Verdict: Whaddaya know — an "SNL" big-screen transfer that doesn't bite.

Details: Starring Molly Shannon, Will Ferrell and Elaine Hendrix. Rated PG-13 for sex-related humor and profanity. 1 hour, 22 minutes.

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Review: Remember that old "Superman" slogan — You will believe a man can fly? Well, in "Superstar," Molly Shannon does something else: She makes you believe a tree can talk dirty.

Bringing her Mary Katherine Gallagher character to the big screen, the "Saturday Night Live" ensemble member pulls off what many of her late-night alums couldn't (R.I.P., "A Night at the Roxbury," "It's Pat," etc.). As the ebullient Catholic schoolgirl — whose plaid skirt seems a few inches too short and her goal of superstardom a few miles too high — Shannon delivers a memorable mix of adolescent brazenness and self-mortification. It's clear that the actress loves this character, but she's never afraid to push the envelope of outrageousness, whether talking baby talk to her own breasts or fantasizing that that tree (or a handy stop sign) is her fantasy lover.

Orphaned young when her parents die in a freak show biz accident (not worth spoiling), Mary Katherine grows up with her wheelchair-bound granny (Glynis Johns). But even as a tyke, she prays, "Please, God, send me somebody to make out with."

As a teenager, her ideal is Sky Corrigan (SNL colleague Will Ferrell), the "best guy dancer in school." The problem is, he's dating blond cheerleader Evian (Elaine Hendrix, last seen in a similar villainess role in the "Parent Trap" remake). So MKG comes up with a plan: She'll enter and try to win her school's Let's Fight Venereal Disease Talent Contest. The top prize is a chance to appear in a Hollywood movie, and who could resist kissing a movie star?

Written by Steve Koren and directed by "Kids in the Hall" comic Bruce McCulloch, "Superstar" has the good sense not to overdo the tics that have become Mary Katherine's trademarks (the finger-sniffing, the dance steps that escalate into chair-crashing cataclysm). The script is an amiable version of "Rocky" in a school uniform, with dance steps instead of uppercuts. The plot gets spiced up with the occasional inspired riff, such as a fantasy robot-dance sequence for Shannon or Ferrell pulling double duty as "Mary Katherine Gallagher's subconscious idea of God," a laid-back Christ figure who materializes now and then to cheer the schoolgirl on.

The movie pads itself by surrounding Shannon with classmates in special ed (though why she's in that class never makes much sense). We get a stoner, a goth girl, an obsessive-compulsive and a braces-wearing jock. The best you can say is that they don't get in the way of Shannon as she delivers impassioned monologues from "Sybil" and "Portrait of a Teenage Centerfold" to express her true feelings.

In this silly but compellingly sweet movie, when Mary Katherine Gallagher finds unexpected romance with rebel student Slater (Harland Williams), it's enough to make you feel bad for that poor tree.

— Steve Murray, Cox News Service

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