If you ask me, there just aren't enough movies where Val Kilmer pretends to lose one of his senses, and then pretends to get it back only to pretend to lose it again. I'm just that kind of guy. As it stands right now, AT FIRST SIGHT is the only such movie of its kind out there, and I just can't see how a sequel could be as good. For starters, they'd probably feel the need to change things up by having Kilmer lose the ability to smell instead. But watching the man who once played Batman get weepy over spoiled milk just wouldn't be the same. Plus, "At First Whiff" sounds too much like a Nickelodeon movie about a summer camp for the flatulent.

Which is fine. As it stands, AT FIRST SIGHT is just about the perfect losing-a-sense-only-to-regain-it-and-then-lose-it-again movie. Kilmer's Virgil Adamson starts the movie working in an idyllic upstate New York town where overworked, high-powered execs go when their sassy assistants tell them that they are going on vacation whether they like it or not. In fact, overworked, high-powered executives with sassy assistant-based tourism is the largest source of revenue for these quaint little hamlets, and without them, an entire way of life, full of quirky librarians and blind masseuses, would disappear, only to be seen in movies about overworked, high-powered executives with sassy assistants. And what kind of world is that, I ask you? Not one I want to live in, that's for sure.

Anyway, Virgil is in his eccentric upstate burg, minding his own blind-guy business, giving massages to anyone with a nickel, when Mira Sorvino's Amy Benic, the hottest workaholic architect ever, shows up. Virgil rubs her back and she inexplicably bursts into tears, and he didn't even try any funny business. (Maybe there's some of that in the director's cut, but I had the theatrical version DVD, so I can't comment.) The two of them feel a connection because, well, otherwise the movie would be really short, so they go on the obligatory "blind person counts things for his date" date as legally required by all movies with blind people in them. Then Amy tries to explain trees to Virgil, but winds up sounding more like she's reading bad high school poetry. Blah blah blah, he's really spiritual and in touch with nature, blah blah blah. Then they boink.

But, talk about picky, Amy just can't just be happy having a handsome, financially independent masseuse boyfriend, she also wants one who can tell her if she looks fat in that dress. So, in between designing strip malls for men who sound suspiciously like Foghorn Leghorn, she takes him to quite possibly the dumbest doctor on the face of the planet, the kind who seems surprised that a man with newly restored sight might not want bright television camera lighting pointed directly in his eyes. And then he tops that surprise with sheer amazement when the ex-blind guy seems all disoriented and can't even pass a simple driver's test, so he sends him to see Webster. (AT FIRST SIGHT's director, in a bold choice, cast Nathan Lane as everyone's favorite three-foot-tall black child. How Lane didn't get an Oscar nomination, I'll never know.) Then, in a clear violation of the wishes of George and Ma'am, Webster and Virgil go to a strip club. Hand-eye coordination therapy, I guess.

At this point, the movie decides that the whole blindness thing is too boring and starts throwing subplots at viewers faster than Virgil can smack into things. His father finally comes back from his 20-year trip to get cigarettes now that his kid can see again. Amy almost has an affair with the goofy brother from "Wings." Virgil gets a job at a health club. And, worst of all, there's a whole bunch of whining from his jealous, unfulfilled sister, played by a dowdy-looking Kelly McGillis, who must have done something horrible to the lighting and makeup crew behind the scenes, because she's made to look more like Virg's wicked stepmother. If I had to guess, I'd say she set fire to all of their pets while relieving herself on their ancestor's graves. Or maybe she just had a really bad breakup with Maverick. Who knows. Whatever it was, this movie hates her.

Anyway, all this falls by the wayside, even Virgil's ghastly sister-thing, when his vision starts going out in pretty much the same way an old television starts to flicker. He goes back to the moron doctor, but he's all out of things to annoy and disorient Virgil with. Pretty soon, he's blind again, and so Amy dumps him. And good for her. Who needs all that love and support when you're going through a horrible psychological trauma?

Yeah, I can't see why this wasn't a bigger hit either.

Still, you should definitely see it. Maybe AT FIRST SIGHT can finally find its audience on video. Movies about suddenly not-blind people who go blind again play better on the small screen anyway. If things go well, maybe they'll remake it with Ice Cube as HOLY CRAP YO, I CAN SEE!

It could happen.

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