Someone once said, "If you don't have anything niceto say, don't say anything at all." If I had listened to that advice, Iwouldn't be reviewing "Dude, Where's My Car?"

Director DannyLeiner tosses everything at the screen to see what will stick, and writer PhilipStark mixes in some good throwaway gags, but the stupidity and failures startpiling up and "Dude, Where's My Car?" ends up as just another lameslacker comedy.

In brief, the story - so far as there is one - goessomething like this: the dudes, Jesse and Chester, wake up with little memory ofthe previous night. All they know is that Jesse's car is missing, they now own arefrigerator full of pudding cups and their girlfriends are mad because the guystrashed their house. Other than that, it was an incredible night, according toeyewitnesses. Apparently, one of the dudes made out with the hottest girl intown, they were the hit of a strip club and a transsexual stripper gavethem a suitcase of money. Oh, and somehow they got hold of a continuumtransfunctioner, a device that, they are told by intergalactic space babes, willdetermine the fate of the universe. No, really, someone actually saysthat.

Now, Jesse and Chester have to find their car before they'recaptured by cultists who are convinced the two morons have a device that willprovide them with the means to travel beyond our solar system. In case youhaven't guessed by now, "Dude, Where's My Car?" gets its title from thefact that the two main characters spend the entire movie looking for their carand that their vocabulary is limited to two words: "dude" and"sweet."

Actually, not all my observations are negative. I didlaugh twice during the 80-minute film, but those moments of humor were rare oasesin a desert of painfully unfunny material.

"Dude, Where's MyCar?" wasn't screened for critics, which means Fox didn't want word leakingout about the film's poor quality until after it had a chance to sucker someunfortunate souls into opening weekend screenings. If you were one of them, mysincerest condolences.

"Dude, Where's My Car?" offers a handfulof giggles that somehow seem funnier when repeated by your buddies on the ridehome. The flick never reaches its potential high.

It's likely that morethan a few ticket-buyers will be scratching their heads, asking, "Dude,where are my nine dollars?" after seeing the annoyingly unfunny "Dude,Where's My Car?"