SPLISH, SPLASH, SPACEY'S TAKING A BATH.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

THERE'S A fleeting moment at the beginning of Kevin Spacey's groan- inducing Bobby Darin biopic, ``Beyond the Sea,'' where you think maybe Spacey has a sense of just how absurd the whole enterprise is.

The setting is a strange, film-within-a-film framing device that Spacey uses to wink at us and establish a level of artifice. An extra, looking at Spacey, shouts, ``He's too old to play the part!'' It's Spacey's way of admitting that, yes, he is 44 years old (his age when he made the movie) and lounge lizard Darin was all of 37 when he died, so let's go ahead and identify the elephant in the room and get on with the show.

More telling, though, is the comment Darin's brother-in-law (Bob Hoskins) makes immediately afterward: ``But he was BORN to play the part and you damn well know it!''

And there you have it. Never mind that Spacey is far too old to play Darin as a young man and that his scenes romancing Sandra Dee (played by sweet, young Kate Bosworth) give you the creepy sense that this guy should be brought up on morals charges.

In truth, Darin could possibly have been prosecuted; he was 24 when he met the 16-year-old Dee on location in Rome for the movie ``Come September.'' They were engaged two months after they met and had a baby boy a year later. They divorced in 1967, which is not shown in the film. Nor is there a mention of Darin's second marriage to Andrea Yeager, shortly before he died in 1973.

Darin's life, in fact, is chock full of drama. The man, after all, had a lifelong heart condition, and he knew he wasn't long for this world.

You'll hear plenty about that and all of the singer's many and varied accomplishments in ``Beyond the Sea,'' but you won't feel the truth or impact of any of it because the movie isn't so much about Darin as it is about Kevin Spacey. Every decision Spacey makes as star, director and co-writer isn't about whether the material is serving Darin. It's all about serving Kevin.

That means you have a homogenized look at Darin's complicated life that is designed, like most of Spacey's recent films, to produce a showy ego trip for the lead actor and cheap, unearned, beyond-earnest sentiment for the unfortunate, paying customers.

Spacey can sing Darin's songs reasonably well and the movie's dance numbers will thrill anyone who thought that Rob Marshall's film version of ``Chicago'' was a show-stopping achievement. But the overall effect is one of impersonation, not inhabitation or anything approaching biographical insight.

Instead we get some ``Pennies From Heaven''-knockoff dance numbers, a lot of unintentional humor (Greta Scacchi, playing Dee's mother, telling Spacey's Darin, ``What you really need is an older woman''), three or four dozen references to Spacey's receding hairline and/or toupees and a child version (William Ulrich) of Darin offering commentary on the action that's supposed to be alternately pithy and heart-rending but is merely annoying.

If the delusional Spacey was really interested in bringing Darin's accomplishments to a modern audience, he would have done his subject a favor, swallowed hard, admitted his window of opportunity to play the role had shut and cast someone more age-appropriate. The movie would still be a mess, but at least it wouldn't be the alienating experience ``Beyond the Sea'' is.

Glenn Whipp [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

BEYOND THE SEA - One star

(PG-13: some strong language, scene of sensuality)

Starring: Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth.

Director: Kevin Spacey.

Running time: 2 hr. 1 min.

Playing: Laemmle's Royal in West Los Angeles; ArcLight in Hollywood.

In a nutshell: Hack the Knife.