Hollywood has been scrambling to join the popular drag-queen genre that's been growing in popularity ever since "The Crying Game" and "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" began attracting crowds. In the wake of last year's "To Wong Foo: Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar" comes "The Birdcage," Mike Nichols' Americanized remake of Jean Poiret's "La Cage Aux Folles."

"The Birdcage" is a comedy about the nature of families and family values set in a drag club, The Birdcage, in South Beach, Fla. The owner of The Birdcage is Armand, a reserved gay man who shares a long-term relationship with Albert, the club's flamboyant star. Armand's son Val arrives home from college and announces he's going to marry a woman he met at school. The trouble begins when Val hesitantly explains that his fiancee is the daughter of Sen. Keeley, an ultraconservative politician and cofounder of an organization dedicated to a "moral America."

But Keeley's organization is currently in the midst of a scandal so he and his wife arrange a meeting with Val's family, oblivious to Armand and Albert's relationship, hoping that a "traditional" wedding will cast a warm light on the family once again.

What follows is a movie with enough visual style and colorful performances to elicit laughs from time to time, but it fails to grow beyond its simplistic idea of a bigoted politician having to personally confront an alternative lifestyle. It's a simple movie, substituting real drama for seemingly outrageous costumes and comedic role reversals.

Director Mike Nichols ("The Graduate," "Catch 22," "Working Girl") has developed a reputation for creating refined character-based comedy by drawing out sincere and vulnerable performances from a wide variety of actors. While "The Birdcage" offers little in the way of challenging characterizations, the performances in the movie are its most appealing aspect.

Robin Williams, Gene Hackman and theater veteran Nathan Lane are all actors noted for their ability to exhibit emotionally honest performances, exhibiting character rather than commenting on it. Williams, always touching when subdued, evinces an outward warmth sparked by occasional outbursts of frustration. Nathan Lane flamboyantly plays Albert as an emotionally fragile drama queen, full of insecurity and feminine mannerisms, and Hackman, whose character is much less fleshed-out, somehow grants emotional believability to a political caricature.

The movie effectively uses saturated color to increase its atmosphere of stylistic flamboyance. Golden sunlight filters through the South Beach crowds of tanned vacationers in fluorescent bathing suits, The Birdcage's neon lights glitter off the jeweled dancers and smoky decor, and Armand and Albert's print clothing provide a constant array of vivid hues.

But despite the movie's style, it fails to offer much substance along with it. The simplistic story is too linear and the situational humor is too redundant. Most of the film's humor derives from Arnold's antics, which place too much emphasis on his comic outbursts and squeals of emotion. How many times will Arnold melodramatically flee a scene? How many times will Armand rush to console him? When will the film deviate from Senator Keeley's racial slurs and bigoted attitudes? The film constructs its comedy around a few concepts and doggedly follows them out to the end.

"The Birdcage" is a well performed movie that unfortunately has little to say. It's simplistic situations and redundancy will cause it to fade quickly from memory once the talented actors are no longer around to keep the audience's attention. It exhibits "Priscilla"'s style and humor without the previous film's dramatic ambiguity, leaving a simple morality play with basic social types, given better comic treatment than it really deserves.