Leave It To Beaver

Unlike most of the recent schlocky, cynical, garish attempts to capitalize on an old TV franchise (McHale's Navy, Sgt. Bilko, The Flintstones), Leave It to Beaver modestly and reverently duplicates the small-town conformist pleasantness of its '50s family sitcom source. Mom June Cleaver (Janine Turner) still vacuums in pearls, dad Ward (Christopher McDonald) is still firm but loving, Wally (Erik von Detten) is still a font of big-brotherly wisdom, and Eddie Haskell (Adam Zolotin) is still a flattery-spewing schemer. Only the mischief that the cute, well-meaning eight-year-old Beaver (Cameron Finley) entangles himself in is on a big-screen scale.

There are a few concessions to the dysfunctional '90s, but otherwise director Andy Cadiff and writers Brian Levant and Lon Diamond present the Cleavers and their idyllic burg without irony (or the sarcasm that passes for irony these days). This may be refreshing for nostalgic parents, especially since the sitcom homilies (Beaver learns to feel free to express his needs; Ward learns not to be too hard on the Beaver) are meant more for baby-boomers than their kids, only the youngest of whom will not feel too sophisticated to believe in the Cleavers' antiseptic world. Opens Friday at the Harbour Mall, Showcase, Starcase, Tri-Boro, and Woonsocket cinemas.

-- Gary Susman