The Ten

Not to be confused with Cecil B. DeMille's biblical epics, this Decalogue-centered comedy offers an irreverently funny series of stories in which characters played by Adam Brody, Gretchen Mol, Oliver Platt, Paul Rudd, Winona Ryder, and others stretch, bend, and outright break the Ten Commandments. So hilarious you may have to confess afterwards! Rob Corddry, Famke Janssen, Liev Schreiber, Jessica Alba co-star. 96 min. Widescreen; Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital mono.

It's inevitable that a director with a sketch-comedy background, like The State's David Wain, would make a movie comprised of sketches. Written with his Wet Hot American Summer collaborator Ken Marino, The Ten brings the Big Man's commandments to life via 10 mini-movies or "stories," as host Paul Rudd calls them. (Rudd is joined by Famke Janssen, as his wife, and Jessica Alba, as his girlfriend.) The narratives rarely play out in a predictable manner, but laughs are in surprisingly short supply (possibly because each runs a few beats longer than necessary). Still, it's fun to see so many actors cast against type. In "Thou Shalt Not Take the Name of the Lord Thy God in Vain," Gretchen Mol's 35-year-old virgin falls for Justin Theroux's Mexican carpenter, while in "Thou Shalt Not Steal," Winona Ryder's newlywed falls for a ventriloquist's dummy--and runs off with the little wooden man. Unlike Krysztof Kieslowski's Decalogue, the acclaimed dramatic series inspired by the same source material, Wain and Marino have no trenchant observations to offer about modern morality. Their aim is to amuse. If that means references to prison rape ("Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife" with Marino and The Daily Show's Rob Corddry) and loose bowels (Aaron Augenblick's "Lying Rhino," the only animated vignette), so be it. As a reinvention of retro sketch fests, like Kentucky Fried Movie, The Ten falls short, but it's worth a look for the cast, which includes Liev Schreiber, Adam Brody, and Oliver Platt. --Kathleen C. Fennessy