If The Motorcycle Diaries shrunk the figure of Ernesto "Che" Guevara into an easily consumable plush-doll for rebellion, Steven Soderbergh's immensely anticipated epic trains a cooler head and a sharper eye on the controversial leader. Beginning with Guevara's decision in 1955 to join the Cuban Revolution to overthrow the Batista regime and ending with his execution in 1967 (with strategic jumps and omissions in between), the film proceeds as two mammoth analytical blocks fused into a nearly five-hour narrative. Part one alternates between the movement's guerilla tactics in Cuba's lush jungles and black-and-white views of Che's early-1960s New York tour; part two traces Che's ultimately fatal insurrective attempt in Bolivia, during which trees and skies are bled of their colors as the flame of revolution slowly dissipates. Despite the rigorous, structuralist approach Soderbergh employs to sidestep the incense-burning pitfalls of the standard Hollywood biopic, and despite many stylistic marvels and Benicio del Toro's drugged-tiger performance, this is a work of intelligent fastidiousness rather than vivid inspiration. No other biopic would dare overlay El Comandante's Tolstoy quotes on a brutal skirmish, but who knew such bold experimentation could be so...academic?  Fernando F. Croce