The Dictator arrives at the Carlton Hotel during the 65th Annual Cannes Film Festival on May 16 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images)

The Boston public had a rare chance to support the great Republic of Wadiya yesterday, as AMC Boston Common Theater hosted a paid sneak preview of film “The Dictator.”

Paramount Pictures credited the preview to an “uncharacteristic stroke of generosity” by the film’s title character, General Aladeen of the Republic of Wadiya (played in the movie by Sacha Baron Cohen). The General’s “Virgin Guards” were on hand to greet supporters and offer complimentary snacks, t-shirts, posters and photos.

The film, which opens today, centers on Aladeen’s trip to America to ensure that his country can remain “lovingly oppressed” and free of democracy. Cohen’s character has made several public appearances in preparation for the film’s release, including on the 2012 Academy Awards red carpet when he accidentally spilled the ashes of deceased North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il on Ryan Seacrest.

Let’s get this out of the way. Sacha Baron Cohen exploded onto the feature film scene with “Borat” in 2006. “Bruno” quickly followed. Both movies combined the pseudo-documentary and mockumentary styles–along with a lot of potty mouth—to great effect. Both movies featured an odd and uninitiated foreigner coming to America to discover its wonders while at the same time exposing the unseemly side of many of its citizens—a sort of picaresque for the modern age. “Borat” was the more successful of the two, largely because Bruno was a rehash of the first movie with a lot more crudeness and staged scenes.

At first glance, “The Dictator,” which is the third film to combine the irreverence of Cohen and director Larry Charles, would seem to be the same gambit. A foreigner who has no internal censor winds up in America and must make his way with the aide of every masturbation and ethnic joke in the book. What’s different is that “The Dictator” is entirely fictional. There are no interviews with real people who have no idea they are being set up and mercilessly mocked. I think this was a good move for Cohen and Charles. Austin Powers was hilarious. The second installment less so. The third, stale. What started out as fresh and original became old news by film number three.

This is not to say “The Dictator” is a return to the glory of “Borat.” Don’t get me wrong: there are a million laughs in “The Dictator.” Every race, sex, and sector of society is skewered as the character Cohen plays, a fictional mid-east strongman, is replaced by a double on a trip to the United Nations. With the help of a progressive New York shopkeeper (who doesn’t know his identity) and an old countryman, he must thwart a plan to turn his dictatorship into a democracy.

But forget the plot. It’s so thin you’d need a microscope to see it. It’s all just an excuse to turn what feels like a Saturday Night Live skit into a feature film. The movie is as funny as hell, but herein lies the problem. The movie struggles to be an hour and twenty minutes, and at the one-hour mark I was tired of laughing. I wasn’t interested in finding out what was to happen, like I might in most movies, but simply looking for the next gag.

Many would consider Sacha Baron Cohen the comic genius of our time. Indeed, “The Dictator” may be channeling Charlie Chaplin, who made two movies that recall similar story lines. The first was “The Great Dictator,” in which Chaplin plays a fictional Hitler. The second was “A King in New York,” in which Chaplin plays a deposed monarch taking refuge in New York. Is Cohen cribbing or paying homage to Chaplin? Is Cohen the Chaplin of our times? Cohen is a great talent, but I’m not so sure jokes about “rape centers” and anal torture will earn him a place in the pantheon of great film comedians. Too often, Cohen departs from the field of satire and farce and goes for the cheap joke.

“The Dictator” is the kind of movie during which you laugh a lot, but when it appears on cable one year later, you only watch the funniest five minutes. Kind of like a Saturday Night Live skit, except you don’t have to bother with the other one hour and fifteen minutes of ostensible ‘story.’

It was nearly impossible to miss the promotion going on for Sacha Baron Cohen’s newest film, “Bruno.” If you weren’t bombarded with teaser trailers on TV, then you saw his best impersonation of “Blue Steel” plastered on billboards or tales of his antics at premieres scattered throughout the media. With so much bizarre publicity, “Bruno” was bound to be something: brilliant or horrifying was yet to be determined, but definitely something.

Similar to 2006′s “Borat” Bruno is an outsider looking to understand America. Except here he is the most popular fashionista in any German-speaking country (except Germany) who has a major fashion faux pas and is “out” from the Austrian fashion ciruit”¦ and then goes to the States (and from there to the Middle East) to become a big-time American celeb.

What goes on behind the scenes during Cohen’s films only the production crew (and Special Features once “Bruno” hits DVDs) will know, but parts of “Bruno” were clearly scripted. After the controversy of “Borat” from people who said they didn’t know what they were being filmed for, it seems a given that “Bruno” would have had to take a different approach.

But realizing some scenes were scripted didn’t detract from the humor of “Bruno;” in fact, it almost made the film funnier. It created a cohesive story that “Borat” lacked: instead of just being a road movie, it had a beginning, middle and end, and satisfactory ones at that. Undoubtedly this is the best film Cohen has created.

Don’t be misled by R-rated movies that border on PG-13 content: “Bruno” is not a movie to bring the kids to. Making “Borat” look tame in comparison, “Bruno” has more penis shots than a porno and “Watchmen” combined. But what is most bizarre about Cohen’s affinity for male genitalia in his films is that it’s funny. Unbearable at times, yes, but almost tasteful in its usage.

What’s most surprising about “Bruno” is that, despite its often offensive content, it is still incredibly funny. It continued the political commentary begun in Cohen’s “Da Ali G Show” which continued through “Borat” showing exactly how ignorant and appalling Americans can act. But the commentary was second to the story (although it can be argued the story is a commentary in itself) and that’s what makes it a strong film and undoubtedly one of the funniest films to come out of this year.

After Michael Jackson’s death Thursday Universal Studios scrambled to remove a scene from the film “Bruno,” in which Sacha Baron Cohen’s Bruno questions La Toya Jackson about her brother, before the LA premiere of the film, Universal said in a press release.

Insiders told Entertainment Weekly they managed to cut the scene from the film just an hour before the premiere, which was Thursday night. The scene was previously seen by journalists during pre-screenings of “Bruno.”

The scene featured Bruno, a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashionista, snagging an interview with La Toya and asking her a series of questions about her brother, Michael. She did not appear to be in on the joke, EW reported.

Universal has not said whether the scene will be included in the film in either its theatrical or DVD releases.