For the life of me, I’m sitting here at my computer trying to figure what all the fuss was about.

The winner of a record-breaking 12 Tony Awards. One of the most profitable musicals to ever hit Broadway. Based on an Oscar-nominated 1968 comedic masterpiece. These are the things going on behind the scenes of the “The Producers,” and any one of them on their own could quite possibly make the film this winter’s must-see entertainment. Added together, they make it something a person shouldn’t miss, a combined cavalcade of ingredients virtually guaranteed to produce critical, financial and popular success.

So why don’t I like it? Could it be that the resulting feature, directed by Broadway legend Susan Stroman (the woman behind the stage version), starring original Tony-winning stars Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick and Gary Beach (not to mention Tony-nominee Roger Bart) and written by Mel Brooks (based on his own Oscar-nominated screenplay) and Thomas Meehan, just isn’t very good when taken away from the stage? Maybe it is that the songs are anemic and stodgy and not all that fun to listen to? Is it possible that the whole thing is far too frantic and bombastic (not to mention long) for either its own good or the mental well being of its audience? Or maybe, just maybe, it’s a combination of all the above, puzzle pieces when spaced upon the stage that don’t look all that bad but when suddenly blasted upon a super-sized theater screen become far too much for even the most unassuming moviegoer to bear.

Not that I really care. No matter which way I choose to try and look at it this sing-songy 2005 edition “The Producers” is still a ghastly, disjointed mess. This was a film I originally couldn’t wait to embrace, a film that instead gave me an earsplitting headache and an urge to have a root canal, anything better than the thought of continuing to watch it fall to pieces. While moments here and there admittedly click like clockwork, on the whole this musical is dreadful. And if the (unfortunate) failure of “Rent” was an indication that the genre’s rebirth (thanks to “Moulin Rouge” and “Chicago”) was coming to an end, “The Producers” cements that thought with a parade of mediocrity nearly unequaled by any other highly anticipated feature this year.

For those unfamiliar with the Broadway production, the story remains virtually unchanged from the original ‘68 Gene Wilder-Zero Mostel classic. Fading theatrical producer Max Bialystock (Lane) teams up with timid and neurotic account Leo Bloom (Broderick) to intentionally produce a Broadway flop. If they do things right, when the show closes they’ll have made millions, bilking their investors out of all their hard-earned cash by creating the worst musical New York’s theatrical community has ever seen.

This show is the utterly demented Springtime for Hitler, a neo-Nazi perversion written by crazed Hitler-loving playwright Franz Liebkind (Will Ferrell). After acquiring the rights to the project, Bialystock and Bloom next go to the single most untalented director on Broadway, the foppish Roger DeBris (Beach). Convincing him and his common-law assistant Carmen Ghia (Bart) the project could bring the director respect (i.e. Tony Awards), they embrace his vision of turning WWII Germany into an S&M wonderland where the Aryans win and scantily clad women prance around the stage with giant wieners on their heads.

First things first, Uma Thurman is delightful as a blonde Swedish bombshell named Ulla looking for work. Singing a song entitled When You Got It, Flaunt It, the Oscar-nominated actress saunters around the duo’s office like an angelic vixen looking to melt hearts with the lethal combination of her smile and her cleavage. There is also a perfectly stunning sequence featuring Broderick and a chorus line of sexy well-endowed girls wearing nothing but some perfectly placed pearls as he sings about dreaming all his life of becoming a Broadway producer. Finally, Lane really is magnificent, born to inhabit the Mostel role, continually hitting all the right notes and somehow finding a way to make me laugh even when my attitude for the film had flown completely south.

But that’s really just about it for the good stuff. Maybe if I had seen the Broadway show (I missed it when it toured Seattle) or maybe if I didn’t love the original so much I’d look at “The Producers” with a different eye. The thing is, I really don’t think so. For the most part, the songs are repetitive and go on for far too long. Worse, they tend to repeat themselves, especially a nauseating one sung late in the film by Lane entitled Betrayed where he recaps everything that’s gone on in the entire film. What, were we not watching? Is this simple little comedy so complex we need a review of everything that’s already occurred? No, we don’t, and if I hate it when non-musical movies do this sort of thing I can’t very well let one that is a musical off the hook just because I like the actor doing the singing.

But these are the least of this new version’s problems. Broderick is, save for that one glorious bit early on in the accounting office, a phenomenal bore as Bloom. He overacts like crazy, hyperventilating so exuberantly by the time he was done I wanted my own baby blanket to help myself forget about him. Maybe this worked on the stage (and I really can’t see how) but it certainly doesn’t here. Yet that’s better than what I think of Ferrell. Any goodwill I had for the actor (and he did gain some of it back with his fine, funny work in Woody Allen’s otherwise second-rate “Melinda and Melinda”) is lost now, each time he hit the screen I uncomfortably cringed in my seat. He’s terrible, and by the time this leaves theaters I can’t help but think Ferrell’s stint as one of the most popular (and bankable) comedians in Hollywood will have come to a swift and sudden end.

There’s more (the rampant homophobia, the stagnant cinematography, the unrelenting length) but why go into all of that when it’s probably already more than readily apparent what I thought of the thing already. The basics are this: the music is banal, the pacing is turgid, the direction is inert, the script is uninspired and the performances are forgettable. While those feelings aren’t universal (Springtime for Hitler is an admittedly surrealistically politically incorrect sidesplitting hoot), other than what I’ve already mentioned above they’re pretty close to being that way. So, like I said, I just don’t get it, and if someone could explain to me what all the fuss was about I’d sure be appreciative, because the only thing “The Producers” circa 2005 produced in me was a distinct and unwavering desire. A desire, sad to say, to go home.

Film Rating: ê1/2  (out of 4)