NOT MUCH `GLIMMER' IN THIS ACTION MOVIE.

Byline: Lawrence Van Gelder The New York Times

Chemistry project: Take the powdered contents of a small box of Jell-O. Add water.

The volatility of the reaction will give you some idea of the excitement generated by the teaming of Steven Seagal and Keenen Ivory Wayans in ``The Glimmer Man.''

Short on suspense, routine in its action and monotonous in its performances, this movie opened Friday without benefit of press screenings, usually a sign that the distributors have detected cinematic rigor mortis before audiences formally withdraw such life support systems as tickets, popcorn and the glucose drip of spilled Coke.

John Gray directs ``The Glimmer Man,'' which features Seagal and Wayans as police detectives in a Los Angeles plagued by serial killings attributed to a maniac who crucifies his victims after shooting them.

As Jack Cole, Seagal is an import from New York, which marks him as weird to begin with. To compound matters, Cole affects black Mao jackets accessorized with Tibetan prayer beads, wears his hair in a ponytail and professes a Buddhist devotion to nonviolence, although he carries a credit card with a snap-out razor blade. Spiritual perfection is no easy achievement.

So plenty of bad guys in ``The Glimmer Man'' are left with fractured limbs and bloodied faces. In Cole's final confrontation with the assassin who has murdered his ex-wife, he administers a pulping worthy of Tropicana before leaving him impaled on some wrought-iron decor.

Jack Cole is certainly a piece of work, if the work under consideration is the concoction of helium-filled action heroes. With a shady background in Vietnam, where he earned the nickname the Glimmer Man for his exploits as a CIA killer before he ``went native,'' as his old boss says, Cole speaks Chinese and Russian.

And when asked to undergo a lie detector test after he becomes a suspect in his ex-wife's slaying, Jack modestly answers yes when the technician, trying to establish a benchmark for honesty, begins the interrogation by asking: ``Have you ever climbed Mount Everest?''

If Cole weighs in as an oxymoronic peaceful man of action, Wayans as his partner, Jim Campbell, adds up to a couch potato, given to weeping his way through old movies like ``Casablanca'' and exhibiting about as much zest for the chase as a one-legged dog.

So it is up to Jack, with his world vision, to suspect that while there is indeed a serial killer at work, some professionals are carrying out copycat murders to cover their own nefarious schemes, which involve an obnoxious local big shot, the Russian mafia and a plan to sell smuggled chemical weapons to Serbian terrorists.

Campbell is right about those old movies.

The facts

The film: ``The Glimmer Man'' (R; grotesque murders, nude corpses, violence).

The stars: Steven Seagal, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Bob Gunton, Brian Cox and Michelle Johnson.

Behind the scenes: Directed by John Gray. Written by Kevin Brodbin. Produced by Steven Seagal and Julius R. Nasso. Released by Warner Bros.

Running time: One hour, 40 minutes.

Playing: Citywide.

Our rating: two stars.

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Photo

Photo: Steven Seagal, left, and Keenen Ivory Wayans try tostem an ugly killing spree in ``The Glimmer Man.''