'Hoot' heroes can't save the day

David Germain, Associated Press

Friday, May 5, 2006

This should be a real hoot: a film based on a Carl Hiaasen novel, produced by Jimmy Buffett and featuring songs by him, with both Florida boys appearing in small roles.

Unfortunately, the environmentally conscious family film Hoot is more of a twitter, kids taking on corporate callousness in what's meant to be a lighthearted tale but turns out lightweight and bland.

Hoot carries a positive message of social responsibility, but its three teen heroes and their quest to save endangered owls just aren't interesting enough to rally behind for an hour and a half.

Among the adult cast, Luke Wilson and Tim Blake Nelson add some comic flair, though not enough to carry the movie.

Director Wil Shriner, who also wrote the screenplay, makes his big-screen debut after directing episodes of such sitcoms as Frasier and Everybody Loves Raymond. He ends up generally stuck in small- screen mode as Hoot plays out with the modest pace, tone and production values of a cable-TV movie.

Logan Lerman of TV's Jack & Bobby stars as 14-year-old Roy Eberhardt, one of those kids who are constantly changing schools as their parents move from place to place. The movie begins with Roy's lamenting his latest move, from Montana to southern Florida, where he's the friendless new kid who runs afoul of the tough chick at school, Beatrice Leep (Brie Larson), and a beefy bully (Eric Phillips).

Gradually, Roy earns Beatrice's respect and friendship and falls in with her stepbrother (Cody Linley), a barefoot eco-rebel known as "Mullet Fingers" who's waging a guerrilla vandalism campaign to stop a pancake chain from building a restaurant on an owl habitat.

Nelson's the hapless construction-site manager, Clark Gregg plays the heartless executive who will stop at nothing to get his pancake emporium built and Wilson's an eager but boneheaded cop trying to sort out who's responsible for the vandalism and why.

The movie tries to build little mysteries where none really exist, and Hiaasen's dialogue is lacking. The teen actors are earnest, but their performances are rather stiff and shallow.

But that said, in a world where moronic family comedies such as RV and Cheaper by the Dozen 2 find solid audiences, the well-meaning Hoot deserves at least the same. The movie may not be much of a hoot, but it has more smarts, heart and conscience than those dumb family flicks put together.