Alithea, a professor and author based in London, is a “narratologist,” and she has fallen prey to an occupational hazard.

“I let my imagination get the best of me,” confesses Alithea, who is played with mousy, eccentric charm byTilda Swinton.Later, she says “I find feelings through stories.”

Indeed, stories are her sole focus, so much so that she has no room for normal human connections; her years-ago marriage has been reduced to a cardboard box in her basement, labeled “Jack” and “Fragile.” Even her hotel room has a story: When Alithea arrives in Istanbul for a lecture appearance, she is placed in the “Agatha Christie room” at the Pera Palace Hotel, where the author supposedly wrote“Murder on the Orient Express”in the early 1930s.

So it’s no surprise that when she frees a djinn (a.k.a. a genie) from a bottle and is granted three wishes, she’d rather hear his backstory than focus on her amazing opportunity. Djinn, who has taken the hulking form of伊德里斯Elba,is more than happy to oblige, and thus George Miller’s unique, ponderous fantasy “Three Thousand Years of Longing” is unleashed.

Miller — one of cinema’s most lovable weirdos, whose last film was“Mad Max: Fury Road”(2015) — has made a movie about the pleasure of storytelling, but pleasure comes at a premium. Much of the film takes place in that hotel room, where Djinn regales Alithea with his adventures over the eons with the Queen of Sheba (entrancing Ugandan actress Aamito Lagum), Prince Mustafa (Matteo Bocelli), the brutal son of the 16th century Ottoman ruler Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (Lachy Hulme); and his love affair with an imprisoned concubine (Burcu Gölgedar) whoseda Vinci-like brilliance is suppressed.

放心,可以考虑到钱gone to another superhero film, when a studio green-lights a visionary director’s flight of fancy — think Terry Gilliam’s “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” (1988), Darren Aronofsky’s“The Fountain”(2006) and Tarsem’s“The Fall”(2006).

But the trouble with “Three Thousand Years of Longing” is it’s just not that wondrous or interesting. Visually, it has its moments, such as a steamy voyeuristic love scene with the Queen of Sheba; or a bizarre pose with Alithea reclining against Djinn’s body, with a colored-in CGI look that suggests the cover of a Harlequin romance novel. Considering Miller essentially hadcarte blanche, his vision seemsbottled up.

Strangely, the strengths of the film aren’t its epic CGI sweep or celebration of mythmaking, but the performances of Swinton, who makes the most of an underwritten role, and Elba, who maximizes his imposing charisma.

At one point, Djinn observes, “We exist only if we are real to others.” But to be real to others, you have to be among other people. There’s more to life than just stories and really, Djinn and Alithea just need to get a life.

K“Three Thousand Years of Longing”:Fantasy. Starring Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba. Directed By George Miller. (R. 108 minutes.) StartsFriday, Aug. 26, at Bay Area theaters.