The confusing plot centers around a nuclear garbage disposal and a psychedelic toad. If you've seen the painfully unfunny trailers, you've probably already thought to yourself that this can't be that bad. It isn't. It's worse. Sonnenfeld appears to have reassured his actors that it is intended to be such a broad comedy that it will be impossible to overact. The result is shamelessly bad slapstick.

There isn't a decent performance from anyone in the cast, which, besides Allen, includes Omar Epps, Dennis Farina, Ben Foster, Janeane Garofalo, Jason Lee, Rene Russo, Tom Sizemore, Stanley Tucci and Zooey Deschanel.

Let me give you a feel for what passes for humor in this lame farce. Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Eliot Arnold (Allen) puts a foot through his editor's monitor when the editor demands a story. Boy, that's original. In another scene, as Arthur Herk (Tucci) licks between the toes of the family's maid (Sofía Vergara), he remarks on her "sturdy peasant arches" while his wife (Rene Russo) and daughter (Zooey Deschanel) are watching television in the next room. The maid runs away screaming, something that you'll feel like doing many times during the movie. But don't be tricked as I was. Halfway through, I heaved a big sigh of relief. After the pathetic first half, it had to get better, I figured. I figured wrong.

BIG TROUBLE runs 1:25. It is rated PG-13 for "language, crude humor and sex-related, material," and would be acceptable for kids around 9 and up.

The film opens nationwide on Friday, April 5, 2002. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC and the Century theaters. Originally set to open the week after 9-11, it was pulled by Disney, who thought, correctly, that kids were probably not ready to laugh at terrorists with nuclear bombs who hijack airplanes. They should have pulled the movie from theatrical release entirely and gone direct to video without any fanfare or marketing. Burning the print might have been an even better idea.