Be Kind Rewind is sort of like YouTube, but stuck in the past: The film operates on the principle that you can film yourself being stupid, give it to someone else and become the latest craze overnight. The result of the film’s premise is an original comedy, but it’s just a little rough around the edges.

In the film, Jack Black (Nacho Libre) does what he does best – play someone with the IQ of a dinosaur. Black plays Jerry, a paranoid mechanic who lives in a trailer in his junkyard, which just happens to be right around the corner from the Be Kind Rewind video rental store.

Despite this DVD and Blu-Ray day and age, the decrepit store still rents out the VHS tapes of yesteryear; the store’s owner, Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover, Dreamgirls), hasn’t quite made it to the 21st century yet.

But the store is in shambles, and Fletcher is given 60 days to make the necessary repairs. He embarks on a secret research mission to bring the store up to speed, and while he is gone, he leaves his employee and adopted son, Mike (rapper Mos Def, 16 Blocks) in charge of the store. Mike’s one responsibility? “Keep Jerry out!”

Yet within hours, Jerry somehow becomes magnetized after blowing up some random shit, and soon he has found his way into Be Kind Rewind and managed to touch every VHS tape in the entire store, erasing every film. And when Mr. Fletcher’s friend, Miss Falewicz (Mia Farrow, The Ex) asks to rent Ghostbusters, Jerry and Mike have only a few hours to fix their problem.

So, in typical YouTube fashion, the duo decides to remake Ghostbusters, complete with tinfoil suits and a makeshift Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.

Somehow, their version of Ghostbusters is a success, and other customers begin demanding movies. As a result, Jerry and Mike – with the help of an “actress” named Alma (Melonie Diaz, Lords of Dogtown), whom they recruited from the local dry cleaners – begin creating movies for the masses.

It’s during these early stages when the movie is at its best. Watching Black and Mos Def recreate the key scenes of Ghostbusters, Robocop and even The Lion King (complete with animation) is hilarious.

But Be Kind Rewind gets a little bogged down when Mike and Jerry start cranking out movies by the dozens, and director and writer Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) decides to spend only a few seconds on key scenes from each of those films.

It is amusing when Black plays the gorilla from King Kong (probably the role he was best suited for in that film), and the way Jerry, Mike and Alma decide to depict blood and gore in their films is genius. But still, Gondry would have done better to spend more time on fewer movies.

And when Be Kind Rewind does try to get serious, it doesn’t work; plot twists are introduced that are never tied up, and Gondry flips the script on his character development, transforming temperaments in the blink of an eye (see: Jerry goes from idiot to genius).

Luckily, these changes are brief and don’t detract too much from Be Kind Rewind. While there are plenty of cheap laughs, the movie is innovative in invoking them. And though the film isn’t polished – it needs more thoughtful writing and dialogue – when it clicks, it is one of the funniest in recent memory.

aggro@umd.edu

RATING: 3.5 STARS OUT OF 5