FREEZE FRAMES

A weekly update of film releases

COME SEE THE PARADISE - During the World War II era, the marriage of an Irish-American man and a Japanese-American woman runs into trouble when he's involved in controversial union-organizing activities and she's imprisoned in an internment camp because of her Japanese ancestry. The subject of those camps and their racist purpose cries out for intelligent movie treatment. Unfortunately, this well-meaning drama by Alan Parker is as dull as it is long. It's beautifully photographed, though, by Michael Seresin. (Rated R)

THE FIELD - An old Irishman fights to keep the plot of land his family has laboriously made into their proudest asset. This overcooked melodrama picks up a certain primitive power in its second half, when the old man is at his most feisty and obsessive, but the ponderously made film still has little to recommend it. Directed by Jim Sheridan, whose previous picture was ``My Left Foot.'' (Rated PG-13)

HAMLET - Mel Gibson is credible if not inspired in the title role. The rest of Franco Zeffirelli's latest Shakespearean outing is so eager to be cinematic, with its peripatetic camera and souped-up screenplay, that it forgets to make sense. Zeffirelli's manic approach had some excuse when he filmed a grand opera like ``La Traviata,'' but even there his hyperbolic style fought the music to a standstill. Shakespeare's poetry, sliced and diced by Zeffirelli and co-scenarist Christopher De Vore, fares worse. Alan Bates and Glenn Close are among the performers who do their best under the circumstances, but can't withstand the slings and arrows of outrageous filmmaking. (Rated PG)