Lynch’s ‘Wild’ Having Hard Time With U.S. Film Critics : Reviews: Many feel that the formula that worked so well in ‘Blue Velvet’ and ‘Twin Peaks’ is less effective this time around.

David Lynch’s “Wild at Heart,” which opens today nationwide, may have captured the imagination of Europe. But the winner of the top prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival is having a harder time winning over critics at home.

A comedic road film about a duo (Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern) fending off a bunch of crazies en route from New Orleans to Texas, “Wild at Heart” features the director’s trademark mix of subliminal sex, violence and out-and-out weirdness. Though few of the critics interviewed by The Times disputed Lynch’s talent, there was a pervasive feeling that the formula that worked so well in “Eraserhead” (Lynch’s cult classic), “Blue Velvet” (which put him on the map) and TV’s “Twin Peaks” (which just landed 14 Emmy nominations) is less effective this time around.

“Lynch works better with constraints like network standards and practices that require him to be sly and inventive,” says David Denby of New York magazine. “Given complete freedom, he gives way to his obsessions. It becomes a procession of freaks which is now getting grotesque.”

In a review that ran last Sunday, The Times’ Peter Rainer alluded to the same sort of heavy-handedness. “For Lynch, wickedness is, in visual terms, all goblins and demons,” Rainer wrote, “and there’s something peculiarly child-like and limiting about that vision.”

Mike Clark of USA Today believes that Lynch is falling back on old tricks rather than breaking new ground. “This film felt kind of ‘microwave’ to me,” he says. ‘Blue Velvet’ was shocking--saying something for the first time. This one was by the numbers . . . it left me cold.”

Though Time’s Richard Corliss says he had a “great time watching the movie” he, too, perceives a change. “Lynch’s ‘style’ is becoming ‘mannerism,’ but you really can’t blame him,” he says. “If you were on the fringe--hanging by a thread--and just received all those Emmy nominations, you’d become a corporation, too. In ‘Twin Peaks,’ he created the school of David Lynch and had a number of other directors shooting in his style. Lynch is essentially copyrighting weirdness.”

Roger Ebert gives the picture two-and-a-half stars out of a possible four in today’s Chicago Sun-Times, reflecting “my disappointment in the film, but acknowledging Lynch’s skill as a film maker,” he told The Times. In his mind, “Wild at Heart” and “Twin Peaks” are “slices from the same sausage”--flawed by the director’s sensationalist approach.

“Lynch is not unlike the Hearst press of the 1930s, which would titillate readers by running a three-part series on a whorehouse,” Ebert says. “The reporter would take you upstairs and, then--when his clothes are off--make his excuses and leave. Lynch sticks you with all that violence and disgusting imagery . . . while he’s standing in the corner saying it’s all a joke. He diffuses everything with that layer of parody. He’s a good director with a good visual eye . . . but he needs to find new toys to play with.”

Not so, says Robert Osborne of the Hollywood Reporter, who liked the film a lot. “It smarts to think that David Lynch who is so young and has such a short catalogue of films can already be accused of copying himself,” he says. “John Ford always went for the same thing--he had his style and we all applauded it. Why are applying a double standard with Lynch--encouraging him to do his thing and coming down hard on him when he does? In a time of rather ordinary film makers, Lynch’s wonderful, crazy mind is a breath of fresh air.”

Richard Gold, who gave the movie a positive review in Variety, also rises to Lynch’s defense. “I got a tremendous rush of adrenalin from the film,” he says. “It’s an American ‘Heart of Darkness,’ an all-out bombardment on the senses. Lynch’s images are extraordinarily cinematic. Even when he’s overreaching, he’s mesmerizing. In a summer with a lot of headache-inducing films with gratuitous violence, Lynch uses violence lyrically to make a point. I liked this film better than anything he’s done--including ‘Blue Velvet.’ ”

Newsweek’s David Ansen, another Lynch admirer, disagrees. “This film was silly . . . very cartoonish and campy,” he says. “Things gross you out, but it’s only fake-disturbing--not up to Lynch’s usual stuff. Still, it will have its fans. This will be the ‘David Lynch movie’ for people who don’t like David Lynch.”