A quirky and intermittently interesting period drama about the 16th-century humanitarian doctor and involuntary prophet who allegedly foretold, among other things, the French Revolution, the rise and fall of the British Empire, World War I and World War II, Hitler, the John F. Kennedy assassination, and the moon landing (though whether he also foretold black-and-white newreels and TV documentary footage, complete with the right camera angles, as this film implies, is something else again). Working from an OK script by Knut Boeser and Piers Ashworth, director Roger Christian, a former art director, does a good job of holding one’s interest without insulting one’s intelligence, and the performancesincluding Tcheky Karyo as Nostradamus, Amanda Plummer as Catherine de Medicis, and Julia Ormond, Assumpta Serna, Rutger Hauer, and F. Murray Abrahamare all serviceable. (JR)