Cloning is no new idea among Hollywood hit makers, but Harold Ramis's "Multiplicity" actually treats it as a comic premise. The idea is that life would be easier with the help of full-scale replicas, making it possible for the overstressed, overburdened individual to be in more than one place at one time. This would be funnier if fewer of us found it so true.
But Mr. Ramis turned such frustrations into clever comedy with "Groundhog Day," and he tries for similarly mind-bending, wistful humor here. His hero is a yuppie Everyman, Doug Kinney (named for the film maker's late friend and collaborator Doug Kenney, with whom he wrote "National Lampoon's Animal House"), who has an aggravating job in the construction business and a demanding home life to keep him frazzled.
Doug's work is thankless as he builds a development called Vista de Nada and is saddled with extra responsibilities for no more pay. ("I think it's probably more of a prestige thing, hon," he tells his wife when she asks if he got a raise.) To relax, he supposedly plays golf. Actually Doug never touches a golf club and has no free time at all, unless he counts the hours spent stuck in traffic.
Something's got to give. And it does on the day when Doug meets Dr. Owen Leeds (Harris Yulin) and then meets him again. It seems that there are two Dr. Leedses, one dressed studiously in a bow tie and the other in a Hawaiian shirt redolent of leisure. "These problems are not in your mind," the doctor says sympathetically, upon hearing about Doug's pressure-cooker existence. "They're real."
Dr. Leeds explains that he has cloned himself. And Doug finds the idea intriguing. Soon there are assorted Dougs (Michael Keaton, Michael Keaton, Michael Keaton and Michael Keaton) crossing paths awkwardly at Doug's workplace and arguing about who gets to sleep with Doug's wife (Andie MacDowell). Mr. Keaton, like Eddie Murphy in "The Nutty Professor," rises ably to the challenge of holding heated conversations with weirdly refracted versions of himself.
"So, uh, where you from?" asks the real Doug when he meets No. 2, the first and most macho of his clones. That wisecrack captures "Multiplicity" at its sneaky best, which occasionally echoes the knotty ingenuity of "Groundhog Day." But the screenplay (by Chris Miller, Mary Hale, Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel and Mr. Ramis) isn't often that sharp, perhaps because it must dilute Doug into four separate characters when his workaday existence barely holds enough interest for one. "Multiplicity" weaves such an uninteresting plot around its bland, generic principals that it rarely reaches the absurdist heights its premise demands.
Ms. MacDowell, at her most pliant and charming, is once again used to sweeten an acerbic leading man (a la Bill Murray in "Groundhog Day"). But her main job here is playing straight woman to a string of changeable Dougs, staying dense even though the audience can easily tell these guys apart.
No. 1 is the henpecked original Doug, who wishes they broke the mold long before dim-witted, Jim Carreyish Four emerges as a genetic mishap. ("You know how sometimes you make a copy of a copy, it's not quite as sharp as the original?" one clone says about Four.) Three is a sensitive homebody with a special knack for wrapping leftovers, which certainly presents Mr. Keaton with an amusing acting challenge. Two is the belligerent type, the clone most likely to leave Doug jobless and friendless. One funny bit finds Two trying to seduce a co-worker while the original Doug and his wife are at the same restaurant. "She's sleeping with another guy," Two confides to his date about Doug's wife. "She doesn't even know I exist." True.
For all of Mr. Keaton's obvious ingenuity, the different Dougs don't work as facets of one coherent character, which leaves their interaction a lot less revealing than it could be. The film's special effects aren't seamless either, sometimes leaving it too apparent that the star did much of his acting in a vacuum. And when "Multiplicity" settles for slapstick -- will anyone at the office notice two Dougs in two different shirts? -- it takes the dull way out of a potentially lively crisis. It's less interesting to watch Doug duck strangers than to see him argue with himself. "Multiplicity" is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It includes profanity and several seduction scenes.
Directed by Harold Ramis; written by Chris Miller, Mary Hale, Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel and Mr. Ramis, based on the short story by Chris Miller; director of photography, Laszlo Kovacs; edited by Pembroke Herring and Craig Herring; visual effects supervisor, Richard Edlund; music by George Fenton; production designer, Jackson DeGovia; produced by Trevor Albert and Mr. Ramis; released by Columbia Pictures. Running time: 110 minutes. This film is rated PG-13.
WITH: Michael Keaton (Doug Kinney), Andie MacDowell (Laura Kinney), Harris Yulin (Dr. Leeds), Richard Masur (Del King), Eugene Levy (Vic), Obba Babatunde (Paul), Ann Cusack (Noreen), Zack Duhame (Zack Kinney) and Katie Schlossberg (Jennifer Kinney).