Hep Cats, Part II

KEANU (C+) - This one-joke premise does its best to make that joke work for 90 minutes. Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele play suburban dweebs who masquerade as drug thugs in order to rescue a cat.

And yes, with that premise, things are going to get silly. And "Keanu" (the name of the cat) is sillier than it is sharp and clever. And the hoary old joke is that black men talk "normal" when they are suburban dads, but they lapse into street talk when shit gets real.

Peele plays Rell, who has just been dumped by his girlfriend. Hitting rock bottom, he finds an adorable stripey kitten on his doorstep, teaching Rell how to love again. But trouble is inevitable, because Rell lives across from a pot dealer, Hulka (Will Forte, doing that serviceable harried character he does, this time in dreads), and when Rell's house is broken into (apparently by accident), the kitten goes missing.

Cute little Keanu turns up with the local kingpin, Cheddar (an amusing Method Man), who has dubbed the cat New Jack. Rell and his pal Clarence (Key) infiltrate the gang, where they suddenly transform into sort-of believable gangstas, mostly with their vocal inflections, which have a Richard Pryor "We bad, we bad!" level of sophistication. (At one point, in a blatant nod, Rell accuses Clarence of sounding like Richard Pryor trying to sound white.)

Craziness ensues. Rell falls for Cheddar's cute and sassy sidekick, Hi-C (Tiffany Haddish), and Clarence schools the rest of the hapless posse. In the funniest sequence, while in Clarence's car, the boys flip on his car stereo, only to blast George Michael. Clarence eventually convinces them that Michael is totally gangsta, hitting a nerve with the inner-city relevance of the message from "Father Figure."

A few cameos enliven the proceedings. Anna Farris plays a version of herself as a coked-out diva (like Michael Cera in "This Is the End"). And Luis Guzman has some funny deadpan moments as Bacon, who is Cheddar's rival and who also covets the cat.

Violence also ensues -- some staged but other stuff real -- but always little Keanu manages to scamper away safely (including in slow-motion to Michael's "Freedom '90"). One recurring gag involves Rell training Keanu to attack by taping a picture of Rell's ex to Keanu's scratching post and urging him to "Get that bitch!" One final meta gag earns a belly laugh by explaining how the cat hasn't changed at all during the "6 months later" coda.

Key and Peele are very funny guys. And just when you expect to roll your eyes at the one-joke premise, they get you with a genuinely clever twist. But in the end, this isn't their best material. If they weren't riffing on YouTube cat videos, there wouldn't be much to watch here.