Panic Room

All too quickly, David Fincher’s adrenalized, characteristically gruesome thriller, about a wealthy, divorced woman (Jodie Foster) and her daughter (Kristen Stewart) hiding out from a trio of trespassers in the secret lockdown room of their Manhattan town house, abandons the interesting premise of New York City urban threat for an average, violent cat-and-mouse game. The three intruders arrive with personalities as broad as vaudeville, while Foster’s character changes from intriguing, uptight divorcee to generic gonna-make-it-after-all woman who can swing a mean mallet in self-defense. C+