Director Tarsem Singh has been blessed with a successful career in commercials, but when it comes to the cinema, he's suffered the curse of bad timing. His debut feature, "The Cell" (2000), came out as the serial killer boom was starting to tank. His new film, "The Fall," is told through the eyes of a preteen girl, with a story that shifts boldly between gaudy fantasy and dark reality.

That probably sounds a bit like Guillermo Del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" (2007), or even Terry Gilliams "Tideland" (2006), but Tarsem is no imitator; "The Fall" actually wrapped in 2006 before Gilliam's film, but it's only now finding distribution. Such a gap would seem to indicate that the film is either too "out there" or just too awful to find a market; neither is the case. It took directors Spike Jonze and David Fincher to sign on as executive producers to get the film in theaters, but you've got to wonder what the problem was.

I suspect it's the gap between Tarsem's promise and his delivery; you look at the film, and shot after shot screams genius, whether it's an Escher-like stairwell to infinity filled with scurrying black figures, or shimmering, mirage-like landscapes that you'll swear are CGI, but aren't. Yet wed to this is clunky dialogue, a certain twee aspect to the fantasy, and Eiko Ishioka costumes that, however striking, make the characters seem like a bunch of gay ravers.