MOVIE REVIEW : Lowbrow Humor, Psychic Theme in ‘Sight’

It won’t take any supernatural prescience for most folks to know to steer clear of “Second Sight” (citywide), the new comedy about a wacky psychic detective agency; the ad campaign ought to offer sufficient forecast. Yet it’s even more dire than one might have predicted. Forget earthquakes and assassinations: Where were Jeanne Dixon or Criswell when we needed them to warn us about this?

The premise has the distinct aura of a buddy comedy: There’s the wild-and-crazy eccentric who is liable to do anything at any second--in this case, Bronson Pinchot (of TV’s “Perfect Strangers”) as the childlike soothsayer who solves cases and is prone to irritating trans-channeling fits and spasms at a moment’s notice. Then there’s the down-to-earth wiseacre-partner--in this case, John Larroquette (of TV’s “Night Court”) as the eternally cranky agency head.

Scripters Patricia Resnick and Tom Schulman have incorporated a few cute twists on the psychic premise, as when Larroquette twists the inert limbs of a sleeping Pinchot into a human antenna in order to pick up a blacked-out game, or when Pinchot is able to dodge bullets thanks to his precognitive ability to foresee where they will hit. Most of the humor, though, centers wearily around the fact that Pinchot’s “spirit guide” isn’t a Ramtha type but rather a frisky, New Yawk-accented thug named Murray, an overmilked idea good for far fewer snickers than anyone seems to have predicted.

The biggest case for these Boston mind-busters comes when they’re called to track down the kidnapers of the local cardinal, next in line to be Pope. The offensive improbability of the Catholic church very publicly hiring a ditzy occultist to solve a sticky missing-persons case is the very least of this movie’s problems, and despite the fleeting use of a jealous bishop as a red herring, the background of religious hierarchy doesn’t even seem to figure in its dull but baffling climax.

The church setting does allow, however, for a “cute meet” between Larroquette and romantic lead Bess Armstrong, an initially adversarial nun. That this character joined the convent out of sexual repression (feeling guilt over the death of a boyfriend, who just happens to be the entity channeled by Pinchot!) and no religious conviction is just one of many Catholic stereotypes dumbly perpetrated by the picture, try as it might to be utterly, mind-bendingly benign.

Using as many static close-ups as fathomable, director Joel Zwick--in his feature debut, after years of “Mork & Mindy,” “Laverne & Shirley” and the like--does his best to make “Second Sight” (rated PG) seem like a failed TV sitcom, working with a lowbrow script that pointedly employs the S-word at intervals to helpfully remind patrons their brains are being fat-fried in a theater and not in their living rooms. Zwick and company have achieved what so many thought to be impossible and made “Vibes” look like an underappreciated classic of the genre. The lights are on, but nobody’s home here--not even Ramtha.

‘SECOND SIGHT’

A Lorimar presentation. Producer Mark Tarlov. Director Joel Zwick. Script Tom Schulman, Patricia Resnick. Executive producer Joe Caracciolo Jr. Editor David Ray. Music John Morris. Camera Dana Christiaansen. With John Larroquette, Bronson Pinchot, Bess Armstrong, Stuart Pankin, John Schuck, James Tolkan.

Running time: 1 hour, 24 minutes.

MPAA-rated: PG (parental guidance suggested).