Son of Barbarella: CQ sets out to spoof the silly cinema of the '60s, complete with a closeted movie star, but winds up no funnier that its source material.

CQ * Written and directed by Roman Coppola * Starring Jeremy Davies, Angela Lindvall, and Giancarlo Giannini * United Artists

You know that life is creeping up on you when the signposts of your adolescence curdle into camp before you've barely vanquished your last pimple. Those of us who can recall a time when Lava lamps were taken seriously know that the aesthetic of the swinging '60s is particularly vulnerable. Well before Mike Myers had masterminded Austin Powers into a one-man growth industry, John Huston saw that the worm was prematurely turning on psychedelia and Nancy Sinatra boots. Huston's response was Casino Royale (made with a team of four other directors), and it was only 1967.

It has taken 34 years for someone to capitalize on that iconic '60s masturbation joke known as Barbarella, possibly because dumb movies that already wink at themselves lend themselves less readily to camp's distortion than dumb movies that ask to be regarded with a straight face. But Roger Vadim's futuristic sex odyssey, which captured Jane Fonda in all of her bodacious early glory before she stretch-two-three'd herself into a pretzel stick, has long been a favored beach rental for men with professional bad taste and discerning women who couldn't tell you what happens after Jane's opening-credits strip.

CQ, the writing and directing debut of one Roman Coppola, launches itself as a knowing Barbarella send-up but soon morphs into a son's affectionate tribute to the cinematic heyday of his famous father. This, clearly, is the work of someone raised on dinner-table tales of shooting low-budget horror movies (of the sort that father Francis cut his teeth on), of tempestuous Italian producers and horny French directors who like to show off their actress wives for the world to see.

The hero of CQ, which is set in Paris of 1969, is a self-absorbed American named Paul (Jeremy Davies, doing his mopey, hands-in-pockets thing) who is engaged as a film editor on a Barbarella-like sci-fi fantasy named Dragonfly. While the aspiring filmmaker noodles with his own home movies, which include much bathroom footage of himself and his pouty Parisian girlfriend, Marlene (Elodie Bouchez), the film set is in turmoil. The boorish, Dino De Laurentiis--esque producer (Giancarlo Giannini) has fired the film's arty European director, Andrzej (Gerard Depardieu), for insisting upon on a typically ambiguous ending, a la nouvelle vague. Paul is pressed into the director's chair after Andrzej's replacement, a brash American whiz kid who seems loosely modeled after Francis Coppola (played by Roman's cousin--and Francis's nephew--Jason Schwartzman), breaks his leg.

CQ maintains its satiric stride as long as it sticks to its movie within a movie. Dragonfly stars a curvaceous American political activist (model Angela Lindvall) as the sexpot heroine who would rather sleep than save the world and features a cameo by John Phillip Law, Barbarella's leading man. The joke behind Dragonfly's hunky male star (Billy Zane) is that he's a fag, and it's such a tired one that Coppola shakes it out as if he realizes how low he's stooping but is still too much the sophomore to resist. The most hilarious thing about Dragonfly is the all-white bedroom set, with its revealing picture-window shower and wall-to-wall detergent floor (or is that 100% shag?).

It's only too bad that Coppola is defeated by Fellini envy. More than anything, his comedy seeks to emulate every prototypical '60s flick about the existential malaise of being a film director. Instead, you come away CQ the same way you came away from Barbarella, which always played like a funny idea that overstayed its welcome.

Stuart is film critic and senior film writer at Newsday.