LIFE IN THE LOW-'RENT' DISTRICT.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

THOSE WHO JUST love the Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical ``Rent'' ought to be satisfied with the movie version. After all, six original cast members of the late Jonathan Larson's ``La Boheme'' update reprise their roles in the film, and dishy Rosario Dawson is a perfect addition as the movie's Mimi.

Those a little less enamored of the sometimes dated and bombastic AIDS musical, along with many who come to the picture cold, also should be impressed by the powerful singing and superb dancing on display.

If you have any appreciation for the art of the movie musical, however, ``Rent'' is pretty much a washout.

Directed by Chris Columbus, whose thorough lack of cinematic style has made him a fortune on commercial commodities that didn't require any (``Home Alone,'' ``Mrs. Doubtfire,'' the first two ``Harry Potters''), this movie is deprived of the one crucial element the genre depends upon. Even last year's dreadfully overwrought ``Phantom of the Opera'' rendered its production numbers with style. Bad style, but effective on a primal, sensuous level nonetheless.

To compare with another questionable recent musical, let's give Columbus credit for good intentions by not turning his movie into an MTV-style editing frenzy like ``Chicago.'' Much as I despise that quick-cutting, choreography-destroying aesthetic, it sold the musical numbers better than Columbus' wide-angle, long-take approach does here. The difference is, the editing of ``Chicago'' was at least in sync with the rhythms of the music and movements. ``Rent's'' simplistic Steadicam and crane shots and unmotivated cuts feel out of time with the faster, livelier sound and action.

This has the effect of leaving the talented troupe working their hearts out for muted effect. What was director of photography Stephen Goldblatt thinking? Or prevented from doing? He did brilliant work on Mike Nichols' adaptation of that real masterpiece of early AIDS-era theater, ``Angels in America.''

Half the characters in ``Rent'' are HIV positive. They're mostly starving artists of some sort, squatting in a Lower Manhattan tenement in the late 1980s, and generally trying to get as much love, creativity and meaning out of life as they can before it's too late.

Returning players include Taye Diggs as the yuppie turncoat Bennie, Wilson Jermaine Heredia as big-hearted transvestite Angel, ``Law & Order's'' Jesse L. Martin as Angel's boyfriend Tom Collins, Idina Menzel as flirty performance artist Maureen, Anthony Rapp as her pining ex-boyfriend and aspiring filmmaker Mark, and Adam Pascal as Roger, the grieving, burned-out rocker and junkie stripper Mimi's reluctant lover. The other excellent new addition, Tracie Thoms, is terrific as Joanne.

Perhaps the one really nicely staged production number here is ``Tango Maureen.'' But that's probably the hardest one to blow in a movie. Also, the funeral reprise of ``I'll Cover You'' can't help but move. But when everybody goes ape on ``La Vie Boheme,'' the piece's midpoint declaration of pseudo-subversive independence, it's clear that the most bankable exponent of mainstream Hollywood conformity was not the natural choice to direct this movie.

True to form, Columbus has rocked-up some of the numbers into power ballads the Michael Boltons of the world might appreciate. The director's one wise change was to dial down the piece from opera to operetta. The film's numerous sequences in which characters stand around lip-syncing to their prerecorded singing tracks look distractingly artificial enough. That's always been a tough sell in movie musicals, so it's a good thing that a lot of the exposition is just spoken now.

But maybe the whole thing could have been sung. If only ``Rent'' had been made by someone who knew how to make a movie sing.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

RENT - Two and one half stars

(PG-13: drug use, nudity, violence, language)

Starring: Rosario Dawson, Taye Diggs, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Jesse L. Martin, Idina Menzel, Adam Pascal, Anthony Rapp, Tracie Thoms.

Director: Chris Columbus.

Running time: 2 hr. 8 min.

Playing: In wide release.

In a nutshell: That AIDS musical, performed by many of the talented original cast members, directed by a guy who doesn't know the first thing about coordinating camera work to music and movement.

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Idina Menzel reprises her stage role as performance artist Maureen in the new film ``Rent.''