Mar 04, 2005  |  By: BRIAN MOYLAN  | COMMENTS     

AT THE BEGINNING of “Be Cool,” John Travolta’s Chili Palmer rolls his eyes and laments, “Eh, sequels.” About an hour in, viewers are likely to say the same thing.

Not that this sequel to 1995’s critically acclaimed “Get Shorty” is a bad movie. If it were an entity unto itself, “Be Cool” would be a funny satire about the music industry and hip-hop culture.

“Get Shorty” was about a former gangster trying to make it in the movie business and get his dream project made while wrestling with a cast of scummy characters. True to form, the sequel finds a former gangster trying to make it in the music industry and get his dream project produced while wrestling a cast of scummy characters.

Besides the basic premise, there are setups, gags and scenes in “Be Cool” that were pretty much lifted from “Get Shorty” and slapped into the new context with different characters.

Travolta’s Palmer is one of the best portrayals to emerge from the ’90s and is still the charmer here. Uma Thurman holds her own as Edie, a record label owner, but she doesn’t come close to eclipsing her recent turn in the “Kill Bill” films.

Vince Vaughn serves up a fair share of laughs as a fast-talking white agent who behaves and dresses like he’s black. Cedric the Entertainer does an awesome job as a hip-hip record producer who fronts like he’s from the street but actually has an Ivy League education.

Singer/songwriter Christina Milian plays Linda Moon, the young performer that Palmer is trying to turn into a star. Milian sings well enough, but she shouldn’t act in anything outside music videos.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson plays Vaughn’s gay bodyguard, Elliot, who really wants to be an actor. The Rock generally does a good job portraying a character that isn’t often seen on the big screen: a butch gay guy.

He achieves that tentative balance of macho with a bit of inner diva that gay audiences should recognize as a hallmark of so-called “straight-acting” gay guys.

what is HARDLY “cool” about “Be Cool” is its plot. Basically, a bunch of different mobsters try to keep Palmer and Moon from hitting it big. The pair must find a way for her to do the one thing that will ensure her success as an R&B singer: play with Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler.

I didn’t get it either.

“Get Shorty” had the same type of plot, but it was satisfyingly complicated. “Be Cool” is needlessly convoluted, too long and just an excuse for unending one-liners and gags, some more successful than most.

But poor Elliot. When he’s introduced, we learnthat he once “threw a guy out of a 30th story window for calling him a fag.” And, when Vaughn uses the word in his presence, Elliot threatens to kill him.

That’s about it for Elliot’s supposed take-no-flak attitude. When a hit man tells Elliot to go buy a bat, he brings back a red aluminum one. The hit man laughs and says, “You don’t send a queen to buy a bat. They like shiny red things.”

Throughout “Be Cool,” other characters spew their stereotypical, effeminate-nature-of-gay-men jokes toward Elliot. In the aluminum bat scene, Elliot could have taken the bat and smashed the guy’s head in. Instead, he just stands there and takes it.

Despite early protests that he doesn’t tolerate such abuse, Elliot is disparagingly called a fag throughout the movie. He doesn’t stick up for himself. In the end, he prances into the sunset while the rest of the characters snicker.

The movie is a parody. But The Rock’s gay character doesn’t get the same respect or payback opportunities as other demographic groups the film purports to lampoon