I missed the boat on "Reno 911!," but based on the handful of episodes I've caught on Comedy Central and now the feature-length spin-off Reno 911!: Miami, I think it's fair to say I'm content standing at the pier. The show and the movie, for those out of the loop, are improvised mockumentary spoofs of "Cops" about the bumbling exploits of the brainless members of the Reno Sheriff's Department. In theory, I can see the show's appeal—the charm of improvised comedies is obvious—but the show has never drawn me in. A few of the show's bigger gags (mostly involving explosions resulting from ineptitude) are amusing, and that's pretty much the case with the movie as well. I mildly laughed about four or five times and smiled about twice as much, so clearly, there's something off here. The problem lies primarily with the cast, which as an improv troupe are doing the equivalent of warm-up exercises compared to a lot of their counterparts in the field. They are nothing more than broad, interchangeable buffoons in the movie, and when is a better time than what amounts to an extended episode to go beyond that?

Despite of the improvised nature, there is a plot here. The Reno Sheriff's Dept. is up to their unintended mayhem in their hometown. A call comes in, mistakenly for a potentially major threat to the city, which turns out to be a chicken on the loose. Back at the station, the department's commanding officer Lt. Jim Dangle (Thomas Lennon) has some big news: The squad's been invited to attend a national police convention in Miami. So he and Deputies Travis Junior (Robert Ben Garant, who also directed), Raineesha Williams (Niecy Nash), Trudy Wiegel (Kerry Kenney-Silver), Clementine Johnson (Wendi McLendon-Covey), James Garcia (Carlos Alazraqui), S. Jones (Cedric Yarbrough), and Cherisha Kimball (Mary Birdsong) are on their way. The convention doesn't have them on record, though, and after a long night of debauchery, they return to the convention to discover that police forces across the nation are quarantined in the building because of a bio-terrorist threat. With all the other cops unavailable, the whiny mayor-by-default Jeff Spoder (Patton Oswalt) reluctantly puts the Reno folks in charge of protecting the city. After that, there's not much else except for a drug lord (Paul Rudd, doing Pacino a la Scarface) who's convinced the cops are messing with his territory.

Paul Rudd is in good company in the special guest star department. Danny DeVito appears briefly as the district attorney in the dream sequence that opens the movie, and Paul Reubens shows up near the end as the father of Terry (Nick Swardson), a Reno regular who is in Miami to make a record. The best cameo belongs to The Rock, who spoofs his badass persona as a single remaining SWAT member who comes in to give the Reno cops a motivational speech before succumbing to a grenade malfunction.