BASEketball's effort and energy pay off with surprisingly abundant laughs and a few admirable shocks.

Sick, twisted, and very funny, Parker and Stone have arrived. Again.

The pop-culture answer to a murder-suicide, the kind of flick that serves itself up as the object of its own satire.

The vulgar, obvious humor of Zucker brother David and "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone elicits easy, guilty laughs, yet the material has an underlying innocence that's just shy of good clean fun.

Sports-satire misfire. [31 July 1998, p. 2E]

Satire goes 'south' in gross mismatch of hot comic duo and "Airplane" director. [31 July 1998, p. 46]

Is it funny? Sporadically.

Essentially two movies stuck together like chewing gum on a subway platform. One is a dumber-than-dumb teen comedy crammed with farcical sight-gags and raunchy adolescent humor, the other a no-holds-barred satire of professional sports, and the greed, egotism and pomposity surrounding them.

I was bored well before the end, but found the first half hour pretty funny.

When I watch a comedy, I want it either to present endearing characters in fun situations or to make me laugh frequently. BASEketball accomplishes neither objective.

Not half-bad. It's about three- quarters bad, actually, but what's left offers some goof-off fun.

BASEketball feels stale and inert. Still, Parker and Stone have a nice, giddy rapport, and it's a kick to hear traces of Cartman and Kenny in their dude-speak.

Starts promisingly as an attack on modern commercialized sports, and then turns into just one more wheezy assembly-line story about slacker dudes vs. rich old guys.

Exhibits none of the infectious offhand tastelessness of their hit show and all of the insistent overkill of a Mel Brooks joke gone horribly wrong.