Movie Nation

I defy anybody over the age of 8 to get much of anything out of “The Secret Life of Pets.” But perhaps the fact that we’re two generations past the many TV iterations of “Looney Tunes” and Saturday morning kid-watching rituals explains the passing grade the movie gets from a majority of reviewers.

Not a HUGE majority, mind you. It’s time like this when you go to Metacritic for a more discriminating and nuanced take on a movie that seems to out of whack with what seems obvious on the screen (few jokes, Looney Tunes variations for characters, famous voices straining to find something amusing to say). So, 76 on the tomato “fresh or rotten” scale, 61 on Metacritic’s ascending/descending fluid scale.

Not awful, just not all that.

I found more laughs than most in “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates.” OK, maybe I was crushing on Aubrey Plaza, the living embodiment an ancient libidinous Jewess stereotype. She owns it. This movie earns higher ratings on Metacritic than it does on Rotten Tomatoes. I gave it 2.5/4 stars, which is just a smidge above the mean.

Alex Gibney is the hardest working guy in documentaries, and sooner or later, he’s going to spread himself too thin — TV shows, band docs, ESPN sports films, feature film investigations. But he hasn’t gotten there yet. “Zero Days,” his dissection of the Stuxnet virus which attacked Iran’s nuclear weapons program (and spread worldwide) is a fascinating cyber mystery. Not dazzling in style or its conclusions, but solid film journalism with a cautionary bent. Mostly good reviews for this one. 

With Daniel Craig’s years-in-the-making exit from playing James Bond, all the speculation has been about “Who will replace him?”

It’s focused, mainly, on Idris Elba (cool enough, an interesting choice in these inclusive times, but a bit old — 44 in Sept. — to be taking on this franchise) and Tom Hiddleston, who is auditioning for the part by holding his own in a marvelous John LeCarre adaptation on the BBC, and “dating” America’s newest 40 year old virgin, Taylor Swift, to stay in the headlines.

Really.

Jamie Bell, Damian Lewis, Aidan Turner, James Norton and a couple of even more obscure Brit-hunks have turned up in the list of candidates. They’re steering clear of more testosterony choices like Tom Hardy or Joel Edgerton. The fools.

Whoever gets the job, the first Post-Brexit Bond will waltz into a shifting political landscape that could be less welcoming to this most iconic British hero of them all. Depending on whether Europe holds a grudge.

But there are other nuts to crack in that evergreen series. And the Craig Bonds got these supporting roles right, fleshing out the “good guy” side of the cast even when they cast weak villains (three out of four films). So we might as well start mulling those over as well, as a new Bond is as inevitable as another season of “Top Gear.”

The retirement of Judi Dench, a smart holdover from the Pierce Brosnan Bonds, put Ralph Fiennes in the Big Chair as the spy chief “M.” Might they keep him? I’m totally down with that. He’s aging into the part nicely, and properly grumpy when called for.

There was and is but one “Q,” and that was the wizened, out-of-quips-to-give Desmond Llewelyn from the original films. I was watching his turn in “Goldfinger” the other night and figuring out why the sexually ambiguous waif/tech-nerd version of “Q” in the Daniel Craig films never quite did it for me. If we’re going “inclusive,” Ben Whishaw may come back in the part.

But Llewelyn’s “Q” played on the English tinkerer stereotype, and did so delightfully. The character’s comic relief nature is built on Old School pluck and can-do invention, a relic of “their Finest Hour” Britain. Recast “Q” with that in mind, and I’d suggest Hugh Laurie for that part. He’s droll, world-weary and a perfect foil.

Gillian Anderson jokingly pitched herself as the first female Bond. She’d make a helluva “Q.” Or “M.” Sexy, too.

I’d love to see Naomie Harris return as Moneypenny. She was a delight in the part — sexy, tempting, as cool as Bond himself.

And any red-blooded American-born Bond fan has to lament the potential loss of Jeffrey Wright as Bond’s CIA alter ego, Felix Leiter.

It’s a key role, not as important as “M” or “Q” or Moneypenny. But when you get it right, the movie sings. When you don’t bother to try, you feel the lack of weight in the part.

Jack Lord was Felix in “Dr. No,” and frankly, Connery’s lucky he chose not to return (or wasn’t invited back) to the part and found his future on American TV. Lord had just as much simmering screen presence as Connery and took just the right “Who IS this Brit interloper?” tone in their scenes. Lord was the best Leiter, and it took half a century for Cubby Broccoli and his heirs to find one with even a hint of his charisma.

Wright has that, and I could see him returning, bringing a seen-it-all weariness to scenes with the younger Bond (Hiddleston, et al). Not sure they’ll go for a black Bond and black Leiter in the same movie, but he’d almost certainly click with Elba, too.

But he’ll be 51 this year, a bit long in the tooth for a field agent (he looks about…49).

Best of all possible worlds? Cast Elba as the first Bond villain with weight since Javier Bardem.  He was the Craig films’ only bad guy worth fearing.

Bring back Harris as Moneypenny and Fiennes as M for continuity’s sake.

And give us a Felix Leiter at least as famous and charismatic as Jeffrey Wright. Big stars like Chris Pine, Ryan Gosling or Chadwick Boseman might not opt for a bit-part lark in the role. But John Cho is fresh out of “Star Treks,” as is Zachary Quinto. Oscar Isaac?

In a world of documentary gadflies, navel gazers and agenda-pushers, Alex Gibney has earned a “teller of hard truths” reputation.

If you’re in the know, or simply want to be, he is documentary cinema’s E.F. Hutton. When Gibney talks, about the rapacious nitwits of Enron, bout Lance Armstrong’s fall from grace or the excesses of Hunter S. Thompson, Steve Jobs, Wikileaks and Julian Assange or the United States government, people listen. Or should.

With “Zero Days,” the Oscar winner turns his camera, his attention and ours towards the Stuxnet virus and its implications for the future of cyber warfare. He’s made a “genie out of the bottle” investigative mystery about that online attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

And if he never quite makes the case that we’ve paved the way for an online apocalypse, he’s still able to chill us over what has happened, what could happen and what we might want to think about doing to prevent a worst case scenario cyber war.

Because, you know, we’ve all seen “The Terminator.”

Gibney spends over an hour of “Zero Days” retracing the online security community’s search for the origins of this virus, discovered in 2010, that to a one they describe as “sophisticated” and dangerously capable of something beyond slowing down your computer. Stuxnet– an amalgam of a couple of random word-like letter combination discovered in the virus’s code — could create actual “physical destruction” of any gadget run or monitored by computers.

That could be pipelines or power grids or, in the case of Iran, centrifuges used in the processing/isolation of uranium to make nuclear bombs. Stuxnet could sneak in with “zero days” warning, hide itself within a system, absorb the normal operating parameters of that system and mask its activities as it caused say, the water pump in a nuclear reaction to break, triggering something awful. It requires no human intervention to spread, no blunders at the keyboard to infect the unwitting.

Two early “heroes” of this tale work for the well-known cyber-security company Symanetc, which is probably running the anti-virus on the device on which you’re reading this review. Two code-crunchers named Eric Chien and Liam O’Murchu dove into the vast array of code in the virus and started turning up clues.

Others, from Germany (Ralph Langer), Israel and disguised insiders from the U.S. and Israeli intelligence community, talk on camera about what they can and cannot talk about, the “national security” implications of what happened leading up to 2010, and what the blowback from that was and could be in the future.

It’s fascinating in the unraveling, as Gibney the narrator announces he’s progressively more and more irked at the runaround he’s getting, making him ever more determined to get to the bottom of this “crime” or “intelligence coup” that no one will own up to.

His profane NSA insider curses the blunders that put this virus “out there” for friends and enemies to see and study.

“Because they were in a hurry, they opened Pandora’s Box.”

A former member of Israel’s Mossad secret police talks about the context of world events and Israeli politics that fed into all this.

And the ever-outspoken former counter-terrorism chief Richard C. Clarke shows up in the third act to talk about implications and provides the “actions to be taken” step in this rhetorical exercise in cinematic persuasion.

It’s quite hard to jazz up a story about computers, code, viruses and the people who make them and foil them. Gibney doesn’t totally crack that anti-cinematic nut at the heart of “Zero Days.”

But as with every other film in his fast-growing canon, Gibney wields his authoritative research and storytelling skills like a scalpel, getting at a subject we aren’t talking about with blunt facts and informed, cautionary speculation.

And if you weren’t concerned about this latest threat to privacy, security and our increasingly interconnected world before seeing “Zero Days,” you will be by the closing credits.

MPAA Rating:PG-13 for some strong language

Cast: Richard C. Clarke, Eric Chien, Ralph Langer, General Michael Hayden, Liam O’Murchu, David Sanger, Gary Samore
Credits: Written and directed by Alex Gibney.. A Magnolia release.

Running time: 1:55

That’s quite the big screen image that Aubrey Plaza has created for herself.

She lowers her gaze, opens her inviting mouth and the filthiest, unfiltered thoughts pour out. A red blooded male finds himself wondering what pick-up line might work, if he ever gets the chance to deliver one.

Plaza strides through “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates” like she owns it, the very definition of post-Kardashian feminism, taking stock of everything in the Hawaiian resort hotel room she’s managed to tease her way into.

“I can make a bong outta this,” she opines, picking up an apple, “I can make a bong outta this,” grabbing another piece of fruit.

She makes you think the dirtiest thoughts, like, “Did her mama teach her to sit like that, all spread-eagled and what not?”

Plaza dominates “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates,” playing another version of the vamp that’s been her comfort zone in films since, oh, “The To Do List.” It might have been more of a surprise to make sweet little Anna Kendrick the streetwise man-eater and Plaza the damaged drunk who never got over being stood-up at the altar by a groom who realized he was gay in mid-ceremony (LONG after we’ve figured that out). But Plaza’s on-the-nose casting as tarty Tatiana pays off, and how.

It might be called “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates,” but the “out of control” siblings and liquor distributors played by Zac Efron and Adam Devine take a back seat whenever Plaza prances on camera. They’re putty in her hands, as are we.

Mike and Dave are infamous in their family for getting hammered, getting hold of any handy female and wrecking family parties, gatherings and weddings. Dad (Steven Root, properly profane and pissed-off) has had enough. Their baby sister, Jeannie, played with a daffy sweetness and Tweety Bird voice by Sugar Lyn Beard, is getting married.

And in the interest of keeping the boys from “screwing up” this pricey fly-to-Hawaii wedding, they have to bring wedding dates, “nice girls.” Which is why the idiots post their search online. Talk show troublemaker Wendy Williams puts them on her show. Which is how Tatiana and her wounded, fellow-waitress pal Alice (Kendrick) pass themselves off as “nice” and entice the guys into making the invitation. “Girls About to Go Wild” is closer to the mark.

Just enough mayhem ensues to make this scruffy, hard-R rated comedy pay off pretty much the minute the quartet land in the islands. Because Mike is smitten with Alice, Alice keeps having flashbacks to her own disastrous wedding (it’s recorded on her phone) and drunkenly tries to ensure that Jeannie has the wedding Alice never did.

And the dorky Dave, whom Devine plays in a naked imitation of Jack Black’s voice, posture and shtick, is INTO Tatiana. And Tatiana isn’t having it. Not that she’s letting Dave know, because she and Alice NEED this vacation.

The movie reaches beyond “Wedding Crashers” in raw dog terms. But director Jake Szymanski, an “SNL” vet making his feature comedy debut, only occasionally lets things achieve “Hangover” level out-of-control.

The money scene? Poor Jeannie needs a massage after assorted mishaps leading up to the nuptials. Alice bribes the masseuse, aptly named Keanu (Kumail Nanjiani) to give her a happy ending. And how.

The picture flails about in predictable-debacle land with Efron doing another version of his shirtless frat boy bit as Mike. Devine (“Modern Family”) just takes money under Jack Black pretenses, which is all he needs to do.

But the girls go wild and they make “Mike and Dave” as nasty as they wanna be, and a pleasantly pervy surprise of a summer comedy.

MPAA Rating:R for crude sexual content, language throughout, drug use and some graphic nudity

Cast: Zac Efron, Aubrey Plaza, Anna Kendrick, Devine, Steven Root, Sugar Lyn Beard
Credits: Directed by Jake Szymanski, script by Andrew Jay Cohen, Brendan O’Brien. A 20th Century Fox release.

Running time: 1:38

The voices are mostly bland, the animation detailed but generic and the gags are all variations of low-hanging-fruit in “The Secret Life of Pets,” a comedy built around what our non-speaking companions do when we leave them alone all day.

You’ve gotten a full dose of the jokes from the commercials and trailers — the fat cat raiding a fridge, a poodle banging his head to a little Death Metal, a parakeet breaking out of her cage to play video games and a dachshund scratching his back with a kitchen mixer.

That sequence is literally the opening of the movie, so hand it to Illumination, the folks who make the Minions movies for Universal. It takes guts to give away the first two minutes of your film, two minutes without a decent laugh in them, BTW. 

But behavior any pet owner will recognize — the cat who bares her fangs and takes a bite if you pick her up wrong, the puppy who pees with excitement every time you come home — makes this a tolerable 90 minutes for kids, if perhaps a little less than that for their parents.

Louis C.K. voices Max, a Jack Russell terrier whose Manhattan apartment world is upended when owner Katie shows up with a huge, new Wolfhound-looking mop she’s fetched from the Pound. Duke, colorlessly voiced by Eric Stonestreet of “Modern Family,” proceeds to impose himself on his new “brother.” The scheming and counter-scheming gets them both lost in the wilds of Manhattan, where the “flushed animal underground,” led by a deranged but adorable bunny (Kevin Hart) could be their salvation, or their doom.

The flushed critters — gators, pigs, snakes, etc. — live in the sewers plotting their revenge on humanity. And the “domesticated” are not their favorites, either.

Hart throws a lot of personality into the voice, which is good, because like the neutered Louis C.K. and others, there’s nothing funny in the script for him to say. “Long live the Revolution, suckers!” and such.

A cute bit — the tour of the underworld of abandoned animals includes those staples of comic book ads, Sea Monkeys.

“Hey, it’s not OUR fault we don’t look like the ad!”

Another novel sequence, Max and Duke tumbling into every dog’s fantasy — a Brooklyn weiner-works and sausage factory.

Only the Pomerainian Gidget (Jenny Slate of “The Lorax” and “Obvious Child”) is hunting for Max, whom she crushes on. She enlists the falcon Tiberius (Albert Brooks) and later the aged, paralyzed Basset Hound, Pops, whom “Saturday Night Live” vet Dana Carvey gives his best geezer voice.

The rivers and sewers are almost photo realistic, the critters comical in that broad, Nickelodeon or vintage Looney Tunes way.

Speaking of Looney, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how violent this pre-tween farce is. Slapfights, brawls, violent death and near-death experiences abound. Along with butt-sniffing and toilet-sipping (at a party) gags.

“Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!”

“Finding Dory” may be giving Disney stockholders $20 bills to light their cigars with, but truth be told, all-star-voice-casts never ensure laughs, and branded goop like “Angry Birds” feels like filler in between Disney and/or Pixar outings.

Illumination slapped a four minute Minions short in front of “Secret Life of Pets,” just to ensure that there’d be a bare minimum number of laughs to make this worth 2D (don’t waste your money on 3D) admission prices. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s no real help, either.

MPAA Rating:PG for action and some rude humor

Cast: The voices of Louis C.K., Kevin Hart, Jenny Slate, Dana Carvey, Lake Bell
Credits: Directed by Chris Renaud, Yarrow Cheney, script by Ken Daurio, Brian Lynch and Cinco Paul. A Universal release.
Running time: 1:30.

Whatever subtlety there was remaining in the satirical intentions of “The Purge” franchise pretty much fly out the door and into the blood-soaked  chaos of “The Purge: Election Night.”

Any doubts even the slowest paying patrons had about who and what these movies are about vanish like the final traces of logic in the script.

Characters caught up in this bloody annual American culling of the last and least among us, the poor, the pacifists and gun-avoiders, call the NRA — the National Rifle Association — by name.

Posters scream out “End Class Warfare.” And they’re not the product of rich folks baiting liberals out of fear that a REAL class war won’t do the One Percent any favors.

The Purge, a night of wanton crime and slaughter permitted under the New Constitution written by the New Founding Fathers, dis-proportionally “kills people of color.” And the people of color have noticed that. Not that in this less politically correct future anybody still uses that phrase.

And when a female candidate (Elizabeth Mitchell) arises threatening to end the religiously-backed/NRA and Big Insurance sanctioned twelve-hour Hell Night, naturally she’s the target of a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, mercenaries whose White Power/Confederate flag/Swastika patches seem redundant.

But if you wanted a subtle reminder of who is on the wrong political side of bigotry, violence, religious backwardness and the like, “Zootopia” is where you should be spending your money.

Senator Charlie Roan (Mitchell) is betrayed and hunted on Purge night. Her one loyal Secret Service agent, Leo (Frank Grillo) hustles her off when her fortress townhouse is overrun.

“What now?” “RUN!”

It’s up to intrepid folks of color to Save America. Mykelti Williamson is the comical deli owner Joe, out to save his D.C. store from a night of violence. Betty Gabriel and Joseph Julian Soria help him. If only the Purge protester Dante Bishop (Edwin Hodge) can be summoned..

Williamson delivers lines like “My Negro” and assorted “Never walk up on a black man on Purge night” variations. Funny.

For the most part, though, the characters have become disposable and the performances have no chance to develop empathy. That wasn’t the case with the first “Purge.” Lessons were learned in that film. Not here.

Now, these movies are about the mayhem. A “Sophie’s Choice” prologue is spattered in blood, and the violence — which includes the young assaulting their elders, wives butchering wayward husbands (and vice versa) and “murder tourists” from South Africa, Europe and Asia — is always over the top.

People are washing themselves in blood — literally — especially the teens Joe caught shoplifting in his store, who show up Purge night in cars covered in Christmas lights, Miley Cyrus and “Party in the U.S.A.” blaring from the stereo and their bridal bustiers and tutus stained crimson.

Giving up on subtlety means writer-director James DeMonaco is all about the horror now. But his gift for killing off the supporting cast is limited. He’s not inventive in that way. When he has a character shriek “We’re not hypocrites!” he isn’t talking about himself. He wants to mock our violence, our inequality, our racial profiling. And wallow in it at the same time. One black villain would have given this more edge. Or some edge.

The dialogue is gimpy and the plot a thin thread stringing characters through the Mean Streets in search of safety, when there is none.

Is this it for “The Purge”? Perhaps. But given these movies’ origins, as a shout out against a culture at war with its poor and unable to rein in the Merchants of Death, that depends on Election Day.

MPAA Rating: R for disturbing bloody violence and strong language

Cast: Frank Grillo, Elizabeth Mitchell, Mykelti Williamson
Credits: Written and directed by James DeMonaco . A Universal release.

Running time: 1:49

The mad pageant that is masked Mexican wrestling earns a sympathetic documentary in “Lucha Mexico,” a behind-the-scenes look at the most popular sport that doesn’t involve a ball among our neighbors South of the Border.

Filmmakers Alex Hammond and Ian Markiewicz are the outsiders peeking behind the curtain, here. And if they’re short on novelty or an original point-of-view — many wrestling documentaries go the “Yeah, it’s fake, but it’s an art form and it’s very dangerous” route — they at least capture the subdued, injury-riddled lifestyles of these famous-if-not-quite-rich athlete/performers.

“What you earn from being a wrestler,” one retired legend intones (in Spanish, with English subtitles), “is injury, and the love of the people.”

There isn’t a fortune to be won grappling on mats from outdoor market parking lots all the way to “The Cathedral of Lucha libre,” the Arena Mexico, a 60 year old venue in Mexico City which all the stars aspire to. But men flock to the schools where retired veterans of the ring teach them the moves, how not to hurt themselves or others as they grapple for money.

The film follows the unmasked star “Shocker” (Jose Luis Jair Soria, middle) and the American muscleman Strongman (Jon Anderson, right) as they cope with the lifestyle, the workout regimen, the injuries and the fame that comes with their work.

Watching the mammoth Anderson crawl into the back of a vintage Mexico City VW Beetle taxi is the only image you need to figure out this isn’t the glamorous life.

It’s a sport of heroes and heels, just as it is north of the border, called “tecnicos” (good) and Rudos (bad, masked villains) in Mexico.

There are folding chairs and elaborate tumbles taken in and out of the ring. Microphones are grabbed for mid-match trash talk.

The big difference, as other documentaries and even the Jack Black comedy “Nacho Libre” demonstrate, are the masks. Losing one in a grudge match can be traumatic, humiliating.

Blue Demon Jr., son of a legendary luchador who went by Blue Demon, notes that “I began to live behind the mask” once he accepted his fate, taking up his father’s sport. But it’s a lonely life, he adds — 18 hours a day, making public appearances, posing for photos, always in that mask.

There are competing circuits, famous females and famous dwarf wrestlers, and plans to take the whole lurid enterprise global.

The film captures tragic moments — deaths related to Lucha Libre — with mixed, muted emotions. They’re jarring and nobody involved — interview subjects or filmmakers — knows quite what to do with them.

A dwarf wrestler shrugs and accepts the pain and the risks with his version of national fatalism.

“In Mexico, we laugh at Death.”

They also laugh, a little, at the bouts and the way some of their fellow countrymen take the action in the ring way too seriously. It’s a wonder that the showers of beer cups that greet the taunting Rudos don’t turn more violent or at least threatening.

But it typically doesn’t, and if nothing else, “Lucha Mexico” can be appreciated for its honest depiction of a cultural outlet that gives its public, young and old, a chance to let off steam and yell until they’re hoarse at these uniquely Mexican archetypes.

MPAA Rating: Unrated, with violence and injuries in the ring, some profanity

Cast: Jose Luis Jair Soria, Jon Anderson
Credits: Directed by Alex Hammond, Ian Markiewicz. A Kino Lorber release.

Running time: 1:43

Another blockbuster weekend for Disney/Pixar’s “Finding Dory” doesn’t obscure three other telling facts about July 4, 2016.

To wit, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Tarzan” retains a staggeringly lucrative brand identity over 100 years since first publication. Piddling reviews and a lot of holiday competition didn’t keep “The Legend of Tarzan” from clearing $45 million this four day weekend. Wow.

“The Purge” is another lucrative brand, and “Election Year” proved to be the biggest opener of the series — $34 million+. Impressive.

Steven Spielberg’s over long, overly impressed with itself children’s fantasy, “The BFG,” based on Roald Dahl’s story, cost $140 million to cast, motion capture performances by the likes of Oscar winner Mark Rylance and Jemaine Clement, and render giants co-existing with a human-sized pre-Brexit Britain. It didn’t reach $19 million.

I have to say, that’s criminal. It’s not a bad movie. It’s too long, patience-testing for most. But nobody went. A real embarrassment.

“Independence Day: Resurgence” found more suckers on its second weekend — a 60% drop off from its opening weekend. Nothing to laugh at. “The Shallows” did better at holding audience.

“Swiss Army Man” did middling business in reasonably wide release.

This July 4 weekend, “Dory” is still the box office “BFG.” Or “BFD.”

The “Finding Nemo” sequel is slated to pull in another $57 million at the box office, three weeks into release. HUGE hit for Disney and Pixar. It’ll clear $400 million by Wed., Thursday at the latest.

So with three new wide releases opening behind it, the battle was always going to be for second, third and fourth.

Prognosticators weren’t saying so, but I figured “Tarzan” had a brand that would pull the punters in. But $42 million plus over four days? That’s more than anybody guessed. Yeah, 3D ticket prices and a long (Thursday night through Monday PM) holiday weekend help.

“The Purge” franchise continues to show legs, with this murderous horror picture with political overtones headed towards $37 million. “The Purge: Election Year,” is a hit. A big one. Not previewed for most critics, it arrived as a hidden dog (reviews are trending poor).

“The BFG” is built on a set of older brands. You know, the great and dark kids’ author Roald Dahl (“James and the Giant Peach”), the lady who scripted “E.T.” and the fellow who directed it.

It looks to clear almost $25 million over four days, and will perhaps hold audience better than the other two. The tedious length worked against it.

“Independence Day: Resurgence” took what we used to call “A Tyler Perry Plunge” on its second weekend. Now, we’re calling it a “Warcraft Whiff” — a 71% plummet. This summer has been full of movies that have not been good enough to get a second weekend’s word of mouth bounce. Lots of money spent, not a lot of return on investment.

“Free State of Jones” is still in the top ten, didn’t cost much and may encourage STX (a tiny studio) to take more risks like this. “Swiss Army Man” opened wide and will only crack the Top 12.

“Neon Demon” is sinking without a trace.

Steven Spielberg’s viability as a kids-entertainment brand gets a test this weekend with his stately and stolid adaptation of Roald Dahl’s “The BFG.” I wasn’t nuts about it. Long, stiff, with a third act that has all the action the first two acts desperately needed to keep adult and child attention. Decent reviews, but not glowing.

Yet another version of “Tarzan”? Well, every generation gets its own, and this one, PC to a fault, dull leading man, generic Christoph Waltz, who has become a synonym for “Euro-villain,” and an out of place American model/actress (Margot Robbie) and lots of digital backgrounds and digital animals, it has little heart and zero guts. “The Legend of Tarzan” does a few things well — where they jump into the story, the period (the Belgian genocide in the Congo) they set it in. But it’s not much fun, and most critics agree.

“The Purge: Election Year” tries to cash in on the subject that’s dominated cable news for two years. Will it pay off? As much as I loved the political allegory of the original “Purge,” which seems prophetic now, the fall-off in the second one leaves me leery of this one. Iffy reviews for this one, not previewed in most markets. Nothing says “We know what it is” than a studio limiting access.

Will any of them shove “Finding Dory” out of the way at the box office?  No. “Dory” is holding audience, and the Box Office Guru ox Office Guru suggests that “BFG” won’t do any better than $28 or so. “Purge,” he figures, is a proven brand. I do wonder if his $25 million prediction is barmy, seeing as how most of us go to the movies to escape “Election Year.” And “Tarzan” is a better known brand. Only $24 for the Ape Man? I don’t think so.

Box Office Mojo figures “Purge” will do the best of the new releases, over $25, with “BFG” and “Tarzan” only managing to get into the teens over the three day weekend, $20s including Monday.