King of California
(PG-13)

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The corn -- and whimsy -- are as high as an elephant's eye in King of California, a 2007 Sundance debut produced by (among others) Sideways helmer Alexander Payne. Charlie (Michael Douglas) is a mentally unstable chronic dreamer released from a two-year stay in a mental institution. He convinces his abandoned 16-year-old daughter Miranda (Evan Rachel Wood) to ditch her McDonald's job to go with him treasure-hunting for gold in the bowels of suburban California. Douglas -- hair scraggly, bearded, spouting wild philosophies and wearing a manic glint in his eye that even Jack Nicholson might have toned-down -- sinks his teeth into a role that is equal parts Indiana Jones, Prospero and Don Quixote as he seizes on the obsession that a 17th century Spanish treasure awaits him buried in a locale not far from his tumbledown wreck of a home.

The mostly enjoyable, if often implausible, quest would benefit from a touch of larger-than-life The Fisher King-style mythology to pole-vault it over some rough spots. Although novelist Mike Cahill, a newcomer as a writer-director, provides Douglas with a whole silly symphony from which to play, Wood is reduced to few notes other than "over-it," "incredulous" and, eventually, full of grudging admiration for an impossible man whose indomitable capacity for dreaming outstrips his grasp on reality. King of California offers a nice, amiable shaggy dog story tone; a Spanish-inflected finger-picking musical score and a fresh eye to the visual absurdities of suburbia.

Neither the message nor movie itself is likely to exactly transport anyone, but it's a perfectly good way to waste away a few hours at the movies, especially with Douglas on hand as king of the crazies.

By Stephen Rebello

Photo credit: Photos courtesy of First Look Studios/© Nu Image, Inc.