neumu [ cinematronic ]




	Joe Somebody
	John Pasquin Tim Allen, Jim Belushi, Patrick Warburton, Kelly Lynch 2001		Somebody would have to be a pretty dim Joe to find this anything more than an embarrassment. It's a crappy mish-mash of family comedy, wholesome romance and wimp-empowerment fable starring Tim Allen, whose loud-jerk persona was used to good effect in the space-opera satire "Galaxy Quest." Here, Allen's torpid-everyman character is a triple threat — divorced dork, ineffectual father and invisible corporate drone — and a black hole sucking all potential comedy into it. The script is a marvel of witlessness: Pathetic Joe reaches a crossroads in his life when the despised company bully (Patrick Warburton of "The Dish" and TV's "The Tick") bitch-slaps him over a parking place during Take Your Daughter to Work Day. So Joe takes up martial arts with an over-the-hill action-movie actor (doughy Jim Belushi). When word gets out that he's scheduled a rematch with his tormentor, Joe becomes a big deal in the workplace, with his ex-wife, etc., but is he now a better man? Z-z-z-z...