"Craven, stick to your guns"

Wes Craven's "Red Eye" has the same problem that many potentially good action movies have these days. Too much time is dedicated to developing its inherently weak story.

Craven's most popular film, "Scream," was a good exception. It takes a man with a brass neck to write the biggest star in the cast out of the script in the first five minutes. That's what made that film frightening. There was a moment when every viewer thought, "My God, anything could happen here."

"Red Eye" has no such moment. Yeah, that girl from "The Notebook" (Rachel McAdams) gets a head-butt that would make Wesley Willis proud from that dude who was in "28 Days Later" (Cillian Murphy). But that's simply not enough to make a modern couple clutch each other in fear before the people in the row behind them.

"Red Eye" is an airplane film. Thankfully, it's not exactly "Speed 3: We're on a Plane, Now." But it's not much better.

Jackson Rippner - a name the character admits wasn't a kind gift from his parents - has to get hotel manager Lisa Reisert (McAdams) to switch VIP Charles Keefe's (Jack Scalia) room so that he can be more easily assassinated. Rippner threatens to kill her father, played by the indispensable and underused Brian Cox, if she doesn't have his room switched.

Now, Cillian Murphy has the capacity to creep someone out, with the right lines and the right cast and the right director, none of which did "Red Eye" provide. His role as Scarecrow in "Batman Begins" just a few short months ago was engaging and terrifying. In "Red Eye," though, his stern stares are a laughable attempt.

The editing was roughshod. Dialogue scenes had actors looking in wrong directions, holding different glasses one shot to the next, and jumped back and forth between close-ups too quickly.

Maybe Craven was looking to make some sort of homage to B-movies with his continuity errors, like Quentin Tarantino has in his films. That explanation seems less plausible for Craven, because Tarantino obviously pays astute attention to his scripts and his films in general, while it's questionable in Craven's case.

Or maybe I'm just a sucker for things like writing and editing and plots. Much of the theater's stampeding cattle seemed to be enjoying things. Maybe people really like clumsy dialogue in their so-called suspenseful scripts.

It might make it easier to believe it could never really happen. It is the realistic horror that messes with people. Take "Jaws," for example.

Forget that the shark looked like one of those singing fish from Wal-Mart. The concept is simple enough that it is believable. Swim in the ocean, you could get gnawed on by a shark. That is a simple, terrifying concept. I still cannot take a bath in an empty house, thanks to that movie.

But when the two characters have to spend 20 minutes breaking down whether or not the girl has a real reason to be afraid, it's a little easier to handle. Elaborations, explanations and justification are the archenemies of true suspense.

Getting back to "Jaws." In the first two minutes, sheer terror is established. Drunk, naked chick gets mauled by a damn shark. That's it. It's on the table and nobody has to look back and ask, "Wait, who does the shark work for? Could this really happen?" Sharks work for food, but unlike the homeless men at the interchange, they're self-employed.

The last 25 minutes of the film, though, are pretty good ones. Nobody actually cares whether the girl or her dad are killed, but it is fun to watch Murphy have numerous large, dense objects thrown at him. The viewer doesn't even have to ignore the dialogue, because there isn't any.

That's what I mean when I say these films need chutzpah. I'm waiting for one of these big-budget directors to simply forego the plot, take 20 minutes off the running time, and own the screen the only way they really know how: with action sequences.

The 85-minute film comes down to a 25-minute blunt-objects-fly-about scene that could stand alone and be just as entertaining. "The Day After Tomorrow" is a similar film. Without Donny Darko waxing romantic, it would be fun to watch the world break in two.

Toss out the lines and just destroy everything, plague by natural disaster by nuclear holocaust. Embrace the fact that all the audience really wants is the violence. We can all appreciate that extra time and sit down next door at The Old Country Buffet for some chicken and biscuits.