"Amelia" ** (out of four): Stiff biopic of the legendary flier skims the surface of her achievements but never quite takes off.

Amelia Earhart has been a source of fascination for nearly a century. If not for her numerous historic firsts (first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, first woman to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross, etc), then for her famous disappearance in 1937 en route around the world. She's been played on film before (most recently by Amy Adams in "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian"), was the subject of a 1976 TV-movie starring Susan Clark, and was even discovered in "cryo-stasis" by the crew of "Star Trek: Voyager". And now, over seventy years after her final fateful flight, she's been given a big budget biopic all her own in Mira Nair's stiff, unenlightening "Amelia".

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