The Tiger and the Snow

Like an Iraq-war mirror image of "Life Is Beautiful," actor-director Roberto Benigni's The Tiger and the Snow re-runs the successful structure and comic persona of the 1998 Oscar-winning film in a trippy fantasia about a poet who follows his love to hell and, in this happier ending, back.

Benigni clearly intends to make some impassioned statements about the futility of war, the power of romance, the enduring strength of optimism. However, the once-appealing innocence of his exuberant persona has become curdled over time.

Perhaps a greater passage of time was needed to provide a more effective historical perspective, but "Tiger" has a bigger problem with a dramatic structure that sags conspicuously in the middle, never to completely correct itself.

The results are neither profound nor funny, but merely uncomfortable. A hubristic failure at risky humor, The Tiger and the Snow provides Benigni his own Michael Richards moment.

A scorching affront to Italians, Iraqis and the intelligence of movie audiences everywhere.

Remember that manic, rambling Oscar acceptance speech, when Benigni leapt around the auditorium? That might have been charming for two or three minutes, but imagine two hours of it.

The longer the movie goes on, the more annoying Benigni's infantile behavior becomes.