Comedy, especially physical comedy, is totally subjective. It is fascinating that a movie can be really loved and really hated at the same time. I walked out of "There's Something About Mary" and "Ghostbusters," two very unfunny films, in my opinion.

For some reason, slapstick is a form of comedy that people think is old. Jerry Lewis can be excessive, but he is still a tremendously talented man whose best films are classics. The Mack Sennetts, Buster Keatons and Harold Lloyds of the world needed to hone their craft, learn about the camera, lighting, design, and all the niceties that make a film a professional product, especially timing. Somewhere along the line, physical comedians like Lewis, Tati and Bengnini found that their art was appreciated more in Europe than in the United States.

I first saw Yahoo Serious when he made "Young Einstein" and there was a massive promotional campaign for him and for his movie on MTV. "Young Einstein" was a real misfire for me and many others, and soon he disappeared as a presence in the U.S.

One day I wondered what became of him, and after doing a bit of searching, I found this movie. This man is a genuine talent, obviously an admirer of the great silent physical comics, yet has a style all his own. His world is a unique surreal existence with bright colors and bizarre surroundings. This is a film that was meant to be seen many times; there are so many gags and set pieces in this film that are still funny the second and third time, and he obviously subscribes to the comedy practice of throwing so much at you, if something doesn't work, the next gag will. I can imagine audiences laughing till it hurt, because physical comedy needs an audience desperately to really work. Watching the Marx Brothers on television is an entirely different experience than watching them in a theater; too much dead air, and with hundreds of people, laughter is contagious. How many of us laugh because out neighbor is laughing? Some gags in this film are beautifully constructed, to the point where I marveled at what he was doing. The opening is near perfect, the garbage on the stairway is a gem that should be seen in some special on classic comedy, it is that good (the tangent with the baby is the work of a master; it is really hard to pull something like that off with an infant). The restaurant scene has wonderful little moments that are just hysterical, from the dialogue between these two cute but incredibly strange people and the reactions from other patrons. The ending with the hubcap (I loved how he turned this into a dog food dish) is utterly unexpected and really does cap this movie off very well. While the last twenty minutes didn't work as well as the rest of the movie, the rest of it was worth the journey (I found the ending of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" very protracted and really ruined the movie for me).

For someone to have accomplished such a polished work with so few films behind him really shows how gifted he is. I barely remember this film being released, and I have a feeling that if more people saw it, it would be far more appreciated.

In part, this is a slapstick comedy in the spirit of the silent film comedians, Laurel and Hardy, and the Three Stooges, for example. But, it's also a satire on the extreme lengths businesses sometimes resort to in order to achieve a competitive edge, as well as on the too frequent narrow- mindedness of parents and others who discourage imaginative activities in kids and others. It's also a love story between two wacky largely brainless people. Hellen Dallimore, as Sunday Valentine, is perfect as the cute cuddly moll of the boss of the egg processing plant, who discovers she has much more in common with Roger Crumpkin(Mr. Accident),despite his pathological clumsiness. North American audiences probably won't get the humor that the egg processing plant has been built in place of the famous bizarre-looking Sydney opera house, only one end of which remains to identify it. The rest of the roof has been reconstructed into several gigantic eggs that dwarf the original opera house. My favorite gag: the self-folding couch pull out bed, with occupant included.

I wish this film could be redone, making fuller use of the comedic potential of the main ingredients, deleting some scenes and aspects that are not important to the main storyline and are not humorous, and ending with a much more positive and meaningful basis of attachment between Roger and Sunday. For example, the side effects of the addictive nicotine-laced eggs could have been played up more. In addition to suddenly becoming smokers, everyone could have started chewing and spitting tobacco. The egg tycoon becomes a spittoon manufacturer, even selling several to the League against Tobacco.

Sunday Valentine mostly plays a passive role in Roger's further misadventures. She could have been characterized to provide a much more active part in the comedy. For example, she could have been obsessed with putting mechanical and electrical parts together in novel but mostly ridiculous useless contraptions. Thus, she would perfectly complement Roger's "Obsessive Compulsive Dismanting Fixation", and thus provide some real glue for their relationship. Eventually, she comes up with a really important invention that provides a happy ending for the story. This could be tied to the flying saucer-hub cap aspect of the story, which is left rather undeveloped, despite its repeated appearance from time to time. For example, little green men in a saucer could land, looking for their lost hub cap for their landing gear. They find it as a crucial part of a frictionless perpetual motion dynamo designed by Sunday that is supplying electricity for the egg plant. Engineers can't duplicate this wondrous source of unlimited energy because the hubcap is made of a metal not found on earth, and other metals don't work. The space visitors sample some of the nicotine-laced eggs, making them feel euphoric. They want lots more eggs. Roger offers to trade eggs for more hub caps so they can be used to light the whole city. The aliens agree and fly off with the promise to bring more hub caps for more eggs. Meanwhile the FDA has banned the sale of the plant's nicotine-laced eggs. Thus, the trade of these eggs for alien hub caps also saves the egg company from bankruptcy. Any takers?

Released in 2000, "Mr. Accident" stars Yahoo Serious as Robert Crumpkin, a geek and perpetual screw-up who works at an egg factor where the boss (David Field) is diabolically lacing the eggs with nicotine. Crumpkin unknowingly starts dating the boss' babe, Sunday Valentine (Helen Dallimore),which incurs his wrath. There's a subplot about Sunday's obsession with extraterrestrial life and a questionable hubcap which may or may not be of this earth.

This is sort of an Australian version of various Jim Carrey comedies, like the Ace Ventura movies, in that Serious plays a goofy geek with an outlandish haircut and there's a lot of silly, slapstick humor and madcap antics. Thankfully, there's almost zero foul, vulgar verbiage. I understand why some people don't like the movie because of the quirky Australian humor that non-Australians have to adapt to and the relatively lame name of the movie. As far as the latter goes, while "Mr. Accident" is fitting, a better name would've been "Mr. Screw-up" or "Mr. Break-it." Another problem is that Robert Crumpkin just lacks the appeal of Ace Ventura and comes off more like Carrot Top's younger, naïve brother.

I'm, however, giving the movie a solid rating because I found it consistently amusing once I got used to its unique Australian approach and sense of humor. The purpose of a comedy is to make you laugh and I laughed, even if a lot of it was laughing at how unbelievably goofy/silly/quirky it was. It was more roll-your-eyes laughing than laughing-out-loud, but nevertheless I laughed. Another great component is Helen as Sunday. She has a good supporting role and is just winsome and beautiful throughout.

The film runs 89 minutes and was shot in Sydney, Australia.

GRADE: B