Right out of the blocks, let me say that I'm a Chris Farley fan. In the current comedic landscape dotted with cynical whiners and pathetic improv hacks, Farley is a throw-back to the good-natured hilarity of a kinder time. His unforgettable schtick on "Saturday Night Live" was the nitroglycerin for a show with a serious heart condition. When he finally departed, so did my fondness for a once-favorite show. He's quickly fashioned a film career, jumping from supporting parts in Wayne's World and Coneheads to starring roles in the buddy yarns Tommy Boy and Black Sheep, lugging along deadweight David Spade.

Next, let me also throw out the fact that I'm a martial-arts fan. Bruce Lee, Sonny Chiba, Jackie Chan -- even Chuck Norris and Van Damme -- can keep me glued to the screen like white on fried rice.

Now let me say that -- despite the high concept of a tubby whiteboy martial artist -- I am not a fan of Farley's latest feature Beverly Hills Ninja. The film had a snakey route to the big screen, laboring in a dozen years worth of development snafus and false-starts, at times attached to slapstickers like Chevy Chase, John Candy, Eddie Murphy, with wafting sniffs from Rick Moranis and Dana Carvey. Eventually Ninja screenwriters Mark Feldburg and Mitch Klebenoff exercised a little-known clause in their Writer's Guild contract and reclaimed the rights to the idling story. The results will be great for their bank balances, as the film is currently making a nice skinning off the "Star Wars is sold out" crowd, but the weak production will lend little hope to any bid for a Best Script Oscar.

It's hard to know who to blame for the miscues in this thing. But it's certainly not Chris Farley. Lord knows he's trying hard to milk any laughs he can from the lame storyline and the limp direction of actor-turned-auteur Dennis Dugan. And, he does squeeze a teat now and then, producing some big yucks in the first ten minutes, as Farley's Haru attempts to master the black arts of Ninja warfare with the grace of a rhino on skis.

When bombshellicious Nicollette Sheridan arrives and hires Haru to help investigate her counterfeiting husband's dirty deeds, the movie heads to L.A. and quickly disintegrates into a shuffling stream of predictable plot points and goo-covered slapstick. The thing slows to a crawl, and only an occasional laugh can be found for the duration (Haru's stints as a flashdancer and a Japanese chef are amusing.) Frankly, for the bulk of the film we find ourselves longing for a cameo appearance by David Spade -- if for no other reason that to give Farley a chance to say something. In Ninja, we are overloaded with redundant physical humor and criminally deprived of Farley's verbal timing, getting only glances at it in brief exchanges with the excruciating Chris Rock. And Rock is so bad he makes Spade look like the new Olivier. (Yo, Dave, that's a joke. Don't buy the Macbeth Cliff Notes just yet.)

More problems can be found in the fifth-grade editing and dull-as-felt cinematography. The only plus on the production side is the editor's decision to include a steady recurrence of nicely framed shots of Nicollette Sheridan's backside, stuffed into some of the tightest jeans and shortest skirts this side of a "Frederick's of Hollywood" trunk show. This leads me to wonder -- should Sheridan's perfect posterior be categorized as a prop or a special effect?

In closing, let me urge Chris Farley to exercise the inevitable clout he'll muster from the profitable Ninja and his upcoming role in Ghostbusters III and hole up in a beachhouse somewhere with Mike Myers and Adam Sandler (the only other talented SNL'ers of recent memory) and write something funny for the three of you to do under the watchful eyes of an A-list comedy director. Distance yourself from those folks who want you to be an overweight Jerry Lewis or the next Jim Belushi, and concentrate on being the first Chris Farley. And do it in a hurry, before you put a karate chop on your fans' affection.