***WARNING: Potential Spoiler, but maybe not…***

There are moments in time when it must be said that a man should stick with what a man does best. This is one of those moments.

Chris Rock is a phenomenal comedian, and a pretty decent “bit” actor. The movie roles he has played have been mostly pretty small, but always very conspicuous and memorable.

He doesn’t do so well as a lead actor.

Top Five was choppy, loosely associated, and with dialogue that was, as Simon Cowell might put it, “all over the place.” It would have been more aptly titled “High Five.”

The conversation was very 1980’s-ish and reminiscent of back when people used to spend entire moments in time actually trying to see who could come up with the biggest one-liners and wisecracks…like “Doing the Dirty Dozens” without the “Your Mama So Fat” jokes.

Maybe it can be excused if Rock will tell us that the gist of it is — he talked someone into letting him do a movie that would show his more “serious” side as an actor, they gave him a walk-up contract, he turned himself into a recovering alcoholic whose career began as a stand-out comedian, and since he couldn’t come up with anything that was above and beyond his real skill set, he decided that a mixed mash-up of a little funny, a little serious, throw in a few other of his 99-proof friends like Ben Vereen, Tichina Arnold, Taraji P. Henson, Gabrielle Union, Rosario Dawson, DMX, Tracy Morgan, Cedric the Entertainer, Bruce Bruce, Kevin Hart, Whoopi Goldberg, and a few others, (maybe they just needed to make some extra spending change?), and …. joila!

What?

In all fairness, the movie had its funny moments, but it was loosely connected to nothing that had to do with the title, so …

Between Hammy the Bear, Uprize!, and the final touching and hilarious ending that reminded us all that Chris Rock is best off doing what Chris “Holly-Rock,” the Stand-up Comedian, does best … the ending was much better than the entire show, which is unusual. Usually, we get a decent uproar of a movie and a flatlined ending, as in “No Good Deed;” but in this case, the icing was good and the cake was dry and tasteless.

I give this movie a sideways thumb mostly downward and recommend that you wait for the DVD and a night when you’re all alone and simply don’t have anything else to do.

I wouldn’t watch it again, even if it was playing in my glasses.

By the way, my Top Five:

Michael and Janet Jackson

Prince Rogers Nelson

Whitney Elizabeth Houston

Madonna

Elton John…and more.

Waaaayyyy too many more to name here.