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New York Times
By Janet Maslin

"Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy," the drag-and-drug comedy from the television-skit troupe Kids in the Hall, offers America yet another chance to continue its platonic love affair with men in dresses.

This group's specialty is, quite literally, wiggy humor, since each of the five Kids plays multiple roles and four of them cross-dress with goofy abandon.

As with most transvestism aimed at mainstream audiences, the effect is safely ludicrous and studiously avoids intimations of real sex. But one straight-arrow married character does get arrested in a men's room and later stars in a musical production number informing his entire suburban neighborhood that he's gay.

The same actor, the impressively versatile Scott Thompson, also plays a matronly old lady, a fashion model called Clemptor and the Queen of England in other scenes.

The Kids in the Hall's first feature isn't anything more than a sloppy showcase for the group's costume-changing tricks, but sometimes its sheer chutzpah can be amusing.

Just as often, flashes of complete plot incoherence or atrocious taste spoil the effect. The film's worst idea is a character called Cancer Boy, bald and confined to a wheelchair, smiling even when a handshake hurts his hand. "That's OK," he says bravely. "My marrow's just low."

Directed by Kelly Makin with more ability than he brought to the nearly unreleasable "National Lampoon's Senior Trip," "Brain Candy" is about mood-altering pills.

A drug company headed by Don Roritor (an unctuous autocrat played with in-joke suavity by Mark McKinney, who's as much of a standout as Mr. Thompson) wants to mass-market the happiness-inducing pill created by Dr. Chris Cooper (Kevin McDonald).

Roritor reads a trade paper called Drug Variety ("We beat penicillin!" he exclaims) and says he wants to sell the happiness pills to improve conditions for ghetto children. "Apparently their lives are horrible," he says, wearing a kimono and sashaying past his indoor swimming pool.

"Brain Candy" haphazardly piles as many skits as possible onto the idea of the new drug. Cooper is the guest on a talk show where the guests ask stupid questions and the hostess (also Mr. McKinney) soon has him wiggling and lip-synching to Tom Jones. A rock star (Bruce McCulloch) shakes off his depression and makes a ridiculously cheerful record. A corporate yes-man (David Foley) helps implement Roritor's schemes. And almost everybody in the film gets high sampling Cooper's invention.

News that the pill has awful side-effects supposedly gives the film an anti-drug spin. It's best to believe in the Tooth Fairy before trying to swallow that idea.

KIDS IN THE HALL: BRAIN CANDY

With David Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson.

Directed by Kelly Makin; written by Norm Hiscock, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson; director of photography, David A. Makin; edited by Christopher Cooper; music by Craig Northey; production designer, Gregory P. Keen; produced by Lorne Michaels; released by Paramount Pictures.

Running time: 90 minutes.

Rating: "Kids in the Hall" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It includes profanity, sexual references, partial nudity and pills all over the place.

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