Jake Coyle

It’s a basic format that’s been trotted out for plenty of reboots before. But aside from its frequent stabs at self-referential comedy, “Scream” proceeds with a dull repetitiveness.

This limp, half-hearted, breezy remake makes some modest improvements. The film, directed by Calmatic, bounces to a hip-hop beat and the gameplay action is smoother. But the drop off in personality from that original trio is like going from the Lakers to the G-League.

It should surprise no one that a movie marketed with creepy smiling fans at MLB games might not actually have genuine concerns about pain and healing on its mind. But it still makes “Smile” a cynical and shallow piece of work unlikely to put a you-know-what on too many faces.

If Eastwood had extended the sensitivity it shows to Jewell to others, it might have been worth something more. Instead, it becomes just what it preaches against: a hatchet job.

All sequels and no originals make us all dull boys.

The vaguest hints of real-world intrigue only cast a pale light on the movie’s mostly lackluster comic chops and uninspired action sequences.

The tonal swings, not to mention the gloss that covers the whole enterprise, make “The Gorge” an intriguing but empty genre mash-up and streaming-only exercise.

All the pieces here are fine but nothing is distinct from dozens of films before it. You would swear that the movie’s star AI wrote it — and even gave itself first billing, too.

Rihanna voices Smurfette and supplies a new song, giving a half-hearted injection of star power to an otherwise uninspired, modestly scaled, kiddo-friendly cartoon feature.

It’s almost reassuring that in today’s often sanitized, assembly-line mainstream moviemaking that a film can be as crude, as off-brand and as bad as The Happytime Murders. Almost.