‘Joe’s Apartment’ Contains Little Creature Comfort

John Payson’s “Joe’s Apartment” may well have been a funny MTV short, but stretched to feature length it’s got to be the most putrid picture since “The Garbage Pail Kids Movie” nearly a decade ago.

The slightest of plots finds Joe (Jerry O’Connell), a naive young man from Iowa, winding up sharing a derelict East Village apartment with anywhere from 20,000 to 40,000 all-talking, all-singing, all-dancing cockroaches--that number is their own estimate. Since Joe is such a slob they’re delighted to stay on. They unthinkingly threaten to derail Joe’s budding romance with a pretty city complaint department worker (Megan Ward) but, seeing the error of their ways, go about trying to set things right.

Although the film has received a PG-13 rating, it is those under 13 who are most likely to find “Joe’s Apartment” a laugh riot, filled with such moments as roach couples waltzing around the rim of the filthiest toilet in Manhattan. Gross-out humor can be a belly laugh--check out “Kingpin”--but here it’s not remotely inspired enough to be funny.

O’Connell and Ward are personable enough to hope they survive this picture to go on to better things. Appearing briefly, among others, are Robert Vaughn as Ward’s senator dad and veteran entertainer Don Ho as Joe’s crooked landlord.

* MPAA rating: PG-13, for crude humor and a brief drug reference. Times guidelines: The film is a tasteless but harmless entertainment best suited to youngsters.

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‘Joe’s Apartment’

Jerry O’Connell: Joe

Megan Ward: Lily

Robert Vaughn: Senator Dad

Don Ho: Alberto Bianco

A Warner Bros. release of a Geffen Pictures presentation. Writer-director John Payson. Producers Diana Phillips, Bonni Lee. Executive producers Abby Terkuhle, Judith McGrath, Griffin Dunne. Cinematographer Peter Deming. Editor Peter Frank. Costumes Stephanie Maslansky. Music Carter Burwell. Production designer Carol Spier. Art director Ed Check. Set decorator Karen Wiesel. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.

* In general release throughout Southern California.