BY DAVID KRONKE >TV CRITIC

"Knight Rider" boasts some spiffy special effects, but that apparently is where all the effort has gone in this updating of the cheesy '80s show.

Justin Bruening stars, in a bland sort of way, as Mike, who works as an agent for Knight Industries, whose function isn't exactly clear but it has a laboratory filled with contraptions that seem to have no function other than to look cool. Knight Industries' coolest contraption, of course, is KITT, a muscle car with the ability to morph into a pickup truck and all sorts of other bells and whistles, such as artificial intelligence.

Val Kilmer provides KITT's vocals, and you can practically hear the medicated drip in his voice as he reflects on the direction of his career. KITT's ostensibly witty, but the show's writers don't give him very clever lines; he merely advises Mike to "reduce the extracurricular activity with your lady friends."

Tonight's episode begins, a title card tells us, at "Foreign Consulate - USA" (thanks for being so specific). Mike and Sarah (Deanna Russo, who gives the liveliest performance in tonight's episode) are at one of those glamorous parties where high espionage always seems to occur, and they barely get out alive - KITT catches on fire during their escape, forcing them, naturally, to strip down to their underwear.

Everyone here has the same sort of jaunty attitude, even when their or their colleagues' lives are in danger. They treat the whole enterprise like some sort of video game, which isn't far from the truth: Much of tonight's episode is given over to car chases.

Except that there's some sort of conspiracy afoot - Mike can't remember vast swatches of time during his stint in Iraq, about which agents Rivai (Sydney Tamiia Poitier) and Torres (Yancey Arias) seem to know more than he does. Their boss (Bruce Davison) warns Torres, "One day, Mike's going to remember everything, and when he does, he's going to come after you."

Are they compromising Mike's missions? Does NBC not remember what little good the whole can-you-trust-your-employer mythology did for last year's "Bionic Woman"? It's not a persuasive way of giving the lighthearted proceedings any heft; it just kind of messes with the tone.

And speaking of messing with the tone, my first suggestion for fixing the show would be to fire the music supervisor or whoever shoehorned some really bad songs into inappropriate moments in tonight's episode. It won't fix everything, but it's a start.

David Kronke, (818) 713-3638 david.kronke@dailynews.com

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KNIGHT RIDER

>What: A cool car makes the world safe from convoluted conspiracies.

>Where: NBC (Channel 4).

>When: 8 pm Wednesday

>In a nutshell: A video game in handy TV-show form.