Even when Conspiracy Theory is jammed or rushed or overly jittery, Gibson's command--of Jerry's fractured psyche, his freak perceptions, and his ardor--gives the picture blue-eyed soul.

Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts contribute major star power to the uneven tale, but it never becomes as convincing as a real conspiracy theory should.

The good guys metamorphose into bad guys and back into good guys with dazzling efficiency in Brian Helgeland's disturbing, comic script.

With it's many knotty connections and complex exposition, the movie is definitely something of a muddle, but for that matter so are most conspiracy theories.

You're set up for when director Richard Donner -- who worked with Gibson on all three audience-pleasing Weapons -- switches the movie from a really interesting, jittery, literate, and witty tone poem about justified contemporary paranoia (and the creatively unhinged dark side of New York City) to an overloaded, meandering iteration of a Lethal Weapon project that bears the not-so-secret stamp of audience testing and tinkering.

Unfortunately, the parts of the movie that are truly good are buried beneath the deadening layers of thriller cliches and an unconvincing love story.

Though it tries to be different, with hair's-breadth escapes that don't depend on implausible stunts or Bondian-scale explosions, Conspiracy Theory is an uneasy mix of laughs and thrills; suspense and soap.

Not a terrible movie exactly, just a dark, edgy idea relentlessly worn down into mildly diverting blandness by the mega-wattage presence of stars Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts.

A below-par star vehicle for Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts, Conspiracy Theory is a sporadically amusing but listless thriller that wears its humorous, romantic and political components like mismatched articles of clothing.

The only sneaky scheme at work here is the one that inflates a hollow plot to fill 2 1/4 hours while banishing skepticism with endless close-ups of big, beautiful movie-star eyes.

In the end, Conspiracy Theory fails to work as an action film, a romance, or a mystery -- all of which it aspires to be.

Instead of a scalding brew of mirth and malice, served black, Donner settles up a tepid latte, decaf.

Conspiracy Theory doesn't know whether it wants to be a comedy, a political thriller, a romance or a satire.

It's just a simple thriller whose goal is little more than to keep moving.