Cockroaches Steal Show In ‘Joe’s Apartment’

The art is almost as old as cinema itself, but dimensional animation still packs the ability to make an audience sit up and say, “WOW!”

The response to “Joe’s Apartment,” the latest example of this fascinating technique, is just as likely to be “Eew, gross!” But John Payson’s expansion of his own MTV short film is an improvement in many respects, with more and better effects cavorting over a bigger and brighter screen. So what if there’s barely enough story for a feature-length running time?

The main attraction - main repulsion, if you prefer - is an all-singing, all-dancing troupe of 50,000 cockroaches, the inhabitants of the squalid apartment where Joe (played by Jerry O’Connell) lands upon his arrival in New York from Iowa.

Joe’s first response is to exterminate the lot of ‘em, but it soon becomes evident that the roaches, led by two bugs who speak in the voices of Billy West and Reginald Hudlin, are all that stand between Joe, a hapless innocent, and utter humiliation by the evil big city.

Joe’s landlord, played gnashingly by Hawaiian lounge crooner Don Ho, conspires to leave Joe homeless so that the apartment building can be sold for a fortune. That’s no problem when you’ve got a horde of aggressive roaches at your service. Joe’s love life appears stalled, as well … until the roaches prepare for him a bachelor pad that’s crawling with possibilities.

Payson’s story may seem sophomoric, but it is just such a storybook simplicity that the trick effects require to capture the intended sense of fairy-tale wonder.

The tough urban setting aside, “Joe’s Apartment” is at heart just a revamped Middle European folk tale: If all those elves could help the shoemaker cobble together an entire shipment of footwear overnight, then certainly an army of roaches can save one disoriented hick from the mean streets.

The original “Joe’s Apartment” dates from MTV’s “Liquid Television” project of 1992, which also yielded Texan Mike Judge’s “Beavis and Butthead,” among other experiments in animation. Technology has come far since then, and Payson uses both traditional and modernistic means to bring to life his roach characters.

The most impressive accomplishment here is that Payson and his effects team achieve scattered discernible “personalities” and devise some astonishing stunts. There is a welcome range of eccentric camera angles, close-ups and mob scenes that recall the Cecil B. DeMille biblical epics. The combination of “real” roaches, “built” roaches and computer-generated roaches allows for an effective illusion of reality.

Jerry O’Connell, too little seen on the big screen since 1986’s “Stand by Me,” is suitably naive and enthusiastic as the new arrival. Megan Ward makes a charming romantic interest, and hip-hop star Sandra Denton is memorable as a tough-talking chum.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: “Joe’s Apartment” Location: Lincoln Heights , North Division and Showboat cinemas Credits: Directed by John Payson, starring Jerry O’Connell, Don Ho, Megan Ward, Robert Vaughn and Sandra Denton Running time: 1:20 Rating: PG-13