Movie Nation

 Their voices are high-pitched and giggly, their attention spans short and their uniform skirts shorter.

Who would EVER think these dizzy young things are contract killers, petite Powerpuff Girls with itchy trigger fingers and their whole careers in front of them…once they finish high school?

That’s the zany premise of “Baby Assassins,” a Japanese shoot-em-up/beat-em-up from writer director Yugo Sakamoto (“A Janitor”). It’s a brazenly bouncy bloodbath built around that well known romantic comedy “type,” manic murderous pixie teen girls. OK, it’s an interesting sadistic twist on a popular rom-com type.

Akari Takaishi and Saori Izawa are a “crew” — “Stop calling us a CREW. We don’t work at McDonald’s!” — in the employ of the mysterious Mr. Tasaka.

Chisato (Takaishi) is a bubbly, bubble-gum music loving sociopath, not exactly well-equipped to deal with adult life (“How do we pay the rent again?”), utterly amoral when it comes to pulling the trigger or butting the head. She’s entirely too cute for this line of work.

“How could she be a hitman,” a yakuza wonders (in Japanese with English subtitles)? “I’m starting to get concerned for the hitman industry!”

Mousy, androgynous moptop Mahiro (Izawa) is the quiet one, the tougher one, just as amoral, just as puzzled by the protocols of normal adult life. We meet her as she’s interviewing for a job at a convenience store. She is blowing the interview, a little confused at even the most basic questions. Lucky for her the “interview” is just a way to get close to her mark and kill him.

But damned if she doesn’t have to knife-fight her way past the vengeful staff of that shop who may have yakuza ties, but five of them can’t handle this wisp of a girl.

And don’t go to sleep on her roommate, either. Chatty Chisato is easy to underestimate. But woe unto the yakuza who doesn’t think she won’t pop a cap in him and everybody he knows in a flash.

Of course the young ladies cross a line and mess with the wrong gangs. They’re hunted by a teen peer, daughter of a yakuza, a father and son team and a genuine, bona fide tough guy. Guess how much help their unseen boss provides?

Sakamoto goes “John Wick” deep into this underworld of gangs, families, “crews” and code. The girls get a firm talking to by the team their “insurance” brings in to clean up the blood, bullet casings and bodies. “Please, no more head shots.”

What’s funniest here is the sort of generational angst thrown into this silly, flippant spin on murder-for-hire. The teens don’t know what to do with these tax forms the boss’s functionary gives them, how to pay their bills and the like, and bristle at having to take the sort of crappy “cover” jobs — kewpie-doll voiced greetings for customers, kitty-ears and French maid’s dresses for waitress gigs at restaurants whose “theme” is that old school Japanese patriarchal “deferential to men” girlishness.

One mobster lectures his son that “Yakuza need to create a comfortable working environment for women” because “diversity is the KEY, nowadays.” Does the son listen? No.

Yes, this is the uncertain, insecure and sexist work world young women are wading into these days. Might as well pack a piece and get paid for not taking any Shiitake, ladies.

The epic fights and shoot-outs of “Baby Assassins” are all staged by veteran fight choreographer Kensuke Sonomura, who did a few “Resident Evil” movies. So he’s used to putting the lie to “You fight like a GIRL.”

The “Big Finish,” a raid-brawl in a classic “abandoned warehouse where the yakuza hang out” blood bath, is as over-the-top as you’d hope.

The social commentary is cute, and the picture turns decidedly more interesting when these shallow kids finds themselves not just hunters, but hunted.

But it’s the action that sells “Baby Assassins,” and it’s awesome, from the first shot fired to last punch thrown, with many a head-butt, kick, elbow punch and “shtick shtick shtick” of a knife puncturing flesh in between.

Rating: unrated, oh so violent

Cast: Akari Takaishi, Saori Izawa and Masanori Mimoto 

Credits: Scripted and directed by Yugo Sakamoto. A Well Go USA release.

Running time: 1:35

“Thor: Love & Thunder” easily dominates the movie box office on its second weekend of release, getting no real competition from “Where the Crawdads Sing,” the adaptation of the popular novel, or a new cartoon, “Paws of Fury.”

But the God of Thunder fell off a cliff on his second weekend of release, pulling in some $46.5 million, awfully close to a 70% falloff from its opening. What do we call that sort of second weekend of release plunge, box office watchers? “A Tyler Perry Swoon.”

Don’t shed any tears for Marvel, as the film is still making bank. Still, the jokey approach of Taika Waititi doesn’t seem to sit well with audiences. Oh well.

“Minions” are minting moolah, pulling in a staggering $25-26 million take, closing in on $300 million by next weekend, I figure. Over $261 already.

“Where the Crawdads Sing” had a good Thursday night and a brisk Friday and looks to be a sleeper hit, opening at $17 million or so. Considering how little they spent on the cast, it’ll be in the black within a few weeks. A movie of middling quality and questionable history and racial politics, it’s doing well with a certain demographic. Trump women, maybe?

“Top Gun: Maverick” becomes Paramount’s biggest hit ever this week, taking in well over $1.2 billion here and abroad. It’s on track to earn another $11.7 million this weekend.

“Elvis” has NOT left the building, clearing the $100 million mark Friday, scoring $7 million this weekend.

“Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank” should have gone straight to Paramount Plus. A middling Thursday and tepid Friday point to a $6 million weekend. The samurai cats and canines comedy is a dog.

“The Black Phone” rang up another $5 and change. It’s already well into profit and should finish its run in the $85 million range.

“Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” is on 980 screens and is on track to make $1.74 million this weekend. And yes, this is THE movie to see this weekend.

“Umma” opened for a minute…and a minute only, last spring during its theatrical release. But even under the best of circumstances, with no pandemic, it had a limited ceiling.

It’s a quality horror film seriously short of frights, with some of those ready-made jolts mishandled by writer-director Iris K. Shim, a long-time production assistant and sometime editor making her writing and directing debut. The seriously deflating finale was a final bit of “mishandling” that ensured word of mouth on “Umma” wouldn’t be good.

But the presence of Sandra Oh, Fivel Stewart, Odeya Rush and Dermot Mulroney in the cast guarantees that the performances will be top notch. The production design, the novel Koreans-in-America story and the setting also contribute to the feeling that this is a “quality” production that has promise, even if that promise isn’t fulfilled.

Oh plays Amanda, a solitary beekeeper in rural Southern California living with her teen daughter (Stewart, of TV’s “Atypical” and “Roar”) Chrissy, producing honey that’s becoming an artisanal Internet phenomenon thanks to their friendly local feed store shopkeeper (Mulroney).

But that sign on the gate, to shut off your car engine and turn off your cell phone, isn’t for the bees, it turns out. Electricity makes Amanda sick, her daughter explains. There’s no power in the house, and anything electrical that Mom doesn’t want within her field of view she totes down to the root cellar and locks away.

Home-schooled Chrissy is only reminded of what she’s missing out on when she bikes to town, to shop at the store of their only friend, Danny (Mulroney).

A prologue has warned us that something about Mom’s past haunts her. When a Korean stranger shows up at their door, we start to figure that something out. Amanda’s Umma, “mother,” has died. Her stern, judgmental uncle (Tom Yi) has traveled far to track her down and let her know.

“A child’s obligation is to her parents,” he snaps, in Korean. Her mother isn’t just dead, she is “angry” and cursed. “You know what she’s capable of.”

Oh, and here’s her suitcase, with her mementoes and her ashes in it. Byeeee.

“Umma” is about Amanda’s unhappy past, her chilling present and Chrissy’s slow realization that Mom is going through some things, and they’re supernatural in nature. As the ghost of Umma (MeeWha Alana Lee) hisses to Amanda, “We starred as one, and we’ll END as one!”

Anybody who’s ever paid attention to a horror film knows how to manufacture jolting frights — a combination of lens, shots, edits and sound effects or music. But Shim has no idea how to build suspense, something she fritters away, time and again as Amanda comes under ghostly attack and Chrissy — shielded from it, or blind to it — doesn’t have a clue.

The script is on its firmest ground laying out its Asian mother-daughter connection, sacrifice and “obligation” tropes. There’s a running theme of “disobedient girl” running from mother to Chrissy, who rebels by sniffing around, finding evidence of granny and “testing” theories about Mother Amanda as she does.

But the scattered frights in this can’t-miss setting — a remote farmhouse — never build towards anything. The lack of involvement of old friend Danny is forgivable, but the presence of his niece, a new “friend” for Chrissy (Odeya Rush) doesn’t pay off. This slow and scenic thriller gives the impression that a lot was left out, either in the script or edited out before release.

“Umma” turns out to be a “quality” thriller that can’t be bothered to get down and dirty and scary.

Rating: PG-13 for terror, brief strong language and some thematic elements

Cast: Sandra Oh, Fivel Stewart, Odeya Rush, Tom Yi, MeeWha Alana Lee and Dermot Mulroney

Credits: Scripted and directed by Iris K. Shim. A Sony release on Netflix.

Running time: 1:23

I’m not positive it’s the definitive version of the Jane Austen novel, but for me, the benchmark adaptation of “Persuasion” was made for British TV and played in US cinemas back in 1995.

Casting newcomer Amanda Root as Anne Elliott, the woman who gave in to family “persuasion” and brushed-off poor Naval officer Wentworth, played by then-little known Ciaran Hinds, lent the story a bittersweet air of “last chance at love” that no other version has matched. Root, character-actress “plain,” and Hinds, then tall, awkward and hangdog-looking, were perfect as a headed-to-spinsterhood middle sister and the sort of second-choice man she’d attract.

Guess what my problem with building a winking, cutesy and anachronistic “Persuasion” around Dakota Johnson might be? Anyone wondering if one of the great beauties of her era, often cast in sexy roles, can pass for the “passed-over” and ignored middle sister in any family?

It’s not that the character is supposed to be unattractive, with limited options. Mousey, yes. But it’s damned near impossible to figure Johnson’s Anne wouldn’t have prospects the minute someone nearby threw one of those Jane Austen balls.

That said, this take on starchy, reserved, comedy-of-manners Austen isn’t awful. It may be peppered with anachronisms, from to “like I said…quite the upgrade” to “He’s a ten. I never trust a ten.”

And this Anne narrates her story, with an ironic, jokey Johnson smirk, right to the camera.

“My father — he’s never met a reflective surface he didn’t like.”

The wit seems a bit forced, the big romantic moment somewhat muted and the anachronisms just jolting enough to make us notice and think, “Wot wot? No one utters such stuff and nonsense in Austenland!”

Oscar winning screenwriter Ron Bass (“My Best Friend’s Wedding”) and actress-turned-screenwriter Alice Victoria Winslow had the unenviable task of modernizing and livening up Austen for National Theatre director Carrie Cracknell’s stumbling adaptation. They don’t wholly succeed.

They are aided by the usual Austen adaptation virtues — striking Great Houses, historic Bath, seascapes — and a good cast. Johnson’s coquettish whisper, with just a hint of period accident, goes down easily, and Cosmo Jarvis (“Peaky Blinders,” “Hunter Killer”) brilliantly conveys now-wealthy Captain Wentworth’s seven year-old romantic wound that will not heal.

Jarvis makes Johnson’s years of pining credible, and gives us everything a guy who lost a love who looks like Dakota Johnson might feel. The man seems gutted.

The wit comes from Anne’s delusional, self-absorbed sisters (a droll Yolanda Kettle and hilariously narcissistic Mia McKenna-Bruce) and primping, spendthrift father, played to perfection by Richard E. Grant, as we’d expect no less.

“Quick! Break out your finest frocks! We are about to touch…GREATness!”

And the complications, built around Anne’s forced reacquaintance with richer Captain Wentworth thanks to his Navy colleagues, her relatives and his friends, are given a brisk brush up by the arrival of the suave Henry Golding (“Crazy Rich Asians”) as a distant-enough-to-date relative who aims to inherit Anne’s father’s baronetcy, come heck or high water.

Individual scenes play better than the whole, just as some performances shine — McKenna-Bruce, Jarvis, Grant and even Ms. Johnson — and get the hang of dry Austen wit and its sometimes clumsy “try to keep up” updatings better than others.

But that mixed-bag feeling spills over to the central romance, which as I said at the outset, needs higher stakes and the desperation of “last chance at marrying for love” that the best version of this novel boasted.

The two of the three best looking people on the screen finally get together for the finale? Where’s the heartfelt relief and glorious release of that?

Rating: PG, mild innuendo

Cast: Dakota Johnson, Cosmo Jarvis, Henry Golding, Mia McKenna-Bruce, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Nia Towle, Ben Bailey Smith and Richard E. Grant

Credits: Directed by Carrie Cracknell, scripted by Ron Bass and Alice Victoria Winslow, based on the novel by Jane Austin. A Netflix release.

Running time:

Snippets of home movies reveal that they’ve been friends since childhood, BFFs forever growing up on a German island in the Baltic.

Now pushing 30 and living in Berlin, Paula (Cara Cult) and Jojo (Nina Gummich) still do everything together. Everything. Paula sees to that.

If she’s bored with whoever she’s hooked up with on a given night, she makes sure hers isn’t the only coitus she interrupts. Does she even know “grenzen,” the German word for “boundaries?”

Headstrong, rash and living in an almost permanent impulsive hissy fit, we wonder, as the Bee Gees sang, “How Deep is Your Love?” Because this isn’t a crush, isn’t an actual romance at all. It’s some sort of clingy toxic dependency that Paul has “For Jojo.”

Barbara Ott’s intimate, edgy film, based on a Stefanie Ren script, takes us inside a lopsided co-dependency as, we guess, it runs its course.

Cult, in that German shag haircut, leather, jewelry and sneer that’s become a Berlin Slacker Stereotype, ably turns Paula into a personal nuisance and a public menace.

Jojo leaves town for a stint of work in Mexico and Paula won’t leave her in peace to get her ticket to board. She spies a guy they grew up with in “Sh–sville,” on the island, and insults him repeatedly to his face. He’s flying to surf in Tulum, and Paula’s many, many calls to Jojo reveal that they’re hanging out and maybe falling in love.

Paula won’t stand for it. When they abruptly return together, Paula flips out at what they’re not telling her, stopping the shared car mid-bridge/mid-tantrum until they fess up.

When they drive Daniel (Steven Sowah) home with them, Jojo can’t stop insulting him and ignoring her doesn’t help. News that they’re already talking marriage reheats the ongoing meltdown. Jojo says she’s going back “home” with Daniel and Paula turns it up a few more notches.

“I give you guys two days,” she hisses (in German with subtitles, or dubbed into English). “Maybe until the weekend.”

So Paula is going “home” WITH them.

“I’m not letting you marry Daniel,” she declares.

Jojo ignores Maya Angelou’s advice — “When people show you who they are, believe them.” Bad move.

“For Jojo” isn’t some “Fatal Attraction” thriller. But for a non-violent drama it’s kind of brutal. The screenplay cooks up all sorts of ways for Paula — a narcissist who never thinks anything through — to sabotage this relationship that could cost her the best friend she’s been mooching off, leaning on and clinging to forever.

As Jojo is likely to say “Enough is enough” at some point, this is plainly a zero-sum game Paula is playing. We see it. She doesn’t.

Cult and Gummich plays these closer-than-sisters two in a way that makes every wedge Paula finds and every Jojo reaction to what she can see is happening in-the-moment believable.

The reasons for their deep bond are sketched in as Paula becomes completely unmoored in what is essentially a long tantrum of a movie. She uses people left and right, storms out of arguments and goes so far as sleeping on the beach to show her outrage.

Can this wedding be saved? What kind of a friend do you have to be to put up with that? We can only guess at the final straw, only speculate on the collateral damage.

And Cult, sullen and furious, manipulative and demanding, gives us as vivid a picture of toxic interpersonal dependency as we can stomach, never giving ground, crossing one line after the other until we’re screaming at her, Jojo, Daniel and the TV in indignation.

Rating: TV-MA, sex, nudity, profanity

Cast: Cara Cult, Nina Gummich, Steven Sowah, Louis Nitsche and Anne Zander.

Credits: Directed by Barbara Ott, scripted by Stefanie Ren. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:35

This comes to FX Aug. 30, because apparently we or Hollywood can’t get enough of serial killers.

Looks intriguing enough.

Whatever the virtues of the popular Delia Owens novel it’s based on, the film adaptation of “Where the Crawdads Sing” makes it “a beach book,” a simple, pulpy page-turner to take on vacation with you and nothing more.

A clumsily-plotted murder mystery tucked into a geographically-inept/historically-dubious period piece wrapped up in a “surviving abuse” bow, it’s so corny, slow and dull that one barely notices how colorless and uninteresting the cast is.

Set in a sort of “Sleepy Time Down South” North Carolina that would make Andy Griffith’s teeth ache, with an illiterate and never-tanned or dirty character who raises herself without adults, electricity or running water and yet somehow starts each day in the mucky, muddy swamps and marshes looking like she just got out of the production’s hair and makeup trailer, it’s a drama overwhelmed by the ways it gives anybody with a low tolerance for romance novels or Hallmark movies to mentally check out.

English rose Daisy Edgar-Jones of TV’s “War of the Worlds” stars as Kya, “the Marsh Girl,” shunned by sleepy Barkley Cove, N.C., a Low Country backwater that cruelly nicknamed this abandoned child who raised herself from the age of 10 onward as “the Missing Link.”

She’s 24 in 1969, the fictive present. Kya is a solitary swamp creature who collects feathers, nests and shells, sketches the flora and fauna around her and stands accused of murder after the hunky one-time quarterback of the high school team is found dead at the bottom of an abandoned mid-swamp fire tower.

Her tale is told in flashbacks, floridly-narrated by our heroine, as her old country lawyer (David Strathairn, classing up his scenes if not improving his tepid dialogue) tries to get her to open up as he prepares to defend her in court.

The word pictures of the novel become flatly-spoken monologues about how Catherine Danielle “Kya” Clark was taught as a child to “hide deep in the marsh, where the crawdads sing” when danger approaches. “Whenever I stumbled, the marsh’d catch me.”

Perhaps it’s the florid nature of that narration that convinced producer, Oscar-winner and Nashville native Reese Witherspoon that nobody in this story should have a Southern accent. A moment of relief that “Well, at least we don’t have another Brit attempting a drawl” is quickly replaced with, “Wait, NOBODY has one? Nobody even tried?”

The frame of the story is Kya narrating, ostensibly to her lawyer but mainly to some future reader of her diary/memoir, how she came to be in this murder rap fix, the childhood abuse of her drunken father (Garrett Dillahunt gives the most credible performance in the film) that caused her mother (Ahna O’Reilly) to just pack up and walk away in resigned shock, followed later by Kya’s siblings, one after the other.

Kya wakes up one day to find her father gone, too. So she takes the skiff and starts digging up mussels, selling them to the kindly Black couple, Mabel and Jumpin’ (Michael Hyatt and Sterling Macer, Jr.) who run the swampside general store and literarily-convenient seafood distribution operation. They become Kya’s protectors, with Mabel finding her clothes and shoes via her church charity and encouraging the child to take a stab at school. Barefoot and dirty (for the last time in the movie), little Kya (Jojo Regina) is teased right out of that idea.

But a local fisherman’s son, Tate (Taylor John Smith) takes a shine to her in their teens, befriends Kya and teaches her to read as they swap shells and feathers and such. Theirs is a storybook swamp romance until he goes off to Chapel Hill (UNC). Abandoned, Kya falls for the first hunk to show up with a shiny new boat, Chase (Harris Dickinson). That’s when things go from idealized hand-to-mouth living to a murder charge.

Scenic as Coastal Carolina is, as lyrical as Kya’s appreciation for marsh and swamp can be, one never runs out of ways this female wish fulfillment/living-happily-is-the-best revenge fantasy goes wrong.

The “To Kill a Mockingbird Rewritten by a High School Dropout” trial scenes, and the absurdly thorough-and-yet-comically-wrong-headed 1960s rural NC police investigation scenes that precede it play like the only homework anybody did was watching “Matlock/In the Heat of the Night” re-runs.

Producer Reese Witherspoon’s choice as director, Olivia Newman (“First Match”), can’t wring much pathos out of this lost-mother/abusive father/abused in love story, or get out of her own way most of the time.

And it’s not like the screenwriter or cast had any feel for the place, the people and the story. Whatever Delia Owens, a Georgia native, zoologist and under a cloud for being a possible accessory to murder in Zambia in the 90’s knows about the place, the people and the era is erased by the third time a character refers to going to “Asheville” for this, that or the other thing.

Asheville has long been a mountain vacation enclave, and is hundreds of miles from the Carolina coast, the sort of place you reach by passing through big cities like Charlotte, Raleigh or Winston-Salem. Owens screwed this up, but did the screenwriter look at a map? Or check the frequency of 1960s bus service to sleepy towns down South in before scripting multiple stops, all day and into the wee hours of the AM, every day for Barkley’s Cove?

The racism of the era is glimpsed just enough to give us a few other possible suspects in the death of the ex-quarterback. But one gets the feeling that this molasses-slow narrative is fixated on the “fantasy” side of the spectrum, with magical and insanely improbable solutions to money problems, education shortcomings, property deeds and Kya’s wardrobe and beauty regimen.

As with memoirs like “The Glass Castle,” “This Boy’s Life” and “The Prize-Winner of Defiance, Ohio,” “Crawdads” uses abuse, enduring it and escaping it in its many forms, as a literary hook. Here that’s reduced to just a couple of scenes of childhood beatings (and seeing their mother hit) and the suggestion that Kya’s got to be on her guard lest she repeat the cycle. Almost lost in the narrative, it can feel like cynical virtue signaling, just something the author thought she’d throw in to sell the book, just another deflection to hide the fact that she’s no mystery writer. Or geographer.

And while the cast is pretty far down the list of reasons “Crawdads” doesn’t come off, the lack of charisma or chemistry in the young leads and the cheapskate casting among the supporting players shows in every instantly-forgotten court or police investigation scene.

Sorry to beat the hell out of a book millions have bought and presumably adored. But “Where the Crawdads Sing” doesn’t sing a note in film form, and plays more like Nicholas Sparks than Harper Lee, more a Lifetime Original Movie than anything worth the price of a cinema ticket.

Rating: PG-13 for sexual content and some violence including a sexual assault.

Cast: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Taylor John Smith, Harris Dickinson, Michael Hyatt, Ahna O’Reilly, Garrett Dillahunt and David Strathairn.

Credits: Directed by Olivia Newman, scripted by Lucy Alibar, based on the novel by Delia Owens. A Sony Pictures release.

Running time: 2:05

Turning the rude and shticky “Blazing Saddles” into a samurai Western cartoon starring cats and a hapless dog isn’t the dumbest idea anybody in Hollywood ever had.

Mel Brooks’ classic comedy is 50 years old, and while it was racy for its day, about the only thing about it that whispers “Oh, they could never do that now” is the way it goes straight at racism in ways that racists found and continue to find amusing.

But when the racist culture lampooned is Japanese and feline, well, that’s kind of cute. “Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank” isn’t all that funny, and bears the hallmarks of “We’re worried about this not playing, so let’s hire a LOT of ‘names’ for the cast,” an age-old band-aid for lesser animated comedies. It’s a decently-animated, dialogue-heavy comedy that manages a few laughs from the age-old sight gags of “Blazing Saddles” and a lot of groaners that pass for one-liners.

A scheming nobleman (Ricky Gervais) from a time when Hello Kitties owned Japan wants his palace to dazzle the shogun (Mel Brooks) enough to be named his successor. But there’s this village that clutters up the view. When bandits chase off the samurai in charge of protecting it, he decides to find an incompetent replacement that will run the rest of the villagers off, and makes this decision over the objections of his faithful samurai toady (George Takei).

A joke about the palace’s new bathroom sets the tone of the humor. It’s a giant lavatory.

“I call it The Super Bowl. Because it’s a SUPER bowl!”

I doubt Gervais will be quoting from this at the next Golden Globes.

As a hapless lap dog, Hank (Michael Cera) has been arrested and scheduled for execution…because he’s a dog who wants to become a samurai, but mostly because he’s a dog in a land that doesn’t tolerate the different — Helloooo xenophobic/monoethnic Japan — Hank is who Prince Ika Chu (Gervais) sends to tiny Takamucho.

There, he’s shunned, “Blazing Saddles” style, by the anti-canine locals. He takes up with a tipsy old samurai (Samuel L. Jackson) who reluctantly “trains” him. And he confronts and converts a gigantic tabby villain named Somo (Djimon Hounsou) who was named Mongo and played by retired footballer Alex Karras in “Blazing Saddles.”

And so it goes.

Unless you and your kids are tickled at the thought of Mel Brooks joking “There’s no business like shogun business,” unless you can tolerate anything with Michelle Yeoh in it, no matter how lame, unless you find “Guns don’t kill cats…cars and CURIOSITY kills cats” and “Maybe I should start out as a ‘mall samurai'” hilarious, “Paws of Fury” may not be the comedy for you.

Hank’s a dog. So’s the “Blazing Saddles” homage cartoon comedy about him.

Rating: PG for action, violence, rude and suggestive humor, some profanity

Cast: The voices of Michael Cera, Ricky Gervais, Michelle Yeoh, George Takei, Djimon Hounsou, Gabriel Iglesias, Kylie Kuioka, Mel Brooks and Samuel L. Jackson

Credits: Directed by Chris Bailey, Mark Koetsier and Rob Minkoff, scripted by Ed Stone, Nate Hopper and Mel Brooks. A Nickelodeon/Paramount release.

Running time: 1:37

It wouldn’t be summer without an insipid Netflix summer romance set somewhere in scenic, sunny Italia. This year’s entry, “Under the Amalfi Sun” hangs on a couple of youth romances that are pretty hard to invest in, and an adult one that’s strictly a non-starter.

But the scenery’s stunning, an idyllic Amalfi Coast backdrop for the rich and the pretending to be rich swimming, cliff diving, scuba diving, boating, biking, clubbing and dining out.

Camilla (Ludovica Martino) is home from college in Canada. Vincenzo (Lorenzo Zurzolo) isn’t. But as his dad has a seaside luxury apartment he’s letting them stay in, maybe he doesn’t need to go and learn a trade. They’re 20 years old, have been apart for a year and he’s ready for them to move in together. But Camilla might have other plans.

Irene (Isabella Ferrari) is Vincenzo’s doting/hovering mom. She’s been divorced for a while, and has been dating Lucio (Luca Ward) for long enough that he’s angling to ask her to marry him. Not that she’s quite ready for that.

A big obstacle to everybody’s happily-ever-after? Vincenzo is blind, reasonably self-sufficient in environments he has memorized. We kind of understand his anxiety over closing the deal with his first great love. Where is going to meet her equal?

His mother worries about him incessantly. Everybody else is wondering if Camilla’s ready for a lifetime commitment, and understands what that means with a blind mate. “Everybody,” in this case, includes Camilla.

Complications include Vincenzo’s on-the-make BFF Furio (Davide Calgaro), who pines for the stunning, designer-dressed/runway-ready Rebecca (Elena Funari), who doesn’t know he’s alive, and has no interest in changing that, and Cami’s British roomie Natalie (Kyshan Wilson), a beauty with body image issues that keep her from falling for Vincenzo’s hunky “playa” pal, Hans.

The posh setting might have been a source of stress for the young folks. Furio’s trying to come off as rich to impress Rebecca, but nobody else talks about that financial elephant in the room.

La di dah, la di dah. Let’s hop on Dad’s boat for a bit, visit Hans’ mother’s waterfront views afterward, maybe do some diving off Lucio’s boat. Not a cheap place to do any of that, and as the film has so little conflict in it, you’d think a little class friction or fretting over finances and the future would be in order.

But no.

There isn’t much to this aside from an attractive but bland and colorless cast parked in front of seaside vistas, stunning coves to swim or dive in and the like.

We don’t get much of a picture of the place, although there is a sense that it’s not really meant for young people. Not much night life, etc.

The parallel “couples in trouble” plot doesn’t play out in the most predictable ways. But it comes damned close. And even the “twists” can’t break the serenity, the calm and the boredom always present “Under the Amalfi Sun.”

Rating: TV-MA? Why? Oh, a little profanity

Cast: Lorenzo Zurzolo, Ludovica Martino, Kyshan Wilson, Davide Calgaro, Isabella Ferrari and Luca Ward.

Credits: Martina Pastori, scripted by Caterina Salvadori, Enrico Vanzina and Ciro Zecca. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:35

No local preview for this title. Not seeing a lot of advertising for it as we move beyond the blockbuster releases of summer.

I mean, save for “Nope” later this month.

The cast isn’t exactly a draw.

The author of the novel this is based on has been back in the news for a very bad reason.

But we’ll see.