'Miracle At St. Anna' (R)(out of four)

There's no denying the filmmaking power of Spike Lee. He is one of the most vibrant, vital voices of the modern movie world -- one of the most passionate storytellers we've got.

He's also an artist who has defiantly deviated from expectations. As he came to fame with films such as "Do the Right Thing" and "Malcolm X" -- movies about simmering urban racial tensions -- he attracted a gaggle of fans who then expected each new "Spike Lee Joint" to walk through the same, familiar terrain. But then came films like "Bamboozled" in 2000 and "She Hate Me" in 2004, the former a scathing comedy about a blackface minstrel show and the latter an incendiary film about an unemployed business executive who makes a quick buck by impregnating wealthy lesbians.

Critics and audiences alike were baffled by some of his choices, and many wondered where Lee would go next. With his 2006 bank heist thriller "Inside Man" and now his new war epic, "Miracle at St. Anna," the director has provided an answer: He's going mainstream.

The result this time is something of a mixed bag. While impeccably filmed and passionate in its point of view, "Miracle at St. Anna" gets all the big things right, but some of the small things wrong.

Speaking in the broadest possible terms, "St. Anna" is about a group of black soldiers stranded during the days of World War II. Arriving in theaters after the very public argument between Clint Eastwood and Lee, who criticized his colleague for not casting any black soldiers in his two Iwo Jima films, "St. Anna" seems to be a follow-up to that very conversation -- an attempt by Lee to make up for the racial homogony of most Hollywood war films.

It should come as no surprise that in the film's opening scene, an elderly black veteran -- whose Purple Heart can be seen in the background -- watches a tough and triumphant John Wayne film. From the opening vignette, we're aware of the way fictional wars tell only part of the story.

Jumping between three separate timelines and dividing his story between the realism of the battlefield and the more exaggerated feel of a fable, "Miracle At St. Anna" is a complicated and ambitious undertaking. And for the bulk of its running time, Lee's meditation on the added struggles faced by black servicemen during the darkest days of World War II is affecting and unnerving.

More than just trying to avoid the bullets, the film's four central troops -- ranking Officer Aubrey Stamps (Derek Luke), the emotional and immature Bishop (Michael Ealy), the Puerto Rican radio operator Hector (Laz Alonso) and the dunce (Omar Benson Miller) -- must endure a host of other hardships. They cope daily with racist colleagues and are dispatched by their white superiors on missions of greater danger.

During one such mission, which involves crossing a bridge in Italy, we watch these four men become separated from their countrymen. Rushing forward, they find themselves stranded in foreign territory. Befriending the citizens of a local town, they set up a temporary camp, and it is here where Lee works his magic.

Constantly alternating perspectives and eras, Lee jumps between events taking place in this Italian oasis and other scenes occurring along the American and German lines. Going forward and backward in time, we see the ways in which war haunts these men even in their later years, as well as the agonies and discrimination these men faced even during their days in basic training.

With all these concurrent stories, there's a whole lot going on in "Miracle At St. Anna." And maybe too much. Taken as a whole, this labor of love is alive with anger and appreciation, breathing life into stories and subjects that have thus far been neglected by this genre.

But with so much to tackle, and at a running time of around 160 minutes, there's a sense that the story is leaving its characters behind. In trying to tell us so much, we lose our footing. It's an impassioned, but slightly impersonal, project.