KAFKA (1992)

KAFKA (PG-13) Steven Soderbergh's grim folly plays like a feature-length version of a film-school exercise. Shot in self-consciously stylish black and white, the movie is MTV Kafka: Instead of dialogue, character, behavior, it has a look and a mood. And that's all it has. As Kafka, who's presented as a cross between the author and one of his bedeviled protagonists, Jeremy Irons retreats to his upper-class dullness. There isn't much to his performance beyond the impeccable Etonian spin he brings to words like ''iss-ue.'' The movie is framed as a murder mystery, but for a solid hour it is almost completely without interest. Then Kakfa enters the castle on the edge of town, where he discovers a mad scientist (Ian Holm) conducting Nazi/Orwellian brain experiments. This stuff is as luridly cheesy as can be; a viewer can't help but perk up. D+

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