Bruce Ingram

The only real problem with Black Out, which plays like a cross between “The Hangover” and “Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels”-era Guy Ritchie, is that it’s naggingly over-familiar.

The Smurfs 2 probably isn’t any worse than you might expect. On the other hand, it’s almost certainly not any better. It’s just a matter of figuring out how much punishment you’re willing to endure for the sake of the small child you’re taking to the movies.

Patton lightens the aggravation, for the most part, by combining a likable presence with a knack for physical comedy and a willingness to hop into dumpsters, etc., as needed, making the most of the script’s meager opportunities for comedy.

Everything chugs along briskly and reasonably entertainingly until running off the rails a bit with a wildly overcomplicated finale.

A dull collection of unlikable, paper-thin characters, all of them stuck in a story that has nowhere interesting to go.

The point of the exercise, it seems, is to trap four seemingly decent people, all more or less friends, in a dark, claustrophobic, pressure-cooker environment to see how they respond to the threat of imminent death — or worse. Spoiler alert: human nature doesn’t get a thumbs-up in this one.