The problem with Wild Hogs is that it can never decide just what kind of movie it actually is. On the one hand, this cross-country motorcycle road trip comedy is a sweetly innocent and honest foray into the emotional fragility of male middle life. On the other, it is a dopey, juvenile and highly crass journey of unadulterated idiots filled with poop jokes and homophobic humor. Together, these two different movies just don't mesh, leaving me sitting in the theater scratching my head wondering what happened.

Too bad, really, because for at least one actor (that would The Santa Clause and Home Improvement star Tim Allen) this movie showcases the best cinematic performance of his career, a highlight which would be worth mentioning if the flick it’ showcased in wasn’t so forgettable. As for the rest, they all do some fine, scene-stealing work, moments of tenderness, levity and unhesitant insight enough to truly impress.

Yet Wild Hogs is a waste, a ruined adventure undone by a puerile point of view which refuses to stop, the drama these tasteless and unfunny bits leading to so wooden and uninteresting getting to the end of it all is about as big a chore as driving on I-5 in Seattle during rush hour. It is almost as if Woody Allen and the Farrelly Brothers decided to get together and make a movie, the only problem being Brad Copeland's script doesn't have half the smarts as the first's features while Walt Becker's direction is nowhere as inspired as the latter's.

Not that any of this should come as a surprise. The producers behind this include Mike Tollin and Brian Robbins, and while it is certainly easy to applaud their small-screen work (Smallville and One Tree Hill) as fun guilty pleasures the pair's celluloid epics (including things like Varsity Blues, Radio, The Shaggy Dog and the irredeemable Norbit) are about as noxious as they get. This movie is a like the ungodly lovechild of both the duo's television and cinematic offerings, the highs and lows of each on such ample display a person could be forgiven for walking out of the theater perplexed and disappointed.

The story itself is relatively simple. Four friends, dentist Doug Madsen (Allen), self-involved Woody Stevens (John Travolta), cuckolded Bobby Davis (Martin Lawrence) and timid computer programmer Dudley Frank (William H. Macy), decide to take a motorcycle trip from their homes in Cincinnati to Los Angeles. Along the way they face their insecurities, reestablish their lifelong friendships, find potential romance with a small town restraunteur (Marisa Tomei) and face off against a gang of real bikers led by the brutal and vicious Jack (Ray Liotta).

It’s weird to see this collection of actors together in a comedy like this one. I guess it makes sense to find the typically sophomoric Lawrence and Allen together, but Travolta and especially Macy don't normally make pictures like this and finding them here is a bit of a shock. And while the former Grease and Face/Off superstar certainly throws himself headfirst into it all, and while one-time Oscar-nominee Macy shows he's as game as anyone to make a fool of himself, it is Allen who comes out of the film smelling like a rose.

If that statement doesn’t come as a shock then you haven’t been paying attention to the former television personality's theatrical track record. Granted, considering those films have included winners like The Shaggy Dog, Big Trouble, Christmas with the Kranks, Joe Somebody and last summer's forgettable Zoom not paying attention was probably a good idea. Which is one of the things makes the fact he's so good in this film such a pleasant surprise. Of all of the four main characters he is the only one the audience feels drawn to, the only one taking the time to find the subtle nuances inside Doug's psyche making him interesting and worth caring about.

I wish it were enough. Sure Wild Hogs isn’t all that difficult to sit through, and while some of the jokes have an undeniably amusing sting that couldn't help to make me chuckle overall this is a blandly infantile endeavor made by a group of actors so hard-up for a hit they're now willing to do just about anything. More, the film's fantastic supporting cast (including Tomei, Liotta, M.C. Gainey, Jill Hennessy, Stephen Tobolowsky and John C. McGinley) is wasted, all of them stranded with roles so one-dimensional and stereotypical it's hard to fathom what drew them here in the first place.

In the end, the whole thing ends up becoming a waste of time and bigger waste of effort. The jokes are tasteless (far too many of them revolving around the group’s collective revulsion about being labeled by unknowing strangers as homosexual) and the drama inert. And while the actors do give it their best, nothing they try can overcome the sad truth that Wild Hogs is a muddy disappointment.

Film Rating: êê  (out of 4)