Pootie Tang (2001)

INSTANT 'TANG' Rock, J.B. Smoove, Crouther, and Mario Joyner in ''Pootie''

How awesome is Pootie Tang, the trash talking fashion plate street rap superhero? He's so awesome that when he records a new single that consists, literally, of silence (complete with mimed gospel screams in the recording studio), the whole world is enthralled. That's a gag as innocuously broad as anything in ''Dude, Where's My Car?,'' and the amiably silly ''Pootie Tang'' offers more of the same.

As Pootie, who speaks in an incomprehensible argot of hip-hop baby talk (''I'm gonna sine your pity on the runny kine! Sipi-tai!''), Lance Crouther suggests the young Billy Dee Williams dolled up like Busta Rhymes playing a daffy Sean Combs in a 21st century spoof of ''Superfly.'' Chris Rock served as one of the film's producers (he makes several on screen appearances as well), and as brilliant as Rock can be, this material is a reflection of his shallow, moralistic side; it defangs its target instead of savaging it. The name ''Pootie Tang'' is bandied about so often that you may feel like stopping the movie to say ''Joke received.''