KID IN A CANDYSHOP:

WHAT'S NOT to like about a mega-million dollar, three-dimensional, outer-space music video starring Michael Jackson, directed by Francis Coppola, sponsored by Eastman-Kodak, and being shown, constantly, from here to eternity, in the Imagination Pavillion at EPCOT Center in beautiful Lake Buena Vista, Florida?

A Crimson press said, ineffable charm, five minutes on the telephone, and an ungodly amount of good fortune landed me and my best girl two complimentary passes to EPCOT, and consequently, Captain EO, that aforementioned multi-media minotaur with the legs of Thriller and the horns of Daddy Zoetrope.

I have to admit it ... I went into the experience with my Cynic Ray set to stun. I had visions of Michael Jackson teaching HAL the computer to moonwalk, Coppola making a cameo appearance as Jabba the Hut belching 3-D jelly donuts, all to the tune of "Billy Jean," with brand new Eastman-Kodak lyrics:

Eastman-K.,

That's our comp'ny,

And Michael J.,

Foots it f-f-fun-ky--

So don't buy Fuji film...

Et Cetera.

But when I took my seat in the packed theater, after having endured a ten minute Kodak slideshow featuring lots of pictures of ice crystallizing, and dogs, and beaches, and sunsets, and black holes, and umbrellas, and kite-flying, and gap-teethed kids gobbling psychedelic spools of never-eat-anything-bigger-than-yer-head cotton candy, my heart was going pitter-pat. It really was. I, err, looked forward to this thing, this piece of space-detritus with more zeros at the end of its comet-tail budget than the rounded-off totality of the Harvard endowment.

And was I disappointed?

Nosireebob.

PICTURE MICHAEL Jackson at the helm of the Millenium Falcon with a crew of Snuffalupagusesque space-doofs--Two things that look like shrunken, tie-dyed Abominable Snowmen, another furry critter with a farting. trumpet-trunk nose (Is flatulence comedy's equivalent of Esperanto?), and a butterfly-winged, cute-as-hell koala that looks like a cross between Tinkerbell and John Madden.

Jackson, as Captain EO, crash lands his ship on a hostile planet, and it's a high-volume, high-speed, high-powered moment, though it borrows a lot from the Rebel Death Star raid in Star Wars.

When the craft finally skids to a halt at the bottom of the humongous Eastman-Kodak screen, fog bubbles up from the floor of the theater, and olfactory stimuli (Blown circuits, melted metal, Vicks Vapor Rub) tingle the audience's orgiastically flaring nostrils. Honest: Huxley's Feelies are alive and well and playing every hour on the hour (even as you read this) in the heart of Central Florida.

Captain EO kicks into gear--Not that it doesn't land running to begin with--when Anjelica Huston takes the screen as the B-Bad to the B-Bone Evil Queen. She's amazing. Or rather, it's amazing.

Like a bastard-bitch of all the great Hollywood hags--the Wicked Witch of the West, Snow White's nemesis, the Big Mama Jamma of Aliens, Linda Blair--or like a Heavy Metal album cover, or maybe Charlotte of Charlotte's web keye-up on Benzedrine, she hovers suspended in a junkyard web, hissing threats to Michael Jackson, clicking her Ultra-Nails at the camera. The best 3-D moment in Captain EO comes when the Queen unravels her armor-plated crab claws and practically, you know, picks yer nose. It's great. It's, uhh, disgusting.

What happens, of course, is little old Michael's got to dance and sing the Evil Queen and her whip-cracking tinpan entourage into an early grave. And the forces of Music and Light oblige him, transforming Huston into a doe-eyed Greek goddess. It's a happy ending, sure. But with that mayonnaise-in-her-veins look of Nirvana on her kisser, you kinda sorta miss the spitting-spider Evil Queen.

THE SONGS are passable. Standard Thriller outtakes. I liked the dancing, though it's sort of fascistic; lots of upthrust fists and "Sieg Heil!" grunting. The sets are impressive, too. Like Harlem in space.

At approximately a quarter of an hour running time, Captain EO seems to go by in the blink of an eye. And I had an urge to see it again, to stay-put right where I was. But the usherettes usheretted my date and me outside, Michael Jackson "ooo!" -ing on the muzak overhead, and I managed to smuggle out a pair of purple wrap-around 3-D glasses. And I'm wearing 'em right now.

In a word, then ...

Hey, Michael! Hey, Mickey! Hey, Francis C.! And everybody! Thumbs up, Dudes. I dug it, I dug it!