Let's see a show of hands; who remembers borrowing dad's bulky video camera and making home movies as a kid with your friends? How many of you ever perfected the recipe for fake blood? How about tilting your mom's new lampshade to get the proper lighting? What about casting your big brother to play a monster and then dressing the dog as a baby? Maybe that was just me, but Be Kind Rewind is counting on the fact that that you remember all of the above. For writer/director Michel Gondry, it's his fond memories of the home video era that drives his latest film.

Be Kind Rewind shares its name with a struggling, New Jersey video store. Danny Glover steps in to play the store's proud owner Mr. Fletcher while Jack Black and Mos Def come to life as Jerry and Mike, its flaky, yet well-meaning employees. Faced with possible eviction, Mr. Fletcher takes off on a secret reconnaissance mission with the hope of finding new ways to increase revenue. While out on his mission, Fletcher places the two of them in charge. But when Jerry becomes inexplicably magnetized during the attempted sabotage of a nearby power plant (one that he’s convinced the government is using to control his mind), he inadvertently erases the contents of every tape in the store's inventory.

When Be Kind patron Miss Falewicz (Mia Farrow) arrives looking to rent Ghostbusters, a desperate Mike hatches the idea to shoot their own low-tech version of the film instead. While Farrow’s character is just loony enough to fall for the impostor, not everyone does. Soon, a few local thugs arrive and demand to see Jerry and Mike's versions of such classic films as Robocop and The Lion King. It’s not long before the two clerks realize there's a ton of loot to be had with their alt-films and they start to crank out remakes for everyone in the neighborhood, armed with the slogan, "You name it, we shoot it."

At first, it’s a lot of fun to watch Jerry and Mike scramble to deliver on each new rental request. Black and Def serve up more than a few decent moments of physical comedy, as they stumble around with homemade props and elaborate effects. The central scene of the film - a montage in which Jerry and Mike recreate such classics as 2001, Carrie, and Boyz N the Hood (complete with Jack Black in an afro wig) - is pure geeky genius to behold. Michel Gondry, best known for directing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Dave Chappelle's Block Party, along with his offbeat, groundbreaking music video work for Bjork, Beck, and The White Stripes, shoots it all with a childlike imagination. However, it's simultaneously the movie's greatest asset and biggest liability.

Unfortunately, as Be Kind progresses, it takes on the slapped-together feel of the home movies it targets, which doesn’t always work. It’s a multimedia affair that uses a number of visual approaches, including standard film, old-time black and white, and hand-held digital footage, along with varying speeds and animated text. Before too long, the whole affair becomes disorienting to watch, and the script seemingly gets tossed out the window. You get the distinct impression that the high concept was created well in advance, along with the amusing ideas for low-budget remakes, which the film is built around. It's as if the larger story and character development would eventually catch up to the remakes.

Black and Def are largely left to fend for themselves in the dialogue department. Granted, they have on-screen charisma to burn, but in Be Kind, they’ve strangely dumbed down their personas. Given the loose framework, less adept characters certainly makes the far-fetched plot conceivable. In fact, most of the townspeople are awkwardly dim, too. Even Mia Farrow coming across as spacey. I suspect Gondry was going for wide-eyed enthusiasm - but instead, we often get borderline stupidity. Only Glover and Sigourney Weaver (who makes a small appearance, late in the film, as a copyright enforcer), infuse their characters with a sense of realism. Still, their presence isn’t strong enough to lend the story the necessary emotional weight to truly succeed. It’s a shame, because the film’s feel-good ending falls short of the Cinema Paradiso finale it shoots for.

Overall, Jack Black fans, Gondry enthusiasts, and general film buffs will probably get a mild kick out of the festivities. But despite its boundless and nostalgic devotion to the magic of cinema, and much like the movies you made as a kid, Be Kind Rewind just doesn’t hold-up when viewed by the flickering light of an actual movie theater.