes.

And then it's only fair to note that the image of Glick lurking, forehead glossy, behind Kevin Kline, is probably enough to make this venture worthwhile. It's still probably better than, say, Star Wars.