BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS

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Just as ludicrous as its over-worked title , this insultingly ill-conceived sequel to Abel Ferrara's masterpiece "Bad Lieutenant" picks up a few grains of muscular grit from the unlikely guidance of hired-gun director Werner Herzog, but ultimately flails every step of the way.

Nicholas Cage briefly threatens a return to acting form as New Orleans police Lieutenant Terence McDonaugh.

Cage's character suffers from a chronic back injury he got during a rescue; his ensuing addiction to drugs impairs his judgment and sets up the film.

But Cage loses control of the character. He slips into an off-putting vocal delivery late in the story, further distracting from an annoying patchwork plot.

Whereas Keitel's character in Ferrara's original had as little to redeem him as cinematically possible, his violent death delivered a kind of ritualistic miracle.

But with Cage's drug-addicted-cop-with-a-hooker-girlfriend (Eva Mendes), the audience is supposed to pull for him despite his huge ego — because being a hero made him that way.

Cage even goes so far as to tear a page from Klaus Kinski's relationship with the camera, but the tribute is as inappropriate as making a sequel to a film to which there could never be a follow-up.

Disaster.

Rated R. 122 mins.