A satire about whacking a Barney-like character sounds funnier on paper than it appears on screen, even with black comedy king Danny De Vito behind the camera. The moment nauseating children's figures were accepted into the mainstream, the idea of doing violence to them became an obvious punchline, so De Vito's Death to Smoochy has neither the bite nor the originality it aspires to. (See Kevin Smith's Dogma for another example of rage directed toward a corporate kiddie creation, the similarly named Mooby). The film does have ambition, but the messages about corruption and consumerism are mixed, acted out by too many characters over the course of a busy plot that heaps on scenes without momentum. Edward Norton seems to have taken lessons on mugging from co-star Robin Williams; his gee-whiz naïf, which channels Woody Harrelson's simpleton from Cheers, is strangely unrealized. Meanwhile, Catherine Keener proves she can play, well, Catherine Keener. In his first of a trio of "darker" roles in 2002 (along with Insomnia and One Hour Photo), Williams comes off okay by the cheery standard he set for himself in the late '90s, but his character slips to the periphery, fighting for air among too many distracting secondary characters. His over-the-top jealousy might feel more organic had Adam Resnick written Rainbow Randolph's downfall as a function of his age and irrelevance, rather than a hackneyed sting operation. Some critics hazed the movie more than it deserved, but it's easy to understand why they were frustrated to the point of such vitriol.