Here are two deeply contrasting reviews of the new IMAX film MARK TWAIN'S AMERICA. I was going to go down to New York to see it, but given its brief length (47 minutes!) I'd feel a lot closer to Sam if I went out to the house on Farmington Avenue and sat on the ombra. Enjoy! Kathy O'Connell Hartford Advocate Copyright 1998 BPI Communications, Inc. BPI Entertainment News Wire By FRANK SCHECK, The Hollywood Reporter For those who think the eight-story Imax screen is suitable only for depicting the glories of nature and the thrills of theme parks, Sony Pictures Classics is attempting to demonstrate that the craggy face of an author who died nearly 90 years ago will prove just as captivating. A look at one of America's most notable wits, "Mark Twain's America" is an uneven historical study that should do excellent business with school groups and the like but will probably not pull in the grosses of an "Everest." Presented in Imax 3-D, this new effort by Stephen Low (responsible for one of the best Imax 3-D films, "Across the Sea of Time") interweaves the biographical story of the man behind such beloved fictional characters as Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn with segments depicting both his 19th century milieu and the many contemporary efforts to re-create it. The film makes good use of original stereoscopic photographs from the time and archival 2-D photos that have been digitally converted into 3-D. Although a bit unfocused and scattershot in its approach, the film is an undeniably loving tribute to Twain and his times and succeeds in humanizing a figure who has often been reduced to caricature. Particularly moving is the detailing of the author's twilight years, during which he lost his fortune and most of his immediate family, including his wife and two daughters. In sentimental fashion, the film also depicts modern-day celebrations of Twain's legacy, including fence whitewashing contests, Civil War re-enactments (Twain fought briefly for the South) and restorations of classic steam trains and riverboats. Twain was an inventions enthusiast, and there are loving glimpses of some of the more eccentric creations of the era. The filmmakers also make good use of various locations central to Twain's life, including his hometown of Hannibal, Mo.; Virginia City, Nev.; the Mississippi River; and his final home, now a museum, in Hartford, Conn. As might be expected, the film looks beautiful, with the archival photos hauntingly poignant and the modern-day scenes lensed with the crispness that only Imax can provide. Although the 3-D aspect is often less than necessary, it does provide particular resonance to several scenes, including a swimming contest and a close-up portrait of a former jumping frog (now retired). The evocative narration is provided by Anne Bancroft. Adventures of a River Pilot: Tall Tales on a Tall Screen By LAWRENCE VAN GELDER As an experienced Mississippi riverboat pilot, Mark Twain surely knew shallows when he saw them. So he'd probably steer well clear of the thin murky brew sloshing around under the title "Mark Twain's America in 3-D," the latest Imax attraction. But as a venture capitalist who thrilled to inventions but, to his financial detriment, didn't always know a good one when he saw it (he turned down Alexander Graham Bell), Twain might have enjoyed the film's three-dimensional effects while turning his withering scorn on its pretensions to biography, history and social relevance. The boy in him that blessed the world with Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn would probably have got a chuckle while flinching from the mud-drenched, volleyball-playing girl who seems to fly right off the screen and at the onlooker. In this film, houses seem real; huge trees seem to sprout right out of the middle of the theater, and the locomotive of a train on the Virginia & Truckee Railroad, a line Twain himself once traveled on his way west, seems to roar into the audience. From the scenic standpoint, "Mark Twain's America" has its rewards. But as it skips around between present and past, from color and 3-D segments of modern riverboats, restored trains, the annual Tom Sawyer Days celebration in Twain's hometown of Hannibal, Mo., and his home in Hartford, to old black-and-white photographs of slaves, mining towns and train wrecks, the film loses its figurative focus. Trying to stitch Twain's biography to the broader history of the times he lived in and then to the America of today, the hodgepodge of images, old and new, begins to look like some cinematic salad, tossed together more as a matter of convenience than coherence, with the pictorial outweighing the truly pertinent. Twain's busy, adventurous literary and personal life (1835-1910), which was filled with rewards and tragedy, coincided with the Civil War, America's westward expansion and its explosive growth as an industrial nation. And if "Mark Twain's America" can't do justice to all this in its relatively brief running time, it can at least be enjoyed for its 3-D effects and appreciated for the curiosity it might arouse for a fuller acquaintance with Twain's life, work and American history. With a narration by Anne Bancroft and some of Twain's words spoken in a treacly style by Dennis O'Connor, the film was written, directed and produced by Stephen Low, whose credits include "Across the Sea of Time" and "Titanica." Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company The New York Times