Blake Edwards has hit an all time low.

The writer / director's latest venture, Skin Deep is an extremely unfunny, tremendously uninspiring movie.

The basic premise of the movie has to do with overcoming fears and taking control of one's life. This is demonstrated through the obnoxious character of Zach (played by John Ritter of tv's Three's Company and Hooperman), a seemingly hopeless womanizer and alcoholic.

Zach is a world renowned writer of novels, plays and screenplays whose talents have been buried by his fears and insecurities. Instead of looking within himself for the answers to his problems, he looks into cocktail glasses and the eyes of various willing women.

Zach's self-indulgent attitude is only outdone by his sexist ideology.

He talks about women as objects, never giving them an ounce of credit for having brains (or brawn as one scene shows).

At one point he describes to his bartender (a lifeless performance by Vincent Gardenia of Moonstruck) all the aspects of a woman's body that turn him on. The dialogue ends with both men admitting that they have hard-ons. The scene is puzzling, as it is in no way funny, nor does it have much to do with the story.

Edwards has written an incredibly offensive script in which the main character, as repulsive and incredibly dull-witted as he is, never gets his comeuppance.

Ritter's character goes from relationship to relationship while still trying to win back his ex-wife. He never thinks of others, can never admit when he's wrong, and finds solace and humor in his wide-ranging ignorance. Keep in mind that this is the main character in the film, the one that the viewer is supposed to relate to and empathize with.

On top of all this, Zach is a talented pianist and singer. Note that I said Zach and not Ritter.

The piano is easy enough to fake, but when Ritter begins to sing, one begins to fidget in the seat. Before much longer, the desire to see Ritter die becomes a major motivating factor in life.

As could be expected, the movie has a boring, sappy and totally unbelievable happy ending. Thus, Edwards must be trying to say that alcoholism and womanizing are easily overcome and not to be taken seriously. What else can be derived from a movie that has the main character reaching the intensely deep realization that "There is a God, and he's a gag writer."

This kind of kindergarten resolution is disturbing in today's society, with all of the recent attention paid to alcoholism, women's rights and the dangers of sexual promiscuity. A movie that simply ignores the importance of so many problems is not only insulting, but dangerous.

Much of the supposed comedy comes from physical stunts (characteristic of Edward's films). While Ritter is experienced in such comedy from all of his valuable slips and falls on Three's Company, the stunts aren't effective. They are actually much funnier in the previews when there is the accompanying "Peter Gunn" theme song.

A slightly humorous moment comes when Zach tries on a glow-in-the-dark prophylactic. Hence the movie's subtitle, "The movie that glows in the dark."

Aside from being tasteless, the skit is overdone to the point where it loses its humor and dives headfirst into stupidity.

The film's technical aspects are frightening - basically because there are so many close-ups of Ritter's face. They seem to jump off the screen and in one instance made an elderly lady run screaming from the theater.

In short, the movie is a mess. It will easily rank among the worst movies of 1989 (keep in mind that it's only March).