Instead of arresting a downward-spiralling career, No Such Thing, Hal Hartley's new movie and latest folly, demonstrates what happens to an iconoclastic filmmaker when he neglects his instinctive talent for small, quirky, offbeat films and decides to go uproariously big. Indeed, a name cast that includes Julie Christie, Helen Mirren, and Sarah Polley, and a larger budget that allows for landscape shooting and special effects, prove of no help in this laborious postmodern reworking of such classic fairy tales as Beauty of the Beast, Frankenstein, King Kong, and the Monster films a la Godzilla and Mothra, among others.