A dead poodle, a melted chocolate bar, and a bag of high-grade methamphetamine form the basis for the goofy cop comedy Sweet Alibis, which is a decent film, if totally unremarkable besides the fact that it is indeed a goofy comedy instead of the dour melodrama one tends to expect from modern Taiwanese cinema.

Chih-Yi (Alex Su) and Yi-Ping (Ariel Lin) are the classic mismatched cop partners, with Yi-Ping being the hotheaded rookie and Chih-Yi the cowardly veteran. They're thrown together by their captain to assist to bring down a meth dealer named Snack (played by Matt Wu, who also plays himself as Snack's twin brother). Most people will be able to see what's coming here: the duo fight and bumble at first, but eventually come together to solve the big case. Sorry if that spolied the movie for anyone, but this isn't exactly a P.T. Anderson film we're talking about here on the spectrum of cerebral cinema.

Sweet Alibis is more akin to a dumbed down -- if that's possible -- version of CSI: Miami, right down to a majority of the scenes being filmed in overexposure, as if the characters are sitting on the cusp of the sun, the flares attempting to make their deductions seem all that more profound. Except that there's not much that could be remarked as profound going on here, for as much as there is some semi-intelligent detective fare going on, the audience is blasted both literally and figuratively with boob and fart jokes.

In the end (heh) your inner Beavis may be excited, but the more mature (or perhaps pickled) part of your cerebellum may be left wanting more, especially seeing as this film runs at almost two hours and feels like it delivers preciously little in the way of a payoff in the end.

RATING: 5