THE CORPORATION

Thought-provoking doc.

Running time: 145 minutes. Not rated (some disturbing images).

At the Film Forum, Houston Street, west of Sixth Avenue.

MORE of an exhaustive thesis than a soapbox rant, the documentary “The Corporation” delivers its provocative message in the measured tones of a college professor – yet there’s no danger of falling asleep in this lecture.

Co-directors Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott, working from a script adapted by Joel Bakan from his book “The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power,” wrap their end-is-nigh warning in an entertaining package, and the coolheaded delivery increases its impact.

The film is presented almost like a corporate training video, with illustrations and breezy intertitles, overlaid by the soothing, melodious voice of narrator Mikela J. Mikael.

The central argument is that corporations, having taken over from the church, the monarchy and communism as the dominant institutions in our society, are corroding civilization with their ruthless devotion to the bottom line.

“It’s as if we created a doomsday machine in our quest for wealth and prosperity,” says one of the 40 people interviewed during the nearly 21/2-hour-long documentary.

The clever dramatic conceit of “The Corporation” centers on a bizarre interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment by which corporations co-opted

civil-rights laws to win the legal status of a “person.”

The filmmakers take this a step further by proposing that the prototypical corporation is a psychopath, with no moral compass and no capacity for guilt, and they use criteria employed by the FBI and the World Health Organization to confirm the diagnosis.

A cavalcade of case studies illustrate this alleged pathology – from Third World sweatshops and corporate collusion with Nazi Germany to water privatization, the patenting of living organisms and underhanded techniques used to market to kids.

A commodities trader excitedly recounts how he and his colleagues reacted to the Sept. 11 attacks: “Every trader will tell you that their first thought was, ‘Gold must be exploding!’ ”

The film takes care not to demonize individuals as much as thoroughly explore the way faceless corporations put profits before consideration of the social good and the health of the planet.

“The Corporation,” which won an audience award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, ends on a note of hope, best exemplified by the epiphany experienced by the CEO of Interface Carpets, the world’s largest carpet manufacturer.

“It dawned on me that [we were] plunderers,” he says, before outlining his company’s efforts to become totally sustainable by 2020.