The biggest knock against director Luc Besson is that he's always been more concerned with capturing a beautiful visual moment than with telling a story.

And with good-looking but plot-deficient movies like "The Fifth Element," "La Femme Nikita" and "The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc" to his credit, the French filmmaker seems to have proved his critics right.

At the same time, however, he's built up a healthy fanbase with his unique style-over-substance films.

An early example of Besson's visually cinematic storytelling style is his 1988 drama-fantasy "The Big Blue," which became a smash upon its release in his home country, even receiving seven nominations for the Cesar Awards (France's equivalent of the Oscars).

But in the United States, the film sank like a stone. Besson placed at least part of the blame for that on movie distributor-imposed cuts (which deleted more than 15 minutes of footage) and a drastically revised "happy" ending.

So now, more than 10 years later, Besson has decided to revisit his third feature film; he's restored nearly an hour of footage, as well as the original, intended ending, and has come up with a new "director's cut" for a national re-release of the movie.

In addition to lengthening the running time and changing the ending, he's also added some material that led the MPAA to change the film's rating from the original PG to an R.

A pet project for Besson, the movie is loosely based on the experiences of Jacques Mayol, a real-life, free-diving champion who befriended the filmmaker. However, the story here has been fictionalized, with Jean-Marc Barr ("Hope and Glory," "Breaking the Waves") portraying Mayol as an enigmatic orphan obsessed with both the water and its many creatures.

One of his few friends is Enzo Molinari (longtime Besson collaborator Jean Reno), a brash Italian free-diving champion who longs to compete against Jacques. So he lures his chum to the French Riviera for the world championships.

There, these two gifted athletes vie for free-diving honors, as well as for the heart of Johanna (Rosanna Arquette), a beautiful American who has risked her career to come visit Jacques.

Even though Jacques finds himself falling for Johanna, he is torn between his love for her and his love for the sea. And as the championships become more heated, they also become more dangerous.

As beautiful as the photography is — the film features location shooting in the French Antibes, the Greek Islands, Peru and Sicily — the plot's pretty silly and can't possibly sustain such a long running time.

On a similar note, the performances vary too wildly, with the low points including Barr's vacant, dopey grinning and Arquette's shrill whining, and the high point being yet another gruff but charming turn by Reno.

Also, the restored score (a ludicrously tinny soundtrack by Eric Serra) is hardly an improvement over the Bill Conti music that was tacked onto the original U.S. release of the film.

"The Big Blue" is rated R for occasional strong profanity, two fairly graphic simulated sex scenes, nudity (female and brief male frontal) and some crude sexual discussions. Running time: 163 minutes.

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