There’s a certain, untouched level of disappointment a devoted filmgoer feels when one of the most widely anticipated releases of the year, directed by one of cinema’s most exciting directors today, falls flat. In 2001, the late-breaking culprit was director Michael Mann, whose “Ali” disappointed and descended into mediocrity with its flawed script, one-note ideas and soap opera feel. We expected more from Mann, who with two excellent films (“The Last of the Mohicans,” “Heat”) and one superior one (“The Insider”), was primed to take his film art to the next level of achievement and establish himself as one of Hollywood’s new cinema heavyweights.

In this same regard, it is painful to draw a parallel of “Ali” to the flawed, almost irritating “Panic Room,” one of spring 2002’s most exciting, good-looking, sure-bet features and now, upon actual inspection, one of its most unexceptional and disappointing. Parallel in the sense that David Fincher, who blew us away with “Se7en,” one of the best films of the 1990s, and followed up with the white-knuckle thrills of “The Game” and the iconoclastic, gritty, exceptional “Fight Club,” was finally ready to pole vault onto the A-list with this new feature. He was set to be the next in a group of innovative, newer talent (including the likes of Mann, Steven Soderbergh and M. Night Shyamalan), to break out and finally get the widespread acclaim that his earlier work has often deserved. “Panic Room” is, unfortunately, a step back, and without the clout of say, a Steven Soderbergh (who’s got several Oscar nominations and a Best Director Oscar to boot), he’ll need two or three steps to get back in the game.

Boy, this film must of looked good on paper. You’ve got an absolutely killer premise: a mother and child who must defend their beautiful new New York City brownstone from a trio of burglars, operating out of a high tech defensive complex in the center of the house called a “panic room.” The room is bounded by four concrete walls and has a ventilation unit and a state-of-the-art surveillance console. Giving that kind of a movie playground to a director like Fincher, who has excelled in creating masterful visuals in dark, edgy environments is pure genius. Then, you’ve got a great actress on board (Jodie Foster), who has also been so low key in recent years she’s due for a hell of a comeback. Some creative visual trickery on the part of Fincher and his team, combined with gritty, hard-hitting performances by Foster and the rest of cast, creates what looks like it could be an exceptional thriller.

The problem with “Panic Room” is that it is a glistening, well-constructed machine that has no oil with which to run itself. Simply put, the film lacks suspense; it is, for the most part, devoid of any truly thrilling sequences. Where in “Panic Room,” is something on par with the bone-chilling and ever-twisting crime investigation in “Se7en,” the fast paced foiling of “The Game,” or the wise-guy, mind-games philosophy of “Fight Club?” There are very few of these sequences throughout the film, which mostly involves the intruders (Forest Whitaker, Jared Leto, Dwight Yoakam) trying to figure out ways to outwit and outlast mom (Foster) and daughter (Kristen Stewart). So many great ideas are squandered and so many opportunities are missed; it’s painful to watch a usually quick, risky director like Fincher going for obvious payoffs and predictable twists. The single, but glaring and fatal problem with “Panic Room” is that it has no bite, no muscle to back up its good looks.

Perhaps it is unfair to compare this film with Fincher’s previous work, but how can we not, since the director has set the bar so high for himself? “Panic Room” works in a sloppy, popcorn flick sort of way. But an exceptional masterwork that many expected to usher in a brand new, post-Oscars season of film refuses to take shape. How can it, quite honestly, when the film is little more than a Fincher-enhanced “Home Alone” for adults? B-