Eternal mystery: Why is the painfully untalented Ashton Kutcher still playing leads in major movies while Topher Grace, his far more gifted “That ’70s Show” co-star, is virtually MIA from the big screen?
Kutcher has made more than his share of dogs, but Grace is unlikely to return to the A-list with Michael Dowse’s “Take Me Home,” a tediously unfunny comedy shot four years ago as “Kids in America” and newly equipped with a snappier title and a massive TV marketing campaign.
The studio spin is that the original distributor was spooked by the massive presence of cocaine in this R-rated flick, which also features copious female nudity and takes place in La-La Land over Labor Day weekend in 1988.
Like most of the cast, Grace is a decade too old for his part — he’s supposed to be a recent graduate of MIT working as a clerk at Suncoast Video while he decides what he wants to be when he grows up.
When he re-encounters the dream girl who ignored him in high school — a personality-free blonde (Teresa Palmer) — Grace pretends he works for the nonexistent Los Angeles office of Goldman Sachs.
This being a labored, “American Graffiti”-style homage to films of the ’80s — “Dazed and Confused” for dummies, if you will — there is a long, long night of hard partying, with lots of period songs (not including the title number, alas) on the soundtrack.
The festivities begin inauspiciously, when Grace’s recently fired buddy (Dan Fogler) “borrows” a convertible from his former employer.
The heavyset Fogler, who mugs without mercy while going for a cross between Chris Farley and Curtis Armstrong, handles most of the nonstarter blow jokes, while the more straight-laced Grace pursues his golden girl.
There’s a leaden subplot about Grace’s twin sister getting engaged to a macho jerk, but even the ever-reliable Anna Faris can’t do anything with a rare nonsexpot role.
It all comes down to our hero — who finally samples some coke — rolling down one of those Beverly Hills inside a giant steel ball.
Doing that might actually be more fun than watching a dirge of a comedy like “Take Me Home,” which looks as authentically cruddy as most ’80s teen flicks. Or alternatively, you could rent Topher Grace’s best movie, the little-seen “In Good Company” (2004), from Suncoast Video.