AMIABLE `ROCKY' JUST CAN'T GET OFF THE GROUND.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

Making a movie from a cartoon short (or a ``Saturday Night Live'' sketch) is usually a bad idea to begin with, simply because what works for five minutes can rarely be stretched over the duration of a feature-length film.

You'd think that the makers of the latest dud in this genre, ``The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle,'' would have learned this lesson, if only because somebody else already tried to mine Jay Ward's cartoon factory eight years ago with the big-screen bomb ``Boris and Natasha.''

But then, ``Rocky and Bullwinkle'' takes a great many things for granted. Chiefly:

1. That an audience remains for the kind of good-hearted, pun-driven hokum that fueled Ward's popular animated shorts during their early '60s heyday, and ...

2. That no one has seen either of the ``Austin Powers'' movies, whose plots are essentially recycled here.

It adds up to a misfire that tries to please everybody - kids, nostalgic boomers and series fanatics - and ends up satisfying no one. The film's self-referential, insider humor will fly over the heads of children, while its tangle of tepid subplots will put adults to sleep. It's just one big - pardon the godawful pun, but then that's the spirit of the enterprise - ``moose-stake.''

``Rocky and Bullwinkle'' opens promisingly enough with the faithful Narrator bringing us up to date on the happenings in Frostbite Falls since the original series was canceled in 1964. It seems our heroes have been more or less suspended in the 1960s (``yeah, baby!''), as have their villainous counterparts, Fearless Leader (Robert De Niro) and the bumbling spies Boris (Jason Alexander) and Natasha (Rene Russo).

The film's lively opening moments, completely animated, burst with wit and originality and sharp fun, which dissipates at about the mark that an old ``Rocky and Bullwinkle'' cartoon would end. Then Fearless Leader and his cohorts somehow make their way into the real world, where Fearless plans to turn Americans into zombies via his omnipresent cable network, RBTV (Really Bad Television).

A plucky pixie of an FBI agent, Karen Sympathy (Piper Perabo, all lips and dimples), is assigned to find Rocky and Bullwinkle and enlist their help. It's pretty dull sledding from here, although a few comic bits connect, such as a ``Cops'' spoof and watching De Niro riff on his Travis Bickle persona by way of Dr. Evil.

But De Niro is barely in the movie. We also see very little of Alexander and Russo and too much of Perabo, playing a character that never should have been in the movie to begin with, much less given the lead role. It's a sign of the movie's misplaced loyalties, which are heightened by Kenneth Lonergan's clunky screenplay and Des McAnuff's inept staging.

More bad news: Lonergan is reportedly working on the screenplay for another Ward cartoon, ``Sherman and Peabody.'' Can somebody step into the Way-Back Machine and stop him before it's too late?

THE FACTS

--The film: ``Rocky and Bullwinkle'' (PG; cartoon violence).

--The stars: Piper Perabo, Robert De Niro, Jason Alexander, Rene Russo.

--Behind the scenes: Directed by Des McAnuff. Screenplay by Kenneth Lonergan. Released by Universal Pictures.

--Running time: One hour, 26 minutes.

--Playing: Citywide.

--Our rating: Two stars

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Box: THE FACTS (see text)