A historical superproduction in which style, aside from committee-made, widescreen tedium, is spectacularly absent.

The Revolution will not be televised, Gil Scott-Heron once sang. Nor should it be filmed, we might add -- at least not as a costume drama with stirring speeches, an inspirational love story and gloriously heroic military charges.

Earnest and studious to a fault. Rarely has a film about upheaval felt more like a textbook.

1911 meanders through its interminable two-hour running time with a collection of scenes that feel more like liner notes from a history book than an actual screenplay.