The chief problem with "Gorillas in the Mist" is that it banalizes its heroine; it turns her into one of us. And by all accounts Fossey was anything but ordinary.... The chief problem with "Gorillas in the Mist" is that it banalizes its heroine; it turns her into one of us.... "Gorillas in the Mist" isn't a terrible film, but it is a frustrating one, and you can't help but feel betrayed by how the filmmakers have served their subject. It's watchable, certainly, and whenever the cameras turn on the gorillas -- who are the film's true stars -- you feel you're witnessing something truly great. But the movie's small-mindedness squeezes the enthusiasm out of you. Just when you want it to deliver on its promise, it trashes itself.

Like Katharine Hepburn, who might well have played this part if Dian Fossey had lived earlier, Miss Weaver was made for such a role. ''Gorillas in the Mist,'' which opens today at the Beekman, is the story of Miss Fossey's extraordinary exploits among the mountain gorillas that she studied for 18 years. It's a story of stirring and unusual heroism, though not one of many surprises. Indeed, though there is no set formula for films about mountain gorillas, the satisfying and largely unremarkable progress of this one suggests that such a thing might be possible.

Fossey is played by Sigourney Weaver, who makes her passionate and private and has an exquisite tenderness and tact in her delicate scenes with wild animals. It is impossible to imagine a more appropriate choice for the role. But she grows away from us as the movie reaches its conclusion. A woman we have come to know turns into a stranger, and even if that is what happened to Fossey - even if she did pull a cocoon of obsession around her - we deserve to see that happening, and to understand it. The screenplay simply presents it as an accomplished fact....I left "Gorillas in the Mist" feeling cheated, somehow, as if the story had no more insight into Fossey than she apparently had into herself.