Parents' Guide to Fool's Paradise

Day digs deep into Hollywood's past for this frenetic, exhausting showbiz comedy/parody that's ultimately just as vapid as its target. Fool's Paradise has solid laughs, but many more of its jokes fail to land. Making his feature writing-directing debut, Day constructs his character from pieces of babyface silent-era comic Harry Langdon, Peter Sellers' Chauncey Gardiner in Being There, and Joe Morton's non-speaking alien visitor in The Brother from Another Planet. He does it well, and Latte's innocent reactions to all the calamity are, if not always funny, then usually charming.

Day must have called in some favors to assemble his all-star cast, but unfortunately, they're all here to do the same thing: to go big where Day goes small. Jeong, who probably has the most screen time of anyone other than Day, is particularly manic, as if he really were chugging can after can of the energy drinks his character likes. Ironically, the most stinging joke in Fool's Paradise isn't movie-related at all. It happens right at the beginning, when Latte is released from the hospital because there's no money for the treatment he requires. Perhaps Day can tackle that issue in another movie.