Movie Nation

It has eye-popping special effects and a true larger-than-life villain.

“X-Men: Apocalypse,” is actually about something, with the intramural/intra-mutant quarrel built on a reality that the shoe-horned in fight in the blockbuster “Captain America: Civil War”lacks.

The violence has consequences. Blood is spilled, and people die.

And it has, for the most part, better actors — James McAvoy, the tormented and empathetic Micheal Fassbender, Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence and the omnipresent Oscar Isaac’s jawline and furrowed brow  are visible under the makeup and effects as that villain.

With Bryan Singer back behind the camera, the action beats are meaty and the odd lump-in-the-throat is possible as the story sums up so much of what we’ve learned about these characters, who have survived brawls, betrayals, discrimination, the Holocaust and the Atomic bombing of Japan between them.

But the epic effects, titanic struggles timed out every 30 minutes or so and ever-growing, ever-evolving line-up of characters of “Apocalypse,” coming hot on the heels of “Civil War” and “Batman v. Superman” and “Deadpool,” underline the exhausted ingredients of the formula these movies all use. So many movies, so many mutants, with filmmakers straining to find something new to do with them, and watching them try too hard is wearying. They’re joyless technical exercises, as predictable as a video game.

It’s 1983, and Xavier (McAvoy) is happily running his school for the “gifted” (mutants). Magneto (Fassbender) has been in hiding since trying to overthrow the government back in ’73. He’s sweating away in a steelworks in Poland, married with a little girl.

Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) is every schoolkid’s heroine after besting Magneto a decade before. But she’s keeping a low profile through the ’80s her own self.

Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan) is discovering he’s just as “special” as his brother, Alex, aka Havok (Lucas), and maybe an ordinary high school isn’t for a guy whose eyes can burn through steel.

The lightning-quick Peter Maximoff (Evan Peters) figures it’s time to leave home and show his stuff.

There’s an underground world of mutant cage-fighters in Berlin and a cult dedicated to this long-gone mutant in Egypt. And that cult may get its wish if En Sabah Nur, the Original mutant (Oscar Isaac) comes back from the dead and fulfills his dream of remaking, “cleansing” and ruling the world.

Puny humans have no prayer against the First X-Man. Might the other X-Men have a shot?

This finale to the “prequels” sees Xavier finish rounding up the technology we saw in the original trilogy, and hears McAvoy sound a LOT more like Original Xavier Patrick Stewart in the role.

Xavier preaches “hope” and cautions that every gift can sometimes be considered “a curse.” Especially the most special gifts of all — reading minds, moving objects with your brain, shooting fire out of your eyes and what not.

And the junior mutants learn this lesson the hard way.

The most interesting new character is Quicksilver (Evan Peters), and Singer shows off the best stop-time effects the movies have ever seen as he dashes in to save others in less than a blink of an eye. He gets a his own showcase scene set to ’80s Eurythmics pop.

Least interesting is Psylocke, mostly due to the fetching Olivia Munn’s lack of comfort in her skimpy costume and the elbow-length gloves that confuse her about what to do with her hands.

The most fascinating continuing character is Magneto — Holocaust survivor, given to switching sides and turning on humans because he’s seen the worst the human race has to offer. He’s the most motivated villain these movies have produced.

The coolest character? You know who that is, and can only hope he skips that barber’s appointment and makes an appearance.

Fassbender makes us feel things in ways nobody in the “Avengers” universe seems inclined to try. McAvoy, too, gives his character heart and motivation.

But Lawrence’s disengagement as an actress in her two past-their-expiration-date franchises (“Hunger Games” and X-Men) has been obvious in her performances. She has a “big speech” in this just as she did in the last “Hunger Games,” and she never looks more like a gawky teen than when she’s supposed to be commanding.

Isaac is mostly lost under prosthetics and effects.

“Who rules this world?” he growls, upon awakening to the sight of “$25,000 Pyramid” and “Knight Rider” on TV, ’80s haircuts and Atari and “Six Million Dollar Man” T-shirts.

The attempts at humor don’t have the light touch of the best “Avengers” pictures. Singer and the script and the newby characters try too hard.

Take away “Deadpool’s” self-referential sarcasm and the genuine gloom “Batman” still conjures up, and one is hard-pressed to think of anything novel any of these movies have brought to the medium or the comic book popcorn picture this year.

Box office numbers don’t back this up, but could 2016 be the year we finally overdose on comic book movies? The staggering ticket sales have producers all sure they’ve found the foolproof formula for a blockbuster — Lots of special people, The More Mutants the Merrier — wisecracking and brawling with one another.

But it’s getting to be enough, already. And when the end comes, studio executives, unlike our favorite mutants, are not clairvoyants. They’re killing the golden goose. And when it dies, they’ll never see it coming.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sequences of violence, action and destruction, brief strong language and some suggestive images

Cast: James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, Oscar Isaac, Rose Byrne, Olivia Munn, Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, Nicholas Hoult
Credits: Directed by Bryan Singer, script by Simon Kenberg. A Fox/Marvel Studios release.

Running time: 2:23

The actual opening number, from Deadline.com’s reported studio estimates early Sat. am, is around $180 million. That’s better than “Iron Man 3” but still not as good as four other popcorn picture opening weekends.

“Star Wars: The Force Awakens,”  “Jurassic World,” just as much a remake as “Force Awakens,” “The Age of Ultron” (Remember the “Transformers?” Oh, were we ever that young?) outperformed it.

By the way, “The Avengers” was also in that list.

Could be as low as $174, as high as $182, based on how Saturday and Sunday shake out.

Good reviews, overall. It’s a 3D movie (pricier tickets) and on over 4200 screens.

And they opened it Thursday night, giving it a $25 million head start.

It’ll still open $26 million below the all-time best “Avengers” era opening weekend, which should be sobering to all the studios competing to get comic book adaptations out the door in the same limited release window. These things have a ceiling, a finite box office appeal. And even if guys-in-tights fatigue doesn’t seem to be setting in, there’s only so much they can wring out of them, even at inflated 3D prices.

Also of note on this week’s charts, “Mother’s Day” is holding its audience from last weekend. Not setting the world on fire, but Garry Marshall & Co. will have gotten a passable two weeks out of it by the time it fades. $30 million take, by the end, is all it’ll manage. It will have cleared $21 million by Monday AM.

“Keanu” is officially a complete bust, flopping on opening weekend, losing 70% of its audience the second. Key, say goodbye to Peele.

“Batman v. Superman” have both cried all the way to the bank — weak reviews, and they’ll hit the $335 million mark by the time they lose all their screens (next week).

Tina Fey never gave Katrina Bowden much to say or do on her TV show, “30 Rock.” All Cerie, her character, had to do was waltz on screen in some tight, revealing outfit, and Bowden’s work was done. Jaws dropped and clocks stopped.

Fey’s approach was, “Fair is fair. She was dealt a full-house, looks-wise. Why add to that stacked, um, deck, by letting her act?”

So it takes a little getting used to, Bowden acting impulsive, doling out advice to teens as a stripper-with-a-heart-of-gold in “Hard Sell.” She’s not bad, and neither is the movie, even if they’re both overly reliant on her other already-established assets.

Writer-director Sean Nalaboff has tried to cook up a “Risky Business” for a much MUCH more politically-correct era. No way you’d be able to remake the film that launched Tom Cruise and Rebecca DeMornay to stardom. A rich teenager acts as pimp for a hooker he hires to entertain his peers? Come on. Mothers Against…something would be up in arms.

The PC version has Hardy Buchanan (Skylar Gisondo, of “Vacation”) as a working class kid living with his mentally-broken mother (Kristin Chenoweth), wondering how he’s going to get into a good college, pay for a good college or finance the cancer operation on the family dog, the only thing keeping Mom going.

“I could’ve SWORN I made dinner!”

Never mind how this unemployed Long Island mom keeps her boy in Spirit Academy, where the preppies come to play.

A bit of extra-curricular volunteer work at a homeless shelter is how Hardy meets “Bo” (Bowden). He says the obvious, as if that makes us forget how much the entire set-up strains credulity.

She is “WAY too hot to be in your position.”

Bo is a stripper with “stage fright.” Funny, because we’ve seen her flee a mental hospital in that backless gowns that do nobody (save her) justice in the film’s opening scene.

Bo is casual by nature, and a little off. His horny teen peers gawk at her, she flashes them for cash and a lightbulb pops on in Hardy’s head. She’ll overcome her “stage fright” by taking off her top, for cash, in the boy’s locker room. And that’s just for starters.

Next thing you know, Hardy is full-on pimping the woman out to country club kids who need a date to the dance.

“No touching. No photos.”

That goes for Hardy himself, who doesn’t merit so much as a “You have GOT To be kidding” when he talks about coming on to Bo. That dispenses with the pity sex/pity striptease dilemma.

Another tricky dilemma to navigate — Hardy knows that she’s a bit mental. “All the women in my life are crazy.” He’s taking advantage of a gorgeous crazy woman.

The twist in the story is Bo’s sympathetic ear for all manner of high school angst — pressure from parents about college, about dating “the right person,” about sexual preference. There’s nothing here to suggest she has the wisdom to be dispensing advice, but she does. You either go with it or you don’t.

“Kids are like penguins — always lookin’ for a place to chill!”

More promising is the “Ferris Bueller” turn the story could take, at any minute, thanks to Hardy’s friendship with the disaffected Goth he keeps running into in the school infirmary. (Each is using up excuses to get out of class/tests, etc.)

Hannah Marks of TV’s “Awkward” is beguiling in that ethnic girl-next-door Hollywood way. And Gisondo is a competent leading boy/man, if little more.

Chenoweth dials down her bubbly musical theater persona to play depressed and smaller-than life.

But this “Risky Business” is averse to risk. There’s no edge to it. Only the sentimental stuff works.

The clumsy, makeshift, steer-clear-of-trouble plot forces us to reckon with the leading lady. And Bowden is simply not up to the heavy lifting.

She’s more than “30 Rock” ever let her be, but not by much, judging from “Hard Sell.”

MPAA Rating: unrated, with adult situations, pot use and profanity

Cast: Skylar Gisondo, Katrina Bowden, Kristin Chenoweth, Hannah Marks
Credits: Written and directed by Sean Nalaboff. A Momentum release.

Running time: 1:36

The reviews of “Captain America: Civil War,” have been overwhelmingly positive. Many are raves.

Just like the reviews of “Barbershop: The Next Cut,” or “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”

I’ve been in that tiny minority, on all three occasions, shouting “Wait, this isn’t all that” or “this is crap” into the infinite void.

But at least I haven’t been alone. Movies have changed, Marvel has moved into mass production, a comic-book assembly line stretching out into the foreseeable future.

And the disappearance of so many legacy media critics has tilted reviewing in a new direction. Let’s call it, “Lie back and think of England.” Because that’s what it feels like, a lot of people sort of rolling over for this or that sure-to-be-blockbuster (“Barbershop” had many media entities sending their C-reviewers, which still doesn’t explain why Johnny and Jane have no taste. Or guts.).

Doesn’t matter that given just a tiny bit of time, fans and critics stop huffing whatever it is they’re inhaling and REALIZE what a more diverse cast but still inferior carbon copy of “Star Wars: A New Hope” “The Force Awakens” actually is.

Because it takes a certain nerve to endure the abuse you know you’re going to get from fanboys (it’s always the boys who’re the ugliest) when you pan a movie that’s set to become a temporary “phenomenon.”

Overwhelmingly positive reviews for “Captain America: Civil War,” which doesn’t deserve to be in the same conversation as “Captain America: The First Avenger,” or “Deadpool.” Not that the fanboys want to hear that. It’s not cinematic, the action is repetitive obviously sped-up to make movie stars look like superhuman superfighters and the script, not even bothering to ID this villain or that hottie in the short skirt and knee-highs, is strictly needs-based, as in “We need to invent a reason for these guys to fight. Doesn’t matter if anybody buys into it. It just needs to happen.”

Cynical. Marvel is watering down its brand while the brand is still platinum. 

Everybody in the Marvel universe (not even close) shows up in this one. But mention Ant Man, and some nerd from Puerto Rico is cussing you out for “spoilers.” Dude, it’s in the art the studio provided for the movie. See above.

Shakespeare brought back a crowd favorite, Falstaff, to make his “Merry Wives of Windsor” a surefire hit. More recently, Hollywood TV producers and film moguls have encouraged crossover mashups to draw a crowd. It’s an idea they borrowed from the comics of the ’60s.

Special editions, or “Let’s make a boatload of money off our fans by giving them the team-ups they wanted” invaded the DC and Marvel titles, seemingly when they’d run out of other ideas and villains worth fighting.

So it is with the Avengers movies, and “Batman v. Superman.” They’re stealing some of the X-Men thunder, in the process. But at least those came to big screen life in that form — the more “mutants/enhanced beings” the better. More and more tickets sold, enthusiasm only grows.

I sat in the theater Tuesday, knowing that overseas reviewers and a few domestic fanboy critics had creamed their jeans over it. And up until the Battle Royale, I was scribbling in my notepad, “They’re all worked up over THIS?”

Just bandwagoning, I figured.

“Civil War” has already opened huge, overseas. That “America” brand has value everywhere, even among the Godless communists and third of the world that hates us. Go figure.

The Box Office Guru figures Marvel and its Disney overlords will pocket $185 million by midnight Sunday. That might be low.

Nothing else of note is opening wide, nothing else in theaters is going to make a dime.

And then the younger X-Men show up.

Let the summer comic book takeover begin.

There’s a “for fans only” feel to the latest “Avengers” movie, “Captain America: Civil War.”

A talky, often ponderous exercise in comic book movie elephantiasis, it overdoses on characters, old and new, sometimes not even bothering to name them.

The script has a villain with a point of view and motivation, though the “Civil War” of the title seems more a plot necessity than anything anyone thrown into conflict on screen actually believes in. And the villain is nobody we can sink our teeth into.

The film lacks Joss Whedon’s light touch with that script, Jon Favreau’s whimsical way with the characters or Joe Johnson’s lump-in-the-throat pathos behind the camera.

And there’s something unsavory about the absence of fanboy punching bag Pepper Potts, more precisely the actress playing her (Gwyneth Paltrow). She’s kicked out of Iron Man’s life in a manner that screams “pandering” or at least “market research.”

“We’re on a break!”

That said, “Civil War” makes for a watchable parable about infighting, hubris and all-powerful “enhanced” personalities who never ever can admit they were wrong. It’s about the limits to absolute power and the consequences of “avenging.”

A parable of America in the drone era of the endless “War on Terror”? Yeah, maybe. A Marvel riff on “The Incredibles”? Most certainly.

The “Winter Soldier” (Sebastian Stan) is still out there, Hydra’s last assassin, and is supposedly behind a bombing at a U.N. meeting. Captain America (Chris Evans) alone is sure his former childhood pal has been set up.

Bureaucrats (William Hurt, Martin Freeman) are all about reining in The Avengers, whose brawls have been cool to watch, but with a body-count and collateral damage only now being brought into question. Iron Man Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and War Machine (Don Cheadle) are reluctantly willing to accept some limits and responsibility for their “very public mistakes.”

Cap and Falcon (Anthony Mackie) and the unidentified Scarlet Witch (tarted up Elizabeth Olsen) are too high-handed for that. Their sense of certitude has them hunting for answers.

And this African prince (the wonderful Chadwick Boseman of “42”) resolves to don his own “enhanced” superhero suit (Black Panther) to avenge his father’s murder in that U.N. bombing, with or without help.

Meanwhile, this odd Putin-esque presence (Daniel Bruhl of “Rush”) is piecing together old Hydra manuals, digging into the Soviet-linked work that led to The Winter Soldier, pulling the strings.

“I want to see an Empire fall.”

Flashbacks foreshadow where the past — a younger (digitally de-aged Downey) Stark recalls his last conversation with his parents (Hope Davis, John Slattery) — ties into the present. We bounce from Vienna to Berlin, Washington to Cleveland, with every city ID’d with huge, portentous titles.

“CLEVELAND.”

All of which brings the SuperFriends, um, Avengers, to a breaking point, a “Whose side are you on?” rupture.

And that’s where “Civil War” finally finds its sense of fun, dragging in much of the rest of the Marvel universe so that they can all fight it out. Iron Man summons up his Marvel favorites. Captain America has his own superheroes up his sleeve.

Co-directors Anthony and Joe Russo are no better at comedy than they were back with “You, Me and Dupree.” The film’s pacing is slow, thanks mostly to a script that has all these waypoints to hit to reach its title-decreed destination. It takes a good hour and a half to really get going, not that there aren’t a few (action sped-up) fights and chases before then.

They’ve made a film claiming life-or-death consequences for uses of force (Alfre Woodard is given half-a-scene to make that point), without the guts to deliver those consequences. They’ve introduced a villain with a real Magneto-sized beef with the world, but the script and Bruhl never let us see that.

They’ve split up the Avengers with no more thought than they gave the other bone they tossed the fanboys with the removal of the GOOP gal.

“We’re on a BREAK.”

As shown by “Batman v. Superman”and earlier “Avengers,” comic book movies have morphed into the ensemble era with a sense of their own gravitas, with screenwriters determined to freight them with analogies to the state of America and the world. It works here about as well as it did with the Bat and the Man of Steel. Only this series — A”Captain America” movie without the heart, or an “Avengers” movie without the comic sizzle? — strains to find its footing in either tone.

What might be lost without a Whedon, Favreau, Johnson or others of like mind, is a sense of fun, the real marvel of Marvel. And if you’re not having fun with guys and gals in tights and capes, what is the point?

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Cast: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Anthony Mackie, Elisabeth Olsen, Don Cheadle, Daniel Bruhl, William Hurt, Paul Bettany and Chadwick Boseman.
Credits: Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. A Marvel Studios release.

Running time: 2:26

As much as we all love “discovering” fresh, new talent, there’s something to be said for casting your film with, if you can, movie stars.

They understand, perhaps intuitively, something about the camera, how to leap through the lens, make us forget every other role they’ve played and connect.

Movie star moments light up the otherwise drab ensemble melodrama “Mothers and Daughters,” a soapy serial about a wide range of somewhat inter-connected mothers and daughters and how they relate.

Mira Sorvino, playing a designer of “haute couture brassieres,” will make you a little moist-eyed.

And Susan Sarandon, as a mom still supporting the daughter who can’t be bothered to visit home, will stick with you for laying a little mother-daughter wisdom on us all.

“I needed to have you to teach me to be a daughter to MY mother.”

Christina Ricci and Courteney Cox have too few scenes to make an impact, Sharon Stone, Eva Amurri Martino, Alexandra Daniels and Selma Blair play assorted mothers and daughters (and both) in the film, which covers a lot of variations on motherhood/daughterhood in its 91 minutes.

One woman has just found out she wasn’t raised by her mother, and that her “sister” isn’t exactly her sister. That sister is dealing with some big-time guilt.

Another is living off mom’s cash, supporting her cupcake chef-to-be boyfriend but keeping mom at a distance for some long-ago offense.

Another mother is trying to figure out why her Princeton-educated daughter is waiting tables. That daughter is coping with a dying friend.

One is about to meet the daughter she gave up for adoption long before.

And one woman’s a careerist who discovers she’s pregnant and has to decide what to do.

Paige Cameron’s script attracted two Oscar winners and some pretty big names, but director Paul Duddridge (TV’s “McKenna”) delivers a movie that emotionally flatlines through this material.

Every intersection had the characters take the road more soapy — terminal illnesses, terminal grievances, sexy OB-GYNs, an “abortion” choice that the movies long ago lost the courage to make.

The stories don’t give any of the mother-daughter pairings enough screen time. Cox looks as if she needed a few more weeks off for whatever procedure that’s frozen/deadened her facial muscles to wear off. She looks like a “Real Housewife,” with the plastic to prove it. It’s worth mentioning because it’s distracting enough to make you wince.

Ricci, Sorvino and Blair have been criminally under-employed for years. But there’s little here to make Hollywood make amends for that.

There’s one funny line — “You’re a straight guy who wants to sell pastries in lower Manhattan. Not exactly a slam-dunk.”

Otherwise, “Mothers and Daughters” is drabness on the screen personified, a “Lifetime Original Movie” too unoriginal for Lifetime to want anything to do with it.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some mature thematic elements and brief drug use

Cast: Selma Blair, Susan Sarandon, Mira Sorvino, Christina Ricci, Sharon Stone, Courteney Cox, Eva Amurri Martino
Credits: Directed by Paul Duddridge, script by Paige Cameron. A Screen Media release.

Running time: 1:31

Suspension of disbelief is maybe the most important ingredient in drama — on film, stage or TV. We need to believe the characters, the situations, in order to empathize with those characters and lose ourselves in the story.

That one most important building block is missing from the frankly half-arsed Ricky Gervais farce, a “Netflix Original Movie” “Special Correspondents.”

Never, for one moment, does anything in this resemble radio news reporting the way it is now or has ever been. Gervais plainly did zero homework.

Never for one moment to we believe the swaggering rogue reporter at an obscenely-over-equipped New York station. We don’t believe Eric Bana is a reporter. We don’t believe this operation, which includes the given-nothing-to-do co-stars Kevin Pollack and Kelly Macdonald.

We might be almost amused by the caricatured Latino restaurant owners played by America Ferrara and Raul Castillo. But we don’t believe them, either.

It’s all a lie, a joke with a feeble set-up and pathetic thud of a payoff. What’s hardest to believe is that Gervais kept his name on this abortion. But excising it would have been tricky.

Writer-director-co-star Gervais, playing a loser-producer who loses his and his reporter’s tickets and passports to a war zone, decides to “fake” going to Ecuador, using “sound environments” (sound effects) to pretend to be in a tropical war zone. Bana’s star reporter character, wanting to save his job, goes along with it.

“You need to grow a pair,” Frank Bonneville (Bana) snaps.

“What, breasts?” poor Ian, whose wife has just left him, asks.

That’s the caliber of jokes here. Perhaps Gervais needed a beer or three (Golden Globes hosting) or to script this the way he writes those burning, pithy tweets that light up the Internet.

Ian and Frank hole up in their favorite Mexican restaurant. They get the owners to shout things in Spanish in the background of jungle birds, gunfire and helicopters sound effects Ian conjures up.

“Real Madrid!” “Julio Iglesias!”

Amazingly, knowing little about the country, and not having anyone on scene in INTERVIEW — that magic thing that radio and sometimes TV reporters do to PROVE they’re in a place and actually REPORTING there — their boss (Pollack) buys into it.

So they get bolder, inventing facts that no one actually there (Benjamin Bratt plays a TV reporter) can easily disprove.

Vera Farmiga plays Ian’s wife and has a delightfuly snappy flirtation/seduction with Bonneville/Bana.

Aside from her,  there’s nothing to recommend this at all. Poor Macdonald only showed up to practice doing an American accent.

Gervais fans may be willing to bend over backwards to allow his special comic genius to finally reveal itself, but to no avail. A guy whose hosting gigs and nuclear Twitter put- downs are legendary has nothing to say about media, love, marriage, integrity or anything else here. Nothing at all, much less anything funny.

His character fakes going to Ecuador to cover a story. Gervais fakes caring about character, jokes or doing the work to make “Special Correspondents” come off.

He’s never made a worse film. And topping that, he’s never made a lazier one.

MPAA Rating: TV MA, profanity, sexual situations

Cast: Eric Bana, Ricky Gervais, America Ferrara, Vera Farmiga,  Kelly Macdonald, Benjamin Bratt, Raul Castillo
Credits: Written and directed by Ricky Gervais. A Netflix original release.

Running time: 1:49

Damn. That’s on the money. Emma Stone as Billie Jean King and Steve Carrell as Bobby Riggs? The middle of the Glory Days of American Tennis, and a tennis match that turned into the Shot for Equality Heard Round the world.    “Battle of the Sexes” is due out next year.

Any prayer “The Huntsman: Winter’s War,” ever had of making a dime is over. Finished. Finito.

Second weekend of release,Second weekend of release, the most unnecessary sequel of the still-new year is plunging more than 50%, after a weak opener.

“The Jungle Book” is racking up another $38-40 million this weekend, yet another win for Disney’s latest “Disney Version” of  Rudyard Kipling’s Mowgli stories. Sometime Monday afternoon, it’ll clear $250 million. 

“Keanu” might have done better had it taken the brand-friendly title “The Key & Peele Movie.” PRobably wouldn’t have helped. Just a cable hit, after all. A modest one.

But the movie is doing $9 million or so this weekend. Not great for a funny, well-received R-rated comedy with a very cute cat. Less than one million tickets sold.

“Mother’s Day” may be the end of the line for Garry Marshall’s “all star” romantic comedies. Julia Roberts and Jennifer Aniston couldn’t bring’em in. About $7-8 million is all they’ll manage. Awful reviews didn’t help.

I blame JAson Sudeikis. For everything.

“Papa Hemingway in Cuba” couldn’t crack the top ten. Not in a lot of theaters, but it should have managed more than $1300 per screen. Eviscerated by the critics. Including me. 

Nobody bothered reviewing “Ratchet & Crank,” cut-rate animation, thanks to the studio’s lack of confidence. They didn’t screen it. A few reviews are out now. You don’t have to see it to tell it sucks, and that goes for the audience as well as critics. About $5 million on a LOT of screens.

“Zootopia” and “Batman v. Superman” are both closing in on $325 million, domestic, for those keeping score at home.

A couple of pictures going into wide release this weekend are earning widespread endorsements.

A couple of others, not so much.

“Keanu” is mostly for fans of Comedy Central’s “Key & Peele” sketch-comedy series. It’s a sloppily-plotted, violent, hit-or-miss R-rated farce. It hits more than it misses, largely thanks to the whole metrosexual-dad-dealing-with-gang members thing that Keegan-Michael Key plays so well.

And it’s got the cutest kitten (many stunt kittens) ever to appear on the big screen. So it works and gets endorsed by most reviewers.

“Green Room” is the best thriller of the new year, a sort-of horror movie without zombies, supernatural slashers or alien monsters. A rock band gets trapped backstage at a Nazi skinhead club. Rave reviews for “Green Room.”

It goes into wider release this weekend, and opens in Orlando at the Enzian.

Garry Marshall’s latest “all-star” slab of sloppy sentiment, “Mother’s Day,” won’t do much for discerning filmgoers. It’ll almost certainly draw a big crowd. Julia Roberts and Jennifer Aniston have their fans. Jason Sudeikis has his…never mind.

Critically trashed, up and down the line. Nuked.

“Papa Hemingway in Cuba” is a maudlin, malnourished melodrama that was shot in Cuba — the first “Hollywood feature” filmed there since Castro’s revolution. A nice sense of place, a sloppy, anachronism-packed set-dressing that occasionally spoils the “moment in time,” and an unimpressive Papa ruin it. Terrible reviews for this one. 

In limited release, Jason Bateman’s adaption of the novel “The Family Fang” gets a pass from critics. We love J. Bates. I found the movie heartless and almost pointless, though.