Kika

Spanish director Pedro Almodovar's films have always been heady mixes of outrageous comedy, studied kinkiness, and florid melodrama, and they're getting more and more baroque, to less and less effect. Kika, the meticulously but ridiculously plotted soap centers on ditzy makeup artist Kika (Veronica Forque); her young lover (Alex Casanovas), who has a weak heart and a penchant for snapping Polaroids while making love; his American-writer stepfather (Peter Coyote), with whom Kika's having an affair; and way too many others. Almodovar got some flak for playing the movie's rape scene for laughs, but the entire concoction is, paradoxically enough, essentially too good- natured to offend. C