John Travolta returns as wise guy turned movie producer Chili Palmer in this disjointed and very disappointing sequel to the 1995 oddball comedy Get Shorty.
Even those of us who weren't huge fans of the original could appreciate that film's smoothly manic energy and director Barry Sonnenfeld's lightness of touch, all of which is missing in action this time around. Despite the occasional amusing bit, Be Cool is a flat, episodic mess that often just seems like an excuse to string together a bunch of gratuitous celebrity cameos (including a fun one from Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as a very bad bodyguard), and a reason to get Travolta and Uma Thurman back on the dance floor together again. The setting's been changed from the movie biz to the music biz in Be Cool, with a sliver of a plot about Travolta's character's efforts to help a female singer make it to the top, but the film's periodic winking at its own clichés are almost as clumsy and uninspired as the clichés themselves. Meanwhile, the movie's various characters all scurry about chasing each other for no good reason, pop personalities like Aerosmith's Steven Tyler show up only to embarrass themselves with some unbelievably atrocious performances, and Travolta glides through it all, aiming for an elegant, imperturbable cool that, at least in context, too often comes off as just sort of blank. Then again, maybe he's just expressing his inner Scientologist and we should cut him some slack. Also stars Vince Vaughn, Harvey Keitel and Christina Milian.
Be Cool (PG-13) Opens March 4 at local theaters. 
This article appears in Mar 2-8, 2005.