Starring Val Kilmer and Elisabeth Shue Directed by Phillip Noyce Rated PG-13, with violence, profanity and sexuality Running time 115 minutes We give this film a rating of 6 out of 10

(April 4, 1997) -- Like last year's The Phantom, The Saint arrives in theaters with a history -- one that will do nothing to attract younger filmgoers, who will be completely unaware of it.

Unlike The Phantom, however, The Saint isn't a period film, nor one that tries to trade on nostalgia for a character most audiences don't remember. Instead, director Phillip Noyce and writers Jonathan Hensleigh and Wesley Strick have taken the skeleton of the old character -- popularized in novels and films in the 1930s and 1940s and as a TV series in the 1960s -- and found a way to make him relevant to today.

That The Saint doesn't finally pay off has more to do with plot problems than conceptual ones. This is a high-tech action-thriller in which the script takes a serious wrong turn about two-thirds of the way through and never recovers.

The result is confusing and esoteric. I had no problem following the twists in last year's Mission: Impossible, a film that seemed to give a lot of people trouble. But I found The Saint difficult to keep up with after a certain point, if only because its ultimate premise is so hard to swallow.

Still, the first hour-plus is crackerjack stuff. Val Kilmer plays Simon Templar, the world's greatest thief who is both a master at gadgetry and disguise. His backstory is briefly sketched in, showing us a childhood in which he managed to outwit flinty priests at the orphanage where he was reared (but not before the death of his prepubescent girlfriend).

In the present (actually, slightly in the future), Simon is a thief for hire, trying to amass $50 million in his Swiss account so he can finally call it quits. We catch up with him in Moscow, stealing a valuable microchip from the highly guarded headquarters of a rich Russian oil company, headed by a would-be Russian tyrant named Tretiak (Rade Serbedzija).

Having been thus stung, however, Tretiak turns around and offers Templar a huge payday for another job: He'll pay him multimillions if Simon will steal a newly discovered formula for cold fusion.

The job, however, is barely a challenge. The target is a naive American scientist in England named Emma (Elisabeth Shue), who Simon quickly sizes up as vulnerable to romancing by a Byronic character he creates.

But two things happen when he makes off with her formula: He gets double-crossed by his Russian employers, who refuse to pay him -- and he suffers pangs of conscience because he has, in fact, fallen for Emma.

He quickly remedies the first problem in witty fashion (disguising himself as Tretiak to confront Tretiak himself), but his feelings for Emma almost prove his undoing. The two of them wind up as fugitives in Moscow, on the run from Tretiak's goons while trying to keep Tretiak from carrying out his nefarious plot.

Just what that plot is, however, is up in the air. If I understood it correctly, it had to do with not getting the cold fusion formula to work in order to topple the old government. There's also something to do with stealing all of the country's oil reserves to destabilize the country by freezing everyone to death.

If so, it's thin beer indeed, given the huge pyrotechnic background in which its set. The filmmakers assume an awareness of contemporary Russian politics on the part of the viewer, then come up with their own spin on an already unknowable situation.

As a result, the final 40 minutes or so consist mostly of progressively pointless chase sequences interrupted only by chatter about rapidly deflating plot. Along a river, through a sewer: The spots get tighter and tighter, but that can't do anything to infuse tension into the story itself, which unravels like a cheap sweater.

For humanity, the writers inject a lengthy metaphor about hearts and identity. Templar is the man without an identity who loses his heart; Emma is a woman firmly grounded in herself, but with a life-threatening heart condition. I didn't say it made sense; it's mostly there to give the film the patina of emotional depth.

What the film does have is great gadgets. Templar carries a pocketknife that is outfitted with everything, it seems, except a CAT scan. He also has the ultimate in cell phones: a pocket model that includes keyboard, computer screen and Internet connector.

Kilmer has charm as Templar, but seems smirky rather than smart when he's outwitting someone. He's credible when he assumes the numerous disguises (though those identities tend to bring out his most self-consciously actorly tendencies). Shue has the right breathless quality, as a serious young woman with a heart problem, and the solid quality to make her believable as someone Templar could fall for.

The Saint is one of those thrill-ride movies Hollywood has decided to focus on. But, by the end, it becomes apparent that it's a ride to nowhere, though no one making the film seemed to notice.