Debuting in 1999 in an animated featurette on Urban-entertainment.com, the lead character of "Undercover Brother" may not seriously rival Austin Powers as filmdom's most commercially potent comic retro-hero, but the stuck-in-the-1970s character's first movie is hilarious and headed for a "solid" boxoffice payoff. Filling a marketplace need for a broad-appeal laugher, the Universal release has its share of sexual innuendoes and foolish caricatures but is refreshingly not a gross-'em-out competition among the performers. Eddie Griffin ("The New Guy"), in a wild array of vintage get-ups and with an expansive head of hair, plays Undercover Brother, a lone hero of the people who teams up with the secret B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D., created in 1972 to "stop the Man."

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