`PICK' COULD USE MORE HELL-RAISING.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

It doesn't exactly rank as a shock that the best parts of ``Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny'' -- the moments when the movie really rawks -- come courtesy of the music and Satan.

But unless you're a longtime fan or you're coming to the theater directly from the movie's Enchanted Forest of Magical Mushrooms, you'll probably find this shaggy underdog origin story an unspectacular waste of time.

The D, in case you're not a card-carrying member of the cult -- is a long-running band featuring Jack Black and Kyle Gass. They met in Tim Robbins' Actor's Gang, plied their trade on HBO's sketch comedy program ``Mr. Show,'' recorded a couple of albums, toured occasionally and starred in three half-hour HBO specials.

That the D now has its own movie comes courtesy of Black's ascending star status in Hollywood. But the boys -- Black and Gass co-wrote the movie with director Liam Lynch -- struggle to fill the movie's meandering 97-minute running time, leading to the impression that a little D goes a long way and that what makes the duo special -- it's the music, man -- is diluted when you fill a movie with overlong car chases and a caper plot involving a guitar pick. We already had a Starsky and Hutch movie, guys. Thanks.

The movie's most inspired moments come at the beginning and the end.

First we see a 10-year-old, face-scrunching Black look-alike (Troy Gentile) raining F-bombs on his square father (Meat Loaf!) and, after praying to Dio (that would be Ronnie James Dio of Black Sabbath fame for you atheists), leaving for Hollywood on a quest to ``find the secrets of his art.''

Once in California, JB (that would be Black) meets KG (uh, Gass). They become buddies, smoke some weed and play some music. A Guitar Center clerk (Ben Stiller, not funny) tells them about a magical guitar pick that once belonged to Mozart, Robert Johnson, Eddie Van Halen and, yes, Satan, himself. The D must have that pick!

That quest leads to many more tedious moments involving gas and hash (and a pretty funny cheeseball dream sequence featuring Black, the aforementioned mushrooms and Bigfoot), culminating in the movie's other showstopping sequence, a heavy-metal riff on Charlie Daniels' ``The Devil Went Down to Georgia.''

Do you have to sell your soul to become a rock star? Black and Gass argue that passion and friendship can beat the devil. Whether you need a good working relationship with the Prince of Darkness to make a watchable movie remains less clear.

Glenn Whipp, [phone].

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TENACIOUS D IN THE PICK OF DESTINY - Two stars

(R: pervasive language, sexual content, drug use)

Starring: Jack Black, Kyle Gass.

Director: Liam Lynch.

Running time: 1 hr. 37 min.

Playing: In wide release.

In a nutshell: Needs more Satan.

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Photo:

Kyle Gass, left, and Jack Black are on a mission to rock you.