DATE: Tuesday, August 26, 1997              TAG: 9708260100

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E7   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Movie review

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC 

                                            LENGTH:   66 lines

NEW ``BEAVER'' STUCK IN NON-SATIRICAL PAST

THERE HAS GOT TO BE some joy in returning to the time when Theodore (Beaver) Cleaver was 8 years old. Eisenhower was in the White House and all was seemingly right with the world. But, even today, it sells to the TV re-run crowd.

But will it sell to a paying movie crowd in 1997? Note that ``The Brady Bunch Movie'' was a surprise hit, against all odds.

This big-screen ``Beaver,'' though, is a different animal. It's not satirical and up-dated the way the ``Brady'' treatment was. Perhaps director Andy Cadiff has been a bit too reverential. In any case, in being respectful to the original, this is more a re-creation than a new twist.

There really isn't much call for it. ``Leave It To Beaver'' aired from 1957 to 1963 and has been running ever since. Beaver Cleaver was 7 when the series began and it revolved around life as seen through his eyes. The parents, June and Ward Cleaver, were a perfect middle-class couple. Brother Wally was exasperated, but ultimately kind, toward the little guy.

In the betcha-had-forgotten category, there was a TV-movie called ``Still the Beaver'' in 1983 that was notably downbeat. At 33, Beaver (still played by Jerry Mathers) was out of work, had two troubled teen sons, and was being divorced by his wife. Wally was a successful attorney, who even handled Beaver's divorce.

Universal has returned to the beginning with this new movie. Cameron Finley, who won the role over 5,000 competitors, is fine as the Beav - innocent and candid. Janine Turner (from TV's ``Northern Exposure'') seems a bit too young, and too ditzy, as June. Christopher McDonald (who can also be seen in ``A Smile Like Yours,'' which opened this week) is just acceptable as Dad. Erik von Detten is suitably athletic as Wally, attending his first boy-girl party and playing Spin The Bottle.

Adam Zolotin has his moments as the new Eddie Haskell, unctuous and oily to adults while a bully to little kids. Ken Osmond, the original, has a bit as a father who warns the boys that ``women will flush you like a dead goldfish when they're through with you.''

Barbara Billingsley, the original June, has a bit as a stern aunt and, regrettably, has nothing to do.

The itsy-bitsy plot involves the Beav's desperate desire to get a bicycle. In order to further his cause, he pleases his father by volunteering to join the Mayfield Mighty Mites football team, even though he hates football and knows he'll be pounded to a pulp.

The setting is contemporary and, unlike the Brady movie, there's no hint that anyone thinks this family is pretty naive.

There are several indications that the moviemakers wanted to get satirical, but only for brief moments. For example, Ward pants after June, telling her that he gets turned on when she wears pearls while vacuuming. She murmurs, suggestively, that ``later, I'll slip into a pair of oven mittens.''

The movie, for the most part, though, is aimed at kids, who probably won't care one way or the other. It's a kid movie that will probably be liked the most by the parents. That leaves it neither here nor there - stuck in the middle of an indecisive treatment that insists on playing things straight. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

MOVIE REVIEW

``Leave It to Beaver''

Cast: Christopher McDonald, Janine Turner, Cameron Finley, Erik

von Detten, Adam Zolotin, Barbara Billingsley, Ken Osmond

Director: Andy Cadiff

MPAA rating: PG (mild language, a bit of sexual candor)

Mal's rating: Two 1/2 stars

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