David Earl in Brian and Charles (Will Davie/Focus Features)

Brian and Charles, an odd, very dry British comedy, takes a while to rev up, but its version of revving up is less a sprint or a race and more like a leisurely stroll.

Brian (comedian David Earl), an eccentric inventor in a remote Welsh village, lives by himself and is content with tinkering and creating new, completely irrational and unusable inventions. Eventually he decides to build a robot. Its head is a repurposed from a mannequin, and the body is a washing machine. When he attempts to turn it on, the result is obviously failure. But one stormy night, the robot springs to life.

And thank God, because up to that moment, the movie is as dry as a day-old toast. Earl has been playing this type of character (known as Brian Gittins) on and off for a decade, but his off-putting demeanor is neither odd like Mr. Bean or Ricky Gervais’s David Brent. His character is mostly kind of dull, wavering from a milquetoast geniality to slight irascibility, and not in any sharp, observational way. Charles the robot, on the other hand, played by Chris Haywood (who also co-wrote the script with Earl), is another story altogether. Charles is tall and gawky and, at the beginning, as excited as a puppy, jumping up and down and repeating Brian’s name when he returns from work. He also dances giddily as he discovers music. As the story progresses, Charles matures into a surly teen which a) drives Brian crazy and b) is hysterical. Haywood infuses the character with pathos while speaking in a robotic monotone. It’s a fine, funny performance.

Brian, who is a fixture in the town, yet is quite socially awkward, now has a friend who immediately accepts him, but Brian doesn’t want people to know about Charles, partly because of selfishness and because of the family of stock bullies next door. Of course, there is a love interest, who is also painfully shy and awkward. One could probably guess the course of the story line from here and would not be too off base, which is disappointing, because there is an eccentricity at work here that isn’t quite leaned into.

The movie basically becomes a buddy comedy. Brian learns to open up and stand up because of Charles, his one true friend. Charles doesn’t so much change as grow into, I suppose, a young adult robot. Everyone else is a bit of a cliché. Oddly, the film falls into the mockumentary category; we see the action through the lens of a film crew. Unlike most mockumentaries, there is no stated reason for the documentary project. It’s a strange choice that really doesn’t add anything to the film and, frankly, detracts from it.

All in all, Brian and Charles is flawed, but pleasant enough, but it ultimately fails due to lack of ambition, which ironically mimics its main character. The human one, that is.