"United 93" is the big movie of the moment, but will you see it?

It's one of the only movies in memory that may cause a crisis in conscience for some viewers. Can they bear to witness, as audience members, the experience of "United 93"?

This was the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania on its way, reportedly, to the U.S. Capitol on September 11, 2001. Brought down, it now appears, by the spontaneous effort of its trapped passengers and crew to avoid being used as part of a coordinated terrorist attack.

By almost all accounts, "United 93," which opens nationwise today, is one hell of a movie (The Seattle Times' Moira Macdonald gives it four stars). And it touches one of the rawest nerves in the national psyche.

Part of the question involves the timing. Is five years too soon? When is it appropriate to look back at 9/11 in any context other than emotional and historical?

I'm not a reviewer and haven't seen this latest work by Paul Greengrass, director of "Bloody Sunday" and "The Bourne Supremacy." But even the trailer — which was pulled by a theater complex in Manhattan after patron complaints — and the clips, both of which are available here and here are gut-clutching.

The film avoids windy platitudes, sticks to the facts so far as they are known or can be surmised and relies on unknown actors or, in several instances, non-actors who have worked in the airline industry or the federal aviation bureaucracy. The result, reviewers agree, is a verisimilitude that is unusual in any film and that is uniquely powerful in retelling a story so deeply embedded in the collective memory of an awful day.

Inescapably, "United 93" is a death trip. No one survives except bereaved relatives (who overwhelmingly cooperated with Greengrass and his crew in the making of the film). Still, the story has mythic elements. The passengers, ordinary people who bring themselves to act in extraordinary ways, failed to save their own lives, but may have saved others by preventing the plane from reaching its target.

So is it a movie you want to see? Maybe these snips will help you decide:

The screen went dark after the stomach-turning sequence showing the plane's nosedive. The theatre was silent, except for the gut-wrenching sobs and wails from the loge, where the relatives were seated together.

Moviegoers absorbed and shared their pain. Throughout the screening, they wept, drew sharp breaths, gasped and covered their faces with their hands. They shifted in their seats, sometimes to look back at the family section.

"You saw moviemaking and real life come together," said Jeffrey Sachs, a consultant from Manhattan who attended the premiere.

"It fills in the mystery of what happened."

Here are some observations from reviewers:

Sean Burns, Philadelphia Weekly:

At no point during "United 93" does it feel like you're watching a movie. It feels like you're there. And being there, I'm not surprised to say, is a truly terrible, dreadful feeling.

Time magazine:

Many people will certainly feel they're not ready to see the film. And that's fine. But it's honorable and artful as a re-creation of history, and as a film experience it's both unbearable and unmissable.

David Denby, The New Yorker:

A fair amount of distaste for this movie has been building in recent weeks. Would the heroic event—which ended when the plane crashed in Pennsylvania, killing everyone aboard—be exploited in some way? And why do we need to take this death trip? But "United 93" is a tremendous experience of fear, bewilderment, and resolution, and, when you replay the movie in your head afterward, you are likely to think that Greengrass made all the right choices. ...

Flight 93's departure, scheduled for 8 A.M., was delayed. By the time the plane got off the ground, the attacks on the World Trade Center were only a few minutes away. In the movie, once the flight is aloft Greengrass sticks to real time, and the passing minutes have an almost demonic urgency. This is true existential filmmaking: there is only the next instant, and the one after that, and what are you going to do? Many films whip up tension with cunning and manipulation. As far as possible, this movie plays it straight. A few people made extraordinary use of those tormented minutes, and "United 93" fully honors what was original and spontaneous and brave in their refusal to go quietly.

Moira Macdonald, The Seattle Times:

In its late scenes, the tragedy on the plane becomes chaotic, as does the filmmaking — the camera lurches, the words shrieked by the terrorists fly by without recognition. But little moments of quiet register in the madness, particularly the telephone calls to loved ones during the terror, so heartbreaking you can barely listen. "You believe me, don't you, Mom?" says a young man.

It's completely understandable that many may not wish to see "United 93" — or might question why it even was made. But for all its shock value, it is never exploitative, and it has something important to say. When I walked out of the dark theater early this week and back into the ordinariness of my own life, blinking away tears in the bright sunshine, it felt like a gift. If "United 93" helps us to honor what has gone and to appreciate what is still with us, then it's done more than most movies ever will.

As for me, I'll pass. At least for now. I turned on my tube on Sept. 11 just a few minutes after American Flight 11 slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. All was confusion. No one could figure out what was happening, except that it was desperately bad. And it got much worse. Suddenly, the North Tower was gone. The South Tower was hit. The Pentagon. Later, we heard about United 93. It was a wretched day. I lived 9/11 once and have no desire, right now at least, to relive part of it again through this movie. I may watch it someday. But for now,I guess I'm one of those for whom it's "too soon." Whatever that means.