"Fool’s Gold" is the newest movie to (yawn) pair Matthew McConaughey with Kate Hudson after "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days."

It’s a throw-away enough to have made for a nice paycheck for those on the production side (including costar Donald Sutherland, in one of the most inconsequential roles of his career) and as time-killing fodder for indiscriminating viewers. It strains to be a treasure-hunt caper (McConaughey’s character’s mumbo-jumbo about some buried treasure can induce hypnosis), struggles to be a romantic romp (the two lead stars have as little chemistry as they have clothing throughout the flick) and relies a good deal on slapstick stunts (heads and faces get knocked, a foot gets shot, one’s manhood gets "shoveled"). Too bad, "Gold’s" fairly rousing climax suggests that director Andy Tennant may have genuine oomph as a filmmaker but has yet to muster the courage to unearth his buried talent.

All told, to anyone still thinking of checking out this new McConaughey junk: Fools, no!

"Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" may have a fool for a lead character and may wear its foolishness on its sleeve, but at least it won’t make you feel like a fool for tuning in.

"Walk Hard" is basically what you get if you mix "Walk the Line" (about Johnny Cash) and "Ray" (about Ray Charles) but exaggerate the tragedy and melodrama in them and other musical biopics to utter absurdity, and inserting as much salaciousness as there is music. Kasdan and co. even manage to throw some "Forrest Gump-ness" into the stew, allowing Dewey to amazingly, ridiculously experience historic touchstones in US pop music from the 1940s onward. Thus, Dewey becomes a blues prodigy, a rock and roller, a Dylanesque folkie, a Brian Wilson-like artist, a TV-show-hosting has-been and a newly minted star in the rap era (itself a play on Cash’s resurrection as a hip icon in the ’90s via Nine Inch Nails) all in one unlikely lifetime.

Credit for "Cox’s" fun factor goes largely not just to co-writer-director Kasdan but also to main star John C. Reilly, a fine actor who finally gets to head the proceedings. Reilly’s performance is a hoot, but while his Dewey Cox may be this movie’s main focus, Reilly never chews up the scenery to his co-stars’ disadvantage (which could have happened if Will Ferrell were the one cast). And even when some of the stuff doesn’t work (that this-is-my-life number towards the end is ho-hum, for instance), Reilly does not once evince disdain or embarrassment.

"Walk Hard" also makes for curious viewing (as I write this, I can’t wait to laugh hard at it again): It juggles being a straightaway portrayal (though of a fictitious character) and a vehicle for sheer insanity (classic bits include an enraged Dewey Cox thrashing… bathroom sinks and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi admonishing a quarreling Fab Four, "The Beatles, don’t fight in India!"), replete with cameos both real and fake (Frankie Muniz of the swell "Malcolm in the Middle" plays Buddy Holly; a bunch of surprise stars are hysterical as John, Paul, George and Ringo).

The film is ultimately a high-wire act that goes on the verge of faltering a number of times within its 96 minutes (viewers will debate about the merits of the exposed penis, for one thing). Yet in the end, it singingly, and fairly swingingly, makes it from Point A to Point B.

(E-mail the author at critic_in_a_hurry@yahoo.com.)