Info: Opens today at the Broadway Centre Cinemas; rated R for some violent images; 117 minutes.

The Indian-born video director Tarsem Singh (who bills himself simply as Tarsem) proved with his first film, "The Cell" (featuring Jennifer Lopez), that he's all about the image at the expense of story or character. He proves it again here, with this off-putting "fable" centered on an immigrant girl (Catinca Untaru) with a broken arm who befriends a paralyzed stuntman (Lee Pace, from "Pushing Daisies") in a Los Angeles hospital, circa 1912. The stuntman tells the girl a fantastic story about pirates and marauders and a princess (Justine Waddell, who also plays a nurse in the hospital). The results of shooting in dozens of locations in 18 countries make for astounding visuals. But it's nearly impossible to follow the meandering story without a GPS tracker and a bag of bread crumbs - and, even if you did, there's no emotional payoff.

The Strangers

Info: Opens today in theaters everywhere; rated R for violence/terror and language; 90 minutes.

The "inspired by true events" label at the beginning of this gruesome thriller is apparently a lie, but it gives first-time writer-director Bryan Bertino carte blanche to get as nasty as he wants to be. Thus we are turned into slavering voyeurs as a young couple, James (Scott Speedman) and Kristen (Liv Tyler), are terrorized by three masked intruders for no other reason than for them to mess with someone's heads. That's also the only reason Bertino puts us through the lurid mechanics of James' and Kristen's terror - which play out like the recent French thriller "Them" without the subtitles, or like Michael Haneke's "Funny Games" without the artistic pretention. This is straight-up nightmare fuel, unredeemed by compelling characters or interesting motives.