TURN-ONS AND TURN-OFFS IN CURRENT HOME ENTERTAINMENT RELEASES : Excellent Good Fair Poor : VIDEOCASSETTES

“Kanal.” Embassy. $29.95. As a teen-ager during World War II, Andrzej Wajda fought in the Polish resistance, but his drama of the last days of the 1944 Warsaw uprising largely denies us the excitement of battle. Most of “Kanal” is set in the sewers beneath the city as a platoon of resistance fighters desperately tries to escape the Nazis. Only Wajda’s second feature, it has amazingly dense visuals: an opening tracking shot as virtuosic as the one in “Touch of Evil,” underground scenes full of macabre atmosphere and intensity. The acting is slightly florid, but this is still one of the cinema’s grimmest and most gripping portrayals of war and its horrors. Information: (213) 553-3600.