Starring Paul Dano. Rated 14A.

Swiss Army Man begins with Paul Dano as a gormless loser attempting to kill himself on a desert island. But this sad sack, called Hank, is not alone. The island’s other occupant is no Man Friday. Actually, he’s dead. But since the washed-up corpse is played by Daniel Radcliffe, it’s reasonable to assume that his condition won’t be too permanent.

Said stiff has special powers, starting with posthumous flatulence powerful enough to jet-ski them both off the island. As these new buddies get to know each other, the less lively one reveals more skills—hence the title—plus quite a lot of his hairy potter. Hunting through the forests and riverbeds in which they find themselves for much of the movie, they also fashion the kind of cute little dioramas that Michel Gondry would make if he got lost in the woods. (This goes with an offbeat score that features Dano’s a cappella vocals.)

The dead guy eventually begins to talk and has a name, although “Manny” is more demography than moniker. He even proves his mannishness by becoming aroused when spying the pretty woman enshrined on Hank’s miraculously well-charged cellphone. And this divine rod helps them navigate their way back towards civilization.

Viewers with a high tolerance for juvenile jollies may forgive first-time featuremakers Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (known collectively as Daniels) for their low version of high-concept. The threadbare nature of their aggressively whimsical script reveals itself first in Hank’s banal observations about society’s superficiality and then in the cause of our bearded hero’s suicidal quandary: he just cain’t talk to them there girls! When other characters are finally introduced, the Daniels trot out the kind of uplifting movie-finish clichés you’d expect Hank to laugh at. This startlingly silly venture runs out of gas long before it’s over.