Will the old Albert Brooks please come back?

Known for his scatological, somewhat bitter comedies such as "Coming to America" and "Modern Romance", Brooks seems to have mellowed in recent years. "Defending Your Life" signaled the entry of a kinder, softer, gentler Brooks, one who reached to give the audiences a satisfying - if not altogether happy and fuss-free - ending to his diatribes against life, love and the state of the world in general. "Mother", his last film, boasted of a spot-on caricature by Debbie Reynolds, but apart from that, the film itself seemed a little tame in its depiction of an adult boy and his mother coming to terms with their relationship.

Now comes "The Muse". Handsomely mounted and full of laugh-out-loud moments, Brooks’ latest comedy features some of his sharpest writing in recent years. Indeed, at the screening I attended, some dialogue was covered over by the sounds of uproarious laughter from the audience. But has Brooks become an audience pleaser at the expense of being an artist of flawed humanity?

"The Muse" opens with an amusing sequence of events that show how Stephen Phillips’ (Brooks) screenwriting career is derailed just as he is awarded a Humanitarian Award. Word leaks that his latest script has no "edge" and soon, he’s lost his deal with Paramount, his office is taken over by Brian DePalma, and visions of becoming a poor bum with a family to support start haunting his every waking moment. His wife (Andie MacDowell) blithely takes it in her stride, but since Stephen is another quintessentially Brooks alter-ego, he fusses to the point of tizzy distraction. The earliest moments of this film contain the darkest, most charged humor. Spying a mystery blonde leaving the palatial home of his good friend and fellow screenwriter Jack (Jeff Bridges in yet another role named "Jack"), Stephen pushes and rants till he discovers that Jack - and a whole host of Hollywood’s brightest - have been drawing inspiration from Sarah (Sharon Stone), who legend has it is an actual daughter of Zeus, a muse. Desperate for help, Stephen courts Sarah, little realizing exactly what a living hell his life would become as she turns out to be a petulant, spoilt, extremely high maintenance source of precious few nuggets of wisdom for him. Groveling at her feet and fastidiously obsessing over his script, Stephen miraculously manages to come up with the kind of overblown summer movie script that is dying a long, slow death at modern box offices around the world - needless to say, he eventually manages to sell it, but not before Sarah threatens the sanctity of his marriage, his mind and his career in ways he could never imagine.

Audiences will be pleased with the sparkling comedy that Brooks offers in large doses - it's appealing, easy to digest, but it doesn’t have the very edge that Phillips' latest script is accused of lacking. There are a few barbed quips, a couple of poisonously spot-on observations and quite a few personal potshots taken, but by and large, the jokes are forgettable and disappointing, given Brooks' track record. This script is witty, funny and ultimately heartwarming (!) - an increasingly rare combination in films today, the fodder for great entertainment, but hardly earth-shattering material from Brooks.

As actor, Brooks again plays his nebbishy obsessive compulsive persona with the usual degree of aplomb and effectiveness. By now, Brooks can play Phillips’ passive aggressive desperation in his sleep. As director, he handles most of his actors far better than he is able to drive his story forward with the requisite level of momentum. There are moments in the film which seem a little too long, a tad too much a belaboring of certain plot points. As far as his cast is concerned, Brooks has struck gold with Sharon Stone, who turns in a fresh, radiant performance as the titular character. Gamely mocking her own screen image as a diva femme fatale, Stone makes Sarah a dangerously unhinged, batty creation whose relentless charms can rise above disastrous hair-dos (what was up with that whole bobby-pin thing?) and playing opposite a curiously tepid Andie MacDowell. MacDowell has never been a particularly consistent actress; when she's good, as she was in "Unstrung Heroes", she rises to a level of greatness, but when she’s bad, as she is here, she tends to drain the life out of every scene she's in. Her flat, barely interested performance here tends to jar the proceedings. Jeff Bridges contributes an extremely knowing extended cameo appearance; his ultra-tanned, ultra-slick character is smoothly finessed by the veteran actor into a quirky, funny caricature. The tennis scene featuring Bridges and Brooks is one great moment of inspired lunacy. Of the supporting cast, Mark Feuerstein - so very good and under-used in the half-baked NBC sitcoms "Fired Up" and "Conrad Bloom" - stands out as a ferociously parasitic movie executive, the film's truest creation.

"The Muse" is pleasantly light-hearted fare with a handful of wonderful laughs and one fantastic performance by Stone, who gives her all in a role that seems tailor-made for her. See the movie for her wonderful transformation into a comedy talent, and tour Albert Brooks' very specific satirical world while you're at it.