by MATTHEW HAYS

If you were one of those people who almost threw up during A Beautiful Mind, you weren't alone. That Opie and Richie Cunningham could take the Oscar over Robert Altman and David Lynch only added insult to injury for those of us in the glaringly-manipulative-and-maudlin-filmmaking-makes-us-nauseous camp.

Thus The Missing arrives with remarkable timing, reminding us that Ron Howard is good at some things - in this case, mindnumbingly silly, wafer-thin plotted, good-guy-versus-bad-guy stooooopid movies. Here, Opie takes the time machine back to 1885, the lawless West, where Cate Blanchett is a struggling mom. In early scenes, we see her estranged dad (Tommy Lee Jones) show up at the ranch, hoping to make amends. To no avail - Blanchett is packing some very nasty memories of dear old papa, ones that don't leave him in good stead. He exits, after it's suggested he do so at the end of a rifle.

But Blanchett is soon desperate for help when her teen daughter is kidnapped by a gang of natives who sell young women on the black market. Forging an uneasy alliance, the two head off, with another young daughter, in search of the kidnapped lass.

Howard certainly knows how to build suspense. And the man understands that children in peril are one of the best ways to manipulate an audience almost instantly (witness his previous Ransom). There's nothing particularly surprising here (I figured out the film's conclusion almost by the end of the opening credit sequence), but Blanchett and Jones are undeniably excellent together, and there are some sweaty-palm-inducing yeee-haw horseback chase sequences.

The Missing is given a strange (and clearly unintentional) kick by its casting of the teenaged kidnappee: played by actress Evan Rachel Wood, she bears an eerie resemblance to Elizabeth Smart, the kidnapped Mormon who was found months after her abduction, alive and well if a bit shaken.

Films like The Missing need twists like that. There's not much to it, after all - this is precisely what you'd expect from Howard. But Lord knows, it's fun if dumb - and there have been worse things projected on the big screen.

The Missing opens Wednesday, Nov. 26

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