Although it has been touted as the action thriller of the summer, Rising Sun ought to be titled Rising Snooze.

The film, a murder mystery/cop flick complete with the obligatory car chase, promises to be a powerhouse but falls short. The team of Wesley Snipes and Sean Connery could have lit up the screen. Instead, they are shackled with a script that fizzled and never get a grasp of their characters' identities --the two never live up to their potential.

Snipes plays Lieutenant Web Smith, a Los Angeles police officer who is called in to investigate the strangling death of an attractive young woman at a party at the L.A. office of a Japanese corporation.

Snipes, who last starred in the action film Passenger 57, tries to portray a brash American cop versed in Japanese culture. Unsure of his superiors' abilities and questioning the loyalty of his partner, Snipes' character ought to be more tortured and confused than the occasionally-angered persona that appears on screen.

Smith's partner, Detective John Connor (played by film veteran Sean Connery), has ties to Japan's industrial heartland that are emotional as well as financial. Connor lives above an L.A. warehouse, immerses himself in Japanese culture and frequently expounds on Japanese work relationships. Unfortunately, the script never fully fleshes out his years in Japan and fails to make use of the relationships that bind him. The end result: Connery's "mysterious" character only ends up boring the audience.

For that matter, so does the plot. Less than an hour into the film, the investigation's chief suspect, brash young Eddie Sakamura, offs himself during a high-speed car chase. With the investigation at a dead end, plot development screeches to a halt -- and the Junior Mints start looking incredibly interesting in comparison.

For the remainder of the film, the plot wanders through Smith and Connor's personal lives, introduces (and eliminates) a crooked senator and meanders into a segment on the Nakamoto Corporation's attempt to take over an American semiconductor firm. Throughout this little jaunt, the film loses its edge and degenerates into a B movie.

Although the film attempts to deal with touchy issues such as "Japan bashing," bribery and eavesdropping, the script brushes over these topics so lightly they appear as topical cameos. Again, the failures of the script doom moviegoers to a mediocre film.

Rising Sun had all the ingredients for a great film, but instead of a high-suspense journey through the Japanese corporate world, the film never makes it past several sex scenes (one involving sushi), a couple of fights and two car chases before it agonizingly drags to a close. Yawn.