"Code Name" | How about "Operation Mess"?

The problem with having a name like Cedric the Entertainer is that people expect you to live up to it. In "Code Name: The Cleaner," the comedian (born Cedric Kyles) is Cedric the Empty-brainer.

To be fair, the blame is shared. Director Les Mayfield's previous comedy was the 2005 turkey "The Man," and he seems even less inspired here, armed with little more than a witless screenplay and a cast that looks vaguely humiliated.

This is one of those wretched comedies that starts weakly and goes downhill from there. From lazy gags that don't make sense (does sexual arousal really restore lost memory?) to "comedic" action scenes that are neither funny nor exciting, it's an embarrassment to everyone involved.

Movie review

Showtimes and trailer

"Code Name: The Cleaner" with Cedric the Entertainer, Lucy Liu, Nicollette Sheridan, Callum Keith Rennie and Will Patton. Directed by Les Mayfield, from a screenplay by Robert Adetuyi and George Gallo. 91 minutes. Rated PG-13 for sexual content, crude humor and some violence. Several theaters.

Laboring with a stillborn premise, Cedric plays Jake, who wakes up one morning in a ritzy Seattle hotel with a dead FBI agent and virtually no memory of who he is or how he got there. We know this because he looks in a mirror and asks, "Who am I? How did I get here?" (Aren't screenwriters supposed to avoid expository dialogue?)

As Jake's slowly returning memory confuses reality with fantasy (he's a janitor, with grandiose flashbacks inspired by video games), he finds himself entangled with corporate sharks and nefarious schemers who covet a computer-game chip that's been altered for evil purposes. Lucy Liu (who, like Cedric, receives an executive-producer credit for this mess) and "Desperate Housewives" co-star Nicollette Sheridan play, respectively, an undercover FBI agent and a scheming seductress who have little to do but look sexy and wish they were in any other movie but this one.

Aside from a few flyover shots of the Space Needle, Seattle is doubled by Vancouver, B.C. (yet again), and even the end-credit outtakes are lame. If anyone deserves the name "Entertainer," it's comedian DeRay Davis and sassy actress Niecy Nash, who earn a few laughs in small supporting roles. Still, any resemblance to real entertainment is strictly coincidental.

Jeff Shannon: j.sh@verizon.net