MANILA, Philippines--When we watched ?Borat? a couple of years ago, we became an instant fan of its new lead and overnight star, Sacha Baron Cohen. His character?s demented takes on the ?delights? of life in Kazakhstan (of all places) weren?t appreciated by the officials of that hapless country, but fans of ?crazy? comedy roared their approval. That?s why Cohen has now followed up with his new over-the-top spoof, ?Bruno,? this time with the haute fashion scene for its frenetically moving target.

So, is crazy comedy, like love, lovelier the second time around? So sorry, Cohen should have quit while he was ahead.

?Bruno? hews close to ?Borat?s? demented formula for madcap comedy, but it doubles and even triples the dosage, so it ends up being much too much, and definitely too much of a rude thing.

Outrageous spoofs

The movie?s slim plot is really just a hanger for the production?s series of outrageous spoofs: A ?famous? Germanic fashionista gets dissed for a huge faux pas and thus decides to expand his crazy universe by trying to become a big media star in Los Angeles.

With that sort of all-encompassing premise, the movie is given carte blanche to ridicule practically anything extreme and bizarre? overnight ?discoveries,? people who talk to the dead, fashion victims galore, vapid super-celebs who are famous just for being famous, duelists stabbing each other with gigantic dildos?etc.!

The most off-putting sequence of all shows Bruno miming in great detail an imagined sexual encounter with an obviously hot but absent partner. Since it?s a pantomime, everything is completely imagined, but the details are so graphic and the scene is so extended that the effect is unbearably gross.

Of course, it can be argued that this is just an over-the-top spoof, so we shouldn?t get too ticked off about it. However, comedy is supposed to be a fun romp instead of a seemingly interminable celebration of gross behavior, so it?s difficult to ?enjoy? this onerous onslaught.

Humor

We?re all for edgy, in-your-face and even ?terrorist? entertainment, because it can shock us into fresh and vital attention, but humor rather than savagely vicious shock value should still be a big part of it. Cohen got it right in ?Borat,? but he?s missed the mark in ?Bruno.?

Perhaps he felt the need to top himself, so he opted to come up with one shocker after another. Trouble is, he forgot to be funny.

Sadly, Cohen?s monumental flub has eroded his reputation as a rising comic. It?s even severely limited his characterization of Bruno, whose vain and petulant whining gets to be a major drag after a depressingly short while.

It?s decidedly back to the drawing board for sassy Sacha, who should focus less on shock value and more on actually being funny, the third time around.