Cinema: Blue Streak

About to be busted when a jewel heist goes awry, Miles Logan hides the loot--a humongous diamond--in a construction site. Released from jail two years later, he discovers the finished building is now a police station. To recover the gem, he impersonates a cop. It's not a bad concept, and Martin Lawrence is appealing as Logan, who, naturally, has a gift for apprehending burglars. Unfortunately, the writers have no gift for comic writing, so the star is mostly reduced to pulling faces, yelling obscenities and, when all else fails, pointless juking and jiving as he waits for the funny line that rarely arrives.

--By Richard Schickel