It's when Mr. Blessing steps from the specifics of Cobb's story to grand themes that "Cobb" becomes intellectually shallow and dramatically inert.

Might it symbolize the herd of clichés stampeding through this dramatically inert film, which shamelessly borrows ideas from Orwell's "1984," then tramples them into the dust?

But Winton Dean, as stoically played here by Michael Moriarity, is absent even when he is present: it's powerful psychological stuff, but dramatically inert.

"Snow Falling on Cedars" may be dramatically inert, but it is well acted, and it succeeds in sustaining a mood of spellbound reflection.

If the movie is dramatically inert, it has the charm of a lovingly assembled personal scrapbook.

IN later chapters, though, the story again turns dramatically inert.

It takes brilliance and effort to bring something as dramatically inert as monologue to life.

The meandering, overlong film vaguely suggests a more visually sophisticated but dramatically inert answer to Jonathan Caouette's "Tarnation."

Debussy's astonishing "Pelleas et Melisande" struck many of the composer's uncomprehending contemporaries as musically radical and dramatically inert.

Mr. Merritt's robust but clumsily used tenor did little to enliven the dramatically inert role of the Indian prince Idreno.