PENELOPE [PG]

After sitting on a shelf for nearly two years, distributor Summit Entertainment, finally unveils this modern-day fairy tale about a girl named Penelope (duh), played by Christina Ricci (Black Snake Moan), who was born with the face of a pig. After living her life in the shadows, she becomes an unlikely celebrity when the public finally sees her face. Does this long lurking-about have something to do with being a dog (or more appropriately, a pig in a frilly frock), or instead a matter of the producers not knowing how to market such a prickly porcine picture? A little of both, it would seem.

Essentially a gender-flipped remake of Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands (with the whimsy noticeably forced), director Mark Palansky (former assistant to Michael Bay, but we can at least forgive him that) takes a pretty pedestrian approach to “Everybody Loves Raymond” writer Leslie Caveny’s first produced script. The story is choppy and predictable, and for all of its talk of loving the person within, there are not a lot of characters to love. Only one – a blueblood twit (played by Simon Woods of Pride & Prejudice) who shuns Penelope is a bad guy; the rest are just not written enough for us to care that deeply. It’s pretty easy to see the potential in each, though – “SCTV” alum Catherine O’Hara as the overprotective mother, Atonement angst-boy James McAvoy as the good-hearted gent (and the first who doesn’t self-defenestrate in order to get away from Penelope) and character actor Peter Dinklage (Death At A Funeral) as a grudge-bearing photographer. The problem is that they are all too one-note (though O’Hara rises above the too-shallow material), and any change that comes about in any of them seems push-button and artificial (like Ricci’s narration). Producer and Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon’s character, who doesn’t show up until nearly an hour in, seems like an afterthought to give the movie some marquee value and buoy overseas sales. There is still some warmth and good feeling here, even if it is just a suggestion of a better cinematic celebration of humanity. Rent Mask or The Truman Show instead, and let this little piggy cry wee!-wee!-wee! all the way to home video. –Robert Newton