Alex Harrison

With nothing of substance to chew on, the only thing a (committed) viewer can do is strap in for the 90-minute runtime and wait to hear a tune they like - and hope that, once it's over, they emerge earworm-free.

The heart of the problem is The Monkey King makes its central character, whose story has been told and retold for hundreds of years, uninteresting. Without that spine to hold it together, everything collapses.

The only real saving grace is the cast, who end up guinea pigs in a test of how difficult it is to overcome underbaked material.

Damsel is a lifeless experience. The filmmakers have assembled all the constituent parts of an interesting fantasy adventure film — genre-bending premise, a starry cast, locations with character, and some creative creature design — but the connective tissue is paper-thin.

The dialogue is clunky and almost universally awkwardly performed, much more so than in the first movie. The tonal mix of horror and silliness feels more jarring than complementary, and the filmmaking, which could accomplish so much just by sticking to genre fundamentals, is often egregiously sedate.

The film is unable to sustain any tension and is seemingly afraid of its own potential for violence, despite gesturing toward the creative weapon choice that is practically a bar for entry into the slasher genre.