‘Pluto Nash’ Could Use More Lunar Lunacy

More gets you less in “The Adventures of Pluto Nash,” a listless sci-fi comedy in which Eddie Murphy deploys two guises and elaborate, futuristic sets to no particularly memorable effect. It’s not awful, but the high cost of a movie ticket these days seems like a steep price to pay for 90 minutes of air conditioning and production design.

Murphy gives an oddly subdued performance as Pluto Nash, an ex-smuggler who takes over a failing nightclub on the moon in 2080 and turns it into a cash cow. Once Club Pluto takes off, the lunar mafia wants in. Nash brazenly turns them down, and soon he finds himself the target of some nasty men with guns.

Murphy goes after an aspiring singer with Marilyn Monroe moxie and Whitney Houston pipes (Rosario Dawson). His sidekick is an aging robot named Bruno (Randy Quaid) with a jolly Midwestern accent and a big Howdy Doody smile that never quits, thanks to a happiness-chip implant.

The idea of a Prozac for robots is an amusing one--Hal and C3P0 could have benefited greatly. But Murphy and screenwriter Neil Cuthbert never fully exploit the comic possibilities of today’s culture in tomorrow’s clothing. The best they can come up with is a bad Polish lounge singer (Jay Mohr) who reinvents himself as a space-age Frank Sinatra, in his Capitol days. “Fly Me to the Moon,” get it?

As a souped-up crooner, Mohr brings you less as well, although it’s not from want of trying. Mohr is one of several talented co-stars in search of better material, including Joe Pantoliano (that’s him, under the blond rug), Ileana Douglas (under the other blond rug), Pam Grier (as Murphy’s Foxy Brownish mom), John Cleese (as a virtual-reality chauffeur) and Luis Guzman (as a garden-variety comic Puerto Rican). As for Murphy’s other incarnation, it’s supposed to be a surprise, and far be it from me to further waste your $10.

Production designer Bill Brzeski earns his salary with a congested moonscape of quickie motels and decaying clubs. The film’s funniest thing, aside from Quaid’s lumbering automaton, is a visual gag: It’s perversely comforting to know that “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” will still be running on the moon in the 2080s. It’s doubtful whether “The Adventures of Pluto Nash” will even be available on pay-per-view by then, unless they pay you to view.

MPAA-rated: PG-13, for violence, sexual humor and language.

Jan Stuart is a film critic for Newsday, a Tribune company.

‘The Adventures of Pluto Nash’

Eddie Murphy ... Pluto Nash

Randy Quaid ... Bruno

Rosario Dawson ... Dina Lake

Joe Pantoliano ... Mogan

Castle Rock Entertainment presents, in association with Village Roadshow Pictures and NPV Entertainment, released by Warner Bros. Director Ron Underwood. Executive producer Bruce Berman. Producers Martin Bregman, Michael Bregman and Louis A. Stroller. Screenplay Neil Cuthbert. Cinematographer Oliver Wood. Editors Paul Hirsch, Alan Heim. Music John Powell. Costumes Ha Nguyen. Visual-effects supervisor Nick Davis. Special-effects coordinator Helene Ross. Production designer Bill Brzeski. Supervising art director Shepherd Frankel. Art directors Gilles Aird, Jason Weil. Set decorator Brana Michelle Rosenfeld. Running time: 1 hour, 36 minutes.

In general release.