PROMISING PREMISE YIELDS `TOO LITTLE'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic

``The Man Who Knew Too Little'' keeps the mild chuckles coming, but never serves up the big laughs. It's a spy movie spoof with a clever enough premise, but due to unfortunate timing - the picture comes too close on the heels of the raunchier, more ridiculously inspired ``Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery'' - its humor seems much too tame.

But even without the other film for comparison, you can't shake the nagging feeling that ``Too Little's'' reality-bending agenda should have brought more out of its star and director. Bill Murray has traditionally been funniest in scenarios set in out-of-whack worlds, like ``Ghostbusters'' and ``Groundhog Day.'' And Jon Amiel's entire body of work, from British TV's ``The Singing Detective'' through such disparate films as ``Tune in Tomorrow ...'' and ``Sommersby,'' has been awash in delusion, deception and mistaken identity.

Both talents seem to be going through the motions rather than mining the material's comic potential here. They're professional enough at it, but they still come off like men who are doing too little.

Few comedians walk through a role with more watchable panache than Murray, though. He plays Wallace Ritchie, an Iowa bumpkin on his first visit to London. It's his birthday and he wants to surprise his younger, banker brother James (Peter Gallagher), who's hosting an important client dinner and doesn't need Wally's doofy surprises.

To get him out of his hair for the evening, James signs Wally up for the ``Theater of Life,'' a virtual adventure employing real actors in real places. Trouble is, disgruntled Russian and British secret-service types, miffed at post-Cold War cutbacks, have hatched a plot to bomb a state dinner. Wally gets his lines crossed and winds up in the middle of the real intrigue, all the time convinced that it's a very well-staged secret-agent fantasy.

This, of course, leads to insane acts of bravery (and unbelievably convenient coincidences), which serve to baffle the conspirators, impress the attendant femme fatale (Joanne Whalley, who dresses up in a French maid suit for no apparent reason) and cause conniptions at Scotland Yard.

Murray gets to joke with a corpse (who Wally thinks is acting), interrupt an S&M scene and do Russian dances. But as usual, his funniest bits are little, attitude-laden asides, not the over-obvious comic set pieces.

The first half of ``Too Little'' actually builds a strong sense of anticipation as the situation grows increasingly surreal with the promise of wilder trickery to come. But the comic invention plateaus at midpoint, and while funny bits still occur, the situation fails to spiral out on a satisfying trajectory. When a movie is built on as broad a concept as this one is, you don't just want the fate of the free world to hang in the balance; you want the parameters of the real world increasingly at risk, too.

THE FACTS

The film: ``The Man Who Knew Too Little'' (PG; language, violence).

The stars: Bill Murray, Joanne Whalley, Peter Gallagher, Alfred Molina.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Jon Amiel. Written by Robert Farrar and Howard Franklin, based on Farrar's novel ``Watch That Man.'' Produced by Arnon Milchan, Michael Nathanson and Mark Tarlov. Released by Warner Bros.

Running time: One hour, 35 minutes.

Playing: Citywide.

Our rating: Two and One Half Stars.

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Photo

Photo: Iowa bumpkin Wallace Ritchie (Bill Murray) surprises his banker brother James (Peter Gallagher) with a visit in ``The Man Who Knew Too Little,'' a spy spoof set in London.