If you're looking for the same outrageousness that John Waters offered in early movies that featured a 300-pound transvestite eating dog poop or getting raped by a giant lobster, forget about Pecker. Waters didn't even have to fight over his R-rating and probably would have received a PG rating, if not for his "overall happy pubic moment" with a couple of lesbian crotch shots.

Waters fans may scream "sell-out," because Pecker is so tame. While hints of irony and rebellion remain, Pecker is light-hearted comedy that could play at multiplexes and will even appear at Blockbuster alongside mainstream comedies. While far less provocative than Waters' early film shockers, Pecker does have some charms.

The title, with the tagline, "He never realized how far 35 millimeters would take him," sounds provocative, but we soon find that "Pecker" is the name given to Edward Furlong (Terminator 2) for his habit at "pecking" at his food. Indeed, the kid hardly ever eats, as he's obsessed with using his $30 thrift store Canon to take still photographs . . . all the time! Of course this takes place in Waters' beloved Baltimore.

Thanks to the real still photography of Chuck Shacochis, the photographs of bus passengers, rat fornication, and Pecker's "culturally challenged" family and girlfriend are surprisingly artistic in real life. They grab the attention of New York City art dealer Rorey Wheeler (Lili Taylor), and she introduces Pecker's work to sophisticated art buyers of the Big Apple, and Pecker becomes the "in" artist of whom everyone wants a piece.

At first his family and friends are thrilled, except his girlfriend Shelley (Christina Ricci), who doesn't want to leave her laundromat behind since the "stain goddess" realizes her customers will break the rules. Besides, when she sees the art patrons in New York, she realizes that "These people don't even go to laundromats; they go to dry cleaners."

But his family enjoys the adulation that Pecker receives, and his best friend Matt (Brendan Sexton III), whose main talents lie in playing supermarket terrorist games and shoplifting, suddenly finds himself surrounded by two beautiful women who are turned on by his tales of kleptomania.

Naturally, fortunes take a reversal. Pecker's 15-minutes of fame only brings misfortune to his friends and family—his family home is robbed, his sister loses her job, Shelley thinks Peckerfancies Rorey, and Matt takes a job as a male stripper because the stores all recognize him. How Waters works these problems out is fairly predictable comedy fare, and his blatant preaching about societal hypocrisy would be overbearing if it weren't for the charm of his quirky characters. Besides, he has a few things to teach us, like what "tea bagging" and "trade" mean in the context of the gay bar scene.

There are also scenes that just look like a lot of fun. The scene with Pecker and Matt playing "shopping for others" in the supermarket feels like a real game. I especially liked the outrage of the burnt-out hippie when he finds beef in his shopping cart ("I don't eat meat!") and the indignant body builder who discovers Preparation H in his cart. Part of the charm of a Waters film lies with the way his extras actually look like regular people (they are) as opposed to low ranking actors who lose out on bigger parts in Hollywood films.

We have a fair collection of wacky characters, from Pecker's mother (Mary Kay Place) who decks out the homeless in "fashionable" outfits costing no more than a quarter, to his sister Tina (Martha Plimpton) who works as an announcer at a gay strip bar, to his grandmother (Jean Schertler) who ventriloquizes for her Virgin Mary statue in between her beef sandwich sales. These are all fine performances of outrageous personalities, but the character who works the best in terms of comedy is Waters' most autobiographical one.

If you guessed that would be Pecker, guess again. It's the hyperactive sister Chrissy (Lauren Hulsey), who compulsively demands sugar fixes before becoming a Ritalin zombie and strict vegetarian. Even her sugar drooling still picture is the most hilarious of the bunch, even beating out the rats.

As in most comedies, some scenes work better than others, but that's due more to the script than it is to the acting. Ricci, Plimpton, and Place are the standouts here, acting quite effectively and naturally in their roles. Give some credit to Furlong, even though his character mostly takes pictures obsessively. His role is a step up in the physical acting required from teaming up with Schwarzenegger, and he is suitably innocent and charming in the role.

Pecker does not rank with Waters' work in Pink Flamingos, but it's as entertaining as Hairspray and certainly more entertaining than anything that Eddie Murphy has done lately. Besides there are little tidbits like seeing the bus license plate that of 7734 (read that upside down) and finding out new terminology like "tea bagging" that make a viewing worthwhile.