Spike Lee proves time and again that he is a gifted director. His films shine with inspired camerawork, stunning sets and brilliant editing. Despite all of this, he always finds some way to alienate his audience.

Keeping with the trend of recent Spike Lee endeavors, “”Miracle at St. Anna”” manages to impress and disappoint at the same time. The story, painstakingly told through a nearly three-hour flashback, follows a troop of four WWII Buffalo Soldiers – special black soldier units used as little more than cannon fodder. Betrayed by negligent white officers (a predictable convention in a Lee film), the soldiers find themselves trapped behind enemy lines in Nazi-controlled Italy.

What results is a series of convoluted subplots involving an orphaned Italian boy with alleged supernatural powers, a stolen statue-head (also with supernatural powers), violent Italian rebels, an AWOL Nazi general, a love triangle, and lots of monologues about Jesus.

Like all of Lee’s films, “”Miracle”” is visually stunning – which is convenient, because you’ll spend a lot of time not paying attention to the story. The film runs almost three hours, and no amount of creative camerawork can excuse that. Lee sold himself short again, trying too hard to craft an epic, but delivering a cluster-bomb of subplots that is ultimately blitzkrieged by its own ambition.