The premise is that such nadirs of pop entertainment as Urkel and Dennis Rodman in drag are actually part of a systematic devaluation of African-American culture that's being perpetrated by The Man, a shadowy villain with nigh-unlimited resources. Billy Dee Williams has an extended cameo as General Boutwell, a Colin Powell-like figure who plans a presidential run before The Man's mind-control formula convinces him to open a chain of fried chicken restaurants (!) instead.

It's up to Undercover Brother (Eddie Griffin), working with a secret-agent team that includes the big and brainy Smart Brother (Gary Anthony Williams), the paranoid Conspiracy Brother (a motormouthed David Chapelle), and the gorgeous Sistah Girl (Aunjanue Ellis). The Man counters with White She-Devil (Denise Richards), a bombshell who nearly succeeds in transforming Undercover Brother into a blanded-out, mayonnaise-and-white-bread-favoring Uncle Tom. Who stole the soul, indeed.

Blessed with uniformly strong performances and sharp comic timing (film editor William Kerr does a standout job of delivering visual gags at precisely the right moment), director Malcolm Lee creates a playful, stylish and sexy counterpart to the Austin Powers movies, the swinging-London fetishism of which seems downright square by comparison. Griffin makes a servicable enough comic lead, even though the real stars are his clothes and his 'fro and his supercool attitude, and your tolerance for evil sidekick Mr. Feather will be directly proportional to your general tolerance for Monkeybone's Chris Kattan, who plays him. Aunjanue Ellis (the suicide from Girls Town; is her first name the greatest transliteration ever or what?) is in fine don't-fuck-with-me form throughout, and that Richards eventually winds up playing on the right team makes her performance even more surprisingly delicious.

I'm a sucker for culture-hijacking yarns-witness my affection for last year's Josie and the Pussycats. Undercover Brother is more brazen, taking potshots at stereotypes on both sides of the racial divide like a kid with a rubber-band machine gun. Some of the gags approach actual social commentary, as when our heroes go incognito by posing as caddies and janitors. The film is too smart to dwell on such stuff, taking the wretchedness of such stereotypes as a given and milking the degree to which they still apply for humor. Mostly, what we get is an explicit argument for the rightness of George Clinton and James Brown and glorious Oreo lovemaking. Who wants to argue with that?