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Muddled, murky and a little hard to follow, “The Accursed” is low budget horror with a Croatian-American twist. It’s got a grabber moment or two, a lot of characters and a lot of actors tripping from that vague, “Balkan” accented English that the story calls for, to Croatian. But when all is said and done, it’s doesn’t deliver on the creepy premise it promises.

An opening credit talks of sisterly “clans” that once existed in the Balkans, conjure women the script goes to great pains not to call “witches” or “Gypsies,” although the viewer could leap to one conclusion and mistakenly stumble to another.

Three such “sisters” emigrate to America. One catches another cheating with her man, a curse is invoked, somebody gets killed and the “cover-up,” Balkan style, kicks in.

Naida must chop off cheating, accidental murderess Hana’s hand. Because “the hand that takes a life HOLDS a life.”

They will bury the dead Aishe (Jena Carpenter), and leave Hana’s severed hand covering her mouth so that even after death, she won’t be able to finish uttering “The Abolishment Curse.” Aggrieved Aishe was about to curse Hana’s entire bloodline to extinction.

Decades pass, and one-handed Hana (Yancy Butler) is presiding over the wedding of son Petar (George Harrison Xanthis) and his beloved, Sunny (Izabela Vidovic). But it’s tempting fate to do such a wedding in the garden where Aishe’s cursing corpse was interred.

And Sunny? She’s got a secret.

Melora Walters plays Miss “I Told You So,” the scolding Naida. Zara (Maiara Walsh) is…somebody’s daughter. I couldn’t figure out whose. Hana’s? Naida’s? Anyway, the daughter has “the gift,” too. If the wrong guy, one who jokes about the family history of “witches” and gets too fresh, she can sic a swarm of bees on him with just a glare.

But Hana and Petar’s problems are more immediate. Something has switched on the Firethorn bushes of that garden, which entangle and slice up those who don’t know the Croatian version of “I am family, let me pass.” And Aishe’s uneasy ghost is stalking the woman who wronged her, Hana all her kin.

This convoluted thriller never seriously gets down to getting revenge. Not quickly, anyway. And that matters when you’ve got 80 minutes of screen time to tell your story.

Screen veteran Butler — I remember interviewing her when the John Woo/JCVD thriller “Hard Target” came out in ’93 — commits to the part, even in a cut-rate thriller which has her trying to hide her lopped-off hand rather than solving that problem with prosthetics or digital effects. She lets us buy into Hana’s fear at her son and her family facing a reckoning for her transgressions long ago.

And she drops a little Croatian folk wisdom — in Croatian — here and there.

“What is found downstream comes from upstream…You can’t hide a cat in a sack. Its claws will reveal them!”

Put that on your daily Croatian curse affirmation calendar.

“The Accursed”– co-written and co-directed by Kathryn Michelle and Elizabeta Vidovic — never gets up a head of steam, never delivers a genuine fright and in the end, never adds up to anything.

No picture this short should dawdle and dwell on the convoluted relationships amongst all these characters. Pace matters, suspense is important and you ignore the pact you make with the horror viewer at your own peril.

Make it scary, make the violence alarming and make it quick. “The Accursed” lets us down on all three counts.

(Looking for the 2022 film “The Accursed” starring Mena Suvari? Here’s the link to that one.)

Rating: unrated, violence, sex

Cast: Yancy Butler, Melora Walters, George Harrison Xanthis, Izabela Vidovic and Maiara Walsh

Credits: Scripted and directed by Kathryn Michelle and Elizabeta Vidovic. A Gravitas Ventures release.

Running time: 1:24

That onslaught of toy store shoppers could be…zombies?

This opens Thanksgiving, just in time for Black Friday.

This isn’t a good sign.

The first Christmas movie of this year’s online holiday onslaught is rubbish wrapped in tinsel from Blighty.

Is there a laugh in it? Feel free to check behind me, because if there was, I missed it.

It’s a boorish “sex” comedy without a line or sexual situation that amuses, an all-star all-in-one-house holiday romp that never romps and a Britcom-ish farce that would never make it to British TV, even boiled down to a half hour of its “best” bits.

The Christmas family is all wrapped up in having another “perfect” holiday at Dunnock Manor.

Caroline Christmas-Hope (Nathalie Cox) wears the perma-smile of the wrapped-too-tight/keeping up appearances crowd. Husband “PEEE-tah” (Kris Marshall) endures her overdoing it, tries to keep their two kids involved and accepts his lot. Because he gets to live in Dunnock Manor, after all.

But the annual gathering of “The Christmas Sisters” at the manor will be a smidge more fraught this holiday season. Yes, older-sister-pretending-to-be-young fashion editor Joanna (Liz Hurley) is going to brawl with promiscuous slacker Vicky (Talulah Riley), pick on perpetual grad student Paulina (Naomi Frederick) and insult Caroline to her face.

“Nice outfit. Sexual repression is ‘in.’ You’re ahead of the curve…for once.”

Mum (Caroline Quentin) isn’t up for being the one who keeps the peace. Neighbor squire John (John Cleese) drops in to bat his eyes at her again.

And they’re all about to put on a show for Joanna’s latest beau, Felix (Ray Fearon), who replaced Hamish, the beau they thought she was bringing.

“Are you at the beginning or end of a three month relationship with my sister?” Vicky wants to know. That’s Joanna’s average.

But the sisters have barely had time to bicker and bond over their hatred for the father who “abandoned us at Christmas” 27 years before, when Father Christmas (Kelsey Grammer) returns to the fold and to his family’s historic pile, flying in from Miami.

He’s shed his British accent and taken on the latest of his 30ish bimbo American girlfriends (April Bowlby).

“This castle is ADORABLE! How could Princess Meghan EVER leave it?”

Screenwriters David Conolly and Hannah Davis have “Mothers and Daughters” and some episodic British TV under their belts — nothing produced in the past decade, according to IMDB. It’s not like they were stockpiling funny situations and killer one-liners in the interim, either.

Few of the players have had much luck in comedy in recent years, but they can’t make funny that which isn’t on the page.

Grammer has yet to make a movie for Netflix that wasn’t a stinker. And I take it as an indicator of his degree of commitment that they wrote his character’s “accent” away, rather than having him trot one out. I dare say he can manage one that would fool Dame Judi or Dame Maggie

And one last lump of pertinent coal before I take my impertinent leave. Co-director Mick Davis keeps getting work, and has never made a good movie. Not one. You can look it up.

Rating: PG-13, sexually suggestive material, language (profanity)

Cast: Elizabeth Hurley, Nathalie Cox, Talulah Riley, Kris Marshall, John Cleese, Ray Fearon, Naomi Frederick, Caroline Quentin and Kesley Grammer

Credits: Directed by Mick Davis and Philippe Martinez, scripted by David Conolly and Hannah Davis. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:45

“Clifford the Big Red Dog” is simple, a sometimes silly little nothing of a kids’ movie, lightweight and harmless and of no great consequence whatsover.

But it’s got sight gags and giant dog slobber jokes, giant dog farts and giant dog weeing-on-trees humor. So the littlest viewers, for whom it is intended, will find a laugh here and there.

It’s based more on the version of Clifford from Norman Bridwell’s 80 books aimed at not-quite-readers and the parents who read to them. Clifford doesn’t speak, as he did in the PBS TV series or assorted videos made about him over the years. Because having a gigantic, bright red digitally-animated dog also speak would have been…too far-fetched?

Emily Elizabeth, the little girl who adopts him, lives on Manhattan, not Bridwell Island, and is 12 — a sixth-grader — not an eight year-old as in the books. But much of the humor still comes from Clifford’s enormous size and how others adjust to that, reinforcing a message of “It’s OK to be different and stand out.”

What Paramount, “Van Wilder” director Walt Becker and screenwriters who have “Norbit,” “Vampires vs. the Bronx” and “I Spy” among their credits give us is a standard issue “origin story,” telling the tale of how Emily Elizabeth (Darby Camp), here a Harlem-dwelling white child with a British paralegal Mum (Sienna Guillory), came to have The Big Red Dog in her life.

Emily Elizabeth is bullied at the posh private school Mum sends her to. “Food Stamps,” the richer mean girls call her. In her neighborhood, the married couple Black lawyers (Bear Allen-Blaine, Keith Ewell), the Anglo-Indian neighbor who wants to be a magician (Russell Peters) and guys at the bodega (Horatio Sanz and Paul Rodriguez) may adore her. And her building’s cranky super (David Alan Grier) might tolerate her.

But at school, she’s alone and lonely.

She has this irresponsible Uncle Casey (Jack Whitehall of “Jungle Cruise” and TV’s “Bad Education”) whom Mom gets to babysit Emily Elizabeth when she has work out of town. Emily Elizabeth doesn’t care for Jack. He’s not good at caring for kids.

“I lost you ONE time! OK, TWICE, if you count ‘Atlantic City. And I won you BACK, didn’t I?”

Casey lives in an old panel truck because he can’t find work as an illustrator. But a weekend of childcare in Big Sis’s apartment? Sure. It’ll be a cinch.

As they pass by Bridwell’s Animal Rescue tent, parked conveniently on the private school’s grounds, the charming Doolittle-eccentric Brit (John Cleese) who invites them in figures a pet is just what Emily E needs. A Capuchin monkey? A snake? A “stand-up chameleon?”

What about this bright red puppy? “How big will be get?”

“That depends on how much you love him.”

I don’t recall that line from the books, so if our trio of screenwriters came up with it, hat’s off to you lads. That’s a lovely, child-friendly way of explaining how the pooch, slipped into Emily Elizabeth’s backpack so that she won’t know and Uncle Jack can’t protest and the super can’t evict them before Mom gets home, grows and grows overnight the very first night he sleeps in his little girl’s bed.

Emily Elizabeth’s heartfelt wish, that she and Clifford could be “big and strong and the world can’t hurt us,” comes true.

The plot from that point on is sight gags involving the over-sized, shoe-chewing puppy and everybody else’s reaction to him, from Casey’s “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been to Burning Man” to the locals — “It’s New York. Nobody’ll even notice.“

And it being the 21st century, somebody’s going to get video of Clifford, it’ll go viral and a big genetically-modified-organism (GMO) bio-engineering tycoon (Tony Hale) will want this super-sized dog for “experiments.”

As you can tell from that cast, diversity and inclusion were bywords when turning “Clifford” into a New York story. Emily Elizabeth takes on a Chinese-American sidekick (Izaac Wang) from school, and his rich businessman/father (Russell Wong) has a Chinese solution to their “problem,” moving Clifford to China.

But the script gives a pretty talented line-up of co-stars little that’s cute or funny to say or do. Grier in particular is wasted in his role. Tovah Feldshuh, vamping it up as a Russian neighbor, makes an impression. And Kenan Thompson has a funny cameo as an unflappable vet who needs to “take his temperature,” and tries to get Casey to do it for him.

Cleese twinkles, something no one who remembers his early comedy could have predicted. Hale tries to live up to being the villain. But there’s just not enough there for most of them to work with.

Not enough for “adults,” I’d hasten to add. This movie isn’t for us.

For children ready to grow out of animated kids’ fare, the belches, farts, gigantic-tail wagging out of control of a giant dog in New York might be enough.

Cast: Darby Camp, Jack Whitehall, Izaac Wang, Sienna Guillory, David Alan Grier, Tony Hale, Tovah Feldshuh, Horatio Sanz, Russell Peters, Paul Rodriguez, Russell Wong and John Cleese.

Credits: Directed by Walt Becker, scripted by Jay Scherick, David Ronn and Blaise Hemingway. A Paramount release.

Running time: 1:36

Marvel always has its next project ready to promote as its current film, “the worst reviewed MCU movie ever,” “Eternals,” makes its bow.

“Morbius” is a Sony release from the Spider-Man/Venom side of “the business.”

This Jared Leto vehicle — Oscar winner Jared Leto, one hastens to add — is slated for next year, with the date moving about a bit still.

Here’s the latest…

This dysfunctional couple comedy is about children’s entertainers — singers in fluffy suits — who are over it and over each other. Until a little “magical” intervention from a would be manager changes things.

Finished in 2015, not sure if it ever got any sort of distribution. Not a marketable name in the cast. Vanessa Ray and Josh Brener, Jason Edward Hammel? Nov. 19 it starts streaming.

“Spencer” is nothing less than the reinvention of Kristen Stewart. Her portrayal of a troubled, mercurial, vain and bitter Diana, Princess of Wales is that startling, that much of a career-reset.

Her performance starts with an uncanny impersonation — the way Diana held her head, the whisper she always seemed to speak in, her carriage, stride and simple “ready for my closeup” beauty. We forget that this is actually the actress-turned-celebrity nicknamed “K-Stew” in a heartbeat. We even see flashes where she looks not just like Diana, but Naomi Watts, who played the princess in “Diana” some years back.

And almost as quickly as we lose the actress in that impersonation, she and the film transcend mimicry and plunge into the psyche of a woman wronged — a rich, powerful and unconcerned family that circled the wagons around the “outsider” to protect the feckless fop and heir to the throne, Prince Charles (Jack Farthing).

If I’ve seen a better performance in recent years than Stewart’s in this “fable from a true tragedy,” I can’t remember it. She’s stunning.

Pablo Larraín — he made “Jackie” with Natalie Portman a few years back — works from a detailed, minimalist screenplay by Steven Knight (“Locke,” “Dirty Pretty Things,” “Eastern Promises”) to produce an up-close-and-personal profile of Diana in her time of trial, the Christmas she reached her limit and ditch Charles and the Windsors, if not her fame.

Like “Jackie” and “Judy” and for that matter this month’s “King Richard,” this is biography as fantasia, a “what should have happened” story with a hint of fact and a whiff of fantasy.

It’s flattering, but nothing like a hagiography. There’s no image polishing, with just the barest mention of Diana’s “ban landmines” activism. She is vain, constantly asking “How do I look?” never venturing out less than stunningly turned out.

Diana is impulsive, lashing out within the strictures of her “duties” as she makes statements with what she wears and gives away what she “knows” about Charles and the old flame he never shook off, and carried on an affair with while both were married, simply by donning a pearl necklace.

Her most passive aggressive act of all is making the smug Corgi-fancier with “HRH” attached to her name, and her untidy family, wait. Stella Gonet has just a few scenes to suggest an Elizabeth that Helen Mirren won an Oscar portraying — emotionally-stunted, rigid and adamant about “tradition” and protocol, the older and more ludicrously out of date, the better.

When we meet Diana, she’s motoring about the countryside in her Porsche convertible, looking for Sandringham House, a drafty royal estate that is, coincidentally, next door to the great house gone to ruin that Diana grew up in, back when she was Diana Spencer.

Diana is so lost she has to ask directions from the gobsmacked inhabitants of a local pub. And failing there, she stumbles into the proud, dutiful and sympathetic royal head chef, Darren (Sean Harris, superb), who points her the right way.

Darren’s big staff prepares one ostentatiously sumptuous feast after another over the 1992 holidays, with him egging them on with a challenge borne of genuine affection and concern.

“I want our Princess of Wales to WANT something.”

Everybody in the Royal household knows of Diana’s eating disorder, and some even see it as a product of the ugly stresses of paparazzi, tabloid journalists, a husband straying with another woman, and his family’s indifference to Diana’s plight.

A sign in that kitchen orders one and all to “Keep the Noise to a Minimum. They Can Hear You.” And they do. For all the “security” surrounding this lot, the dressers, cooks and functionaries are — it is implied — their own gossiping/”reporting” social network.

Another sign is just as telling. The carefully-organized designer wardrobe Diana is to wear to every meal, outing, ceremony and the like carries a tag — “P.O.W.” You can think that stands for “Princess of Wales” if you like. But as we’ve already met the new Master of the Household, a retired Black Watch officer based on an RAF officer who had such duties, we can leap to a more ironic acronym conclusion.

Major Alastair Gregory (Timothy Spall, chilling) can seem sympathetic, but his sternness points to trouble on the horizon. He is there to keep the tabloids at bay, and it is implied, a tight rein on Diana.

“I watch so that others may not see,” he says, trying to curb Diana’s tendency to let the public and the press see more of her — candidly or otherwise — than the royal family would like, another way she fights her treatment and the restraints put upon her by her role, her fame and keeping her “place.”

Gregory cannot abide tardiness, and the admittedly paranoid Diana perceives cruelty and conspiracy in his actions.

Diana’s one confidante in the entire “holiday” travel party is her dresser, played by Oscar-winner Sally Hawkins. Her unguarded and improper bit of advice?

“They can’t change. YOU be the change.”

Over the course of three days, Diana’s “ridiculousness” — “silliness” is how she tells her oldest son William to describe it — rubs the mostly-offstage Royals the wrong way, time and again. We mostly see her, alone in her room or striding down cavernous empty halls, and see and hear servants of varying ranks knocking, calling out “Dessert, madam” or “The Family is waiting to open presents, madam.”

And Diana, finding a conspicuously-played book about the wife King Henry VIII murdered, Anne Boleyn, starts seeing Anne (Amy Manson) in her dreams and visions. Her paranoia and despair grow and grow.

Stewart’s portrayal is so vulnerable and alluring that if you’re so inclined, she could make you fall in love with “The People’s Princess” all over again. And it’s worth noting that the pretty actress has never been filmed in more flattering light. Kids who grew up on “Twilight” are thus encouraged to fall in love with Kristen Stewart again, too.

The movie around her is the damnedest thing, a script that ventures from cracker-jack to kind of crackers in the directions it takes Diana’s psyche and the lifeline it invents for her to grab.

“Spencer” owes a debt to “Jackie,” and to “Great Expectations” (a ruined family mansion, lost connections) and even “Citizen Kane.” Diana has her own “Rosebud,” and you’ll recognize it the moment she dons it.

Sure, it’s a one-sided portrait, although a more complex picture of Charles emerges despite the fact that Farthing (of TV’s latest “Poldark”) has few scenes to make an impression.

And no, it’s not the truth, or even The Gospel According to Diana.

But “Spencer” is still one of the best-written, best-acted pictures of the year. And if there’s any justice, Stewart will get the chance to smile her trademark coy grin and play with her hair, this time for a global TV audience. Oscar night could very well be her night.

Rating: R, for some language (partial nudity)

Cast: Kristen Stewart, Timothy Spall, Jack Farthing, Stella Gonet, Sean Harris and Sally Hawkins

Credits: Directed by Pablo Larraín, scripted by Steven Knight. A Topic Studios film, a Neon release.

Running time: 1:57

Medieval combat, “The Battle on the Ice,” music by Prokofiev and the Soviet master of montage (editing) makes a spectacle out of mise en scene (production design, epic shot compositions) — that’s what cinephiles summon up when revering Serge Eisenstein’s 1938 classic “Alexander Nevsky.”

A filmmaker famed for telling his stories and making his (often propagandistic) points with masterful flurries of edits in “Battleship Potemkin” and “October” turns stately and almost grandiose with a large-scale patriotic epic taken from the pages of Russian history.

What sticks in the memory — and it’s been decades since I first saw it — is that famous set-piece, “The Battle on the Ice,” a sweeping scrum of cavalry and infantry set on a frozen lake, action-packed but seen largely through the eyes of a handful of stock character “types” caught up in it.

Watching “Nevsky” again, I can’t help but be struck by how Western it looks, as in The Old West as it was filmed by John Ford. “Stage Coach,” which Ford released a year later, has traces of “Nevsky” that must have been most obvious when seeing them new, in cinemas just a year apart.

They’re totally different movies, but their story structure, character tropes and set pieces are shot and timed in similar enough ways that Ford — acclaimed but not yet “Directed by John Ford” iconic — might have absorbed “Nevsky” in the process of making his Ur Western.

In the divided and conquered Russia of the 13th century, the lands the Mongol Horde wasn’t still holding were fought over by invading Swedes and others. The Rus aren’t quite enslaved, but they must be deferential to their masters.

Not Prince Alexander Nevksy (Nikolay Cherkasov). A broad-shouldered man’s man, we meet him when he stops tending his fishing nets to break up a passing Mongol raiding party’s stop-and-humiliate-the-locals pause in their ongoing marauding.

“Fight not more!” He does this merely with his commanding presence.

“Was it you who defeated the Swedes?” the Mongol leader wants to know. Yes, Nevsky admits, squaring his shoulders to the camera like a Victorian stage hero. “A person of importance” like you should join the Horde, then.

My people have a saying, Nevsky intones, his eyes cast upon the distant horizon. “Better to die in your own land than to leave it!”

When word later comes of Teutonic invaders rolling up cities on their march to the East, Nevsky ignores calls to be the one who rids Mother Russia of the Mongol menace. He will deal with them later (or leave them to Ivan the Terrible). First, I will smite the Germans.

The conflict is thus set in motion — unruly, brawny and brave Russian nobles and peasants battle disciplined, better-armed and better trained Teutonic knights, invaders who aim to conquer their land and divide it among themselves.

The propaganda value of the film, with Nazi Germany re-arming to their West, was undeniable, so much so that when Stalin gullibly took a Nazi peace pact at face value, he ordered “Nevsky” pulled from distribution.

Because the iconography of the Hated Invader who would knock down their door three years after its 1938 release is undeniable.

Killing two Enemies of the People with one stone, Eisenstein (who co-directed and co-wrote “Nevsky”) locks the monolithic German aggressor arm in arm with the Holy Church, hated by the Bolsheviks and feared by their leaders.

The Germans are clothed in crosses, have cross-shaped slits in their helmets, and are guided, guarded and egged on by Catholic priests.

“All who refuse to bow to Rome must be destroyed,” the sinister archbishop (Lev Fenin) growls.

Look at the symbol on his miter and see Eisenstein’s welding of Church and (Nazi) State in the decoration. See the hated Huns literally toss Russian babies into a bonfire.

Nevsky himself slips into the background once he’s rallied the troops and set his trap. The battle itself, haphazard and not the least bit bloody by historical and modern cinema standards, is broken into set pieces of its own.

The grizzled, whimsical Maste Armorer (Dmitriy Orlov) is full of patriotic promises and amusing aphorisms.

“Every bird pecks with its own beak,” he chuckles (in Russian with English subtitles) about his constant salesmanship.

Two nobles — Vasili and Gavrilo (Nikolai Okhlopkov, Andrei Abrikosov) battle to prove who is the most valiant in the eyes of the noblewoman (Valentina Ivashova) they’re competing for. That’s echoed in the battle scenes of Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” and scores of Westerns and combat films.

A woman warrior (Aleksandra Danilova) dons chain mail and is welcomed, another Comrade wielding Arms in the Struggle.

Only the “monied men” of pre-united Russia’s Novgorod beg for appeasement, not a “patriot” among the bourgeois lot.

The style of acting isn’t aging well. You’d never know Russia is also the birthplace of The Method from most of Eisenstein’s films. He liked casting amateurs who looked the part a bit too much for his own good.

And the great battle scene, despite the stirring (and oft-borrowed) music by Serge Prokofiev, seems more the inspiration for all that came after it than anything that stands the test of time. The silent “Napoleon” was more impressive, and Eisenenstein’s “Ivan the Terrible” bested “Nevsky” in this regard a few years later.

But I’d still place this 1938 classic as one of the two great films of the Russian cinema pioneer, second only to “Potemkin” in its art, cohesion and lasting impact and import.

If you want to call yourself a cinephile, “Alexander Nevsky” remains a must-see film in your cinematic experience.

Rating: unrated, violence

Cast: Nikolay Cherkasov, Nikolai Okhlopkov, Andrei Abrikosov, Valentina Ivashova, Aleksandra Danilova, Dmitriy Orlov, Lev Fenin and Vladimir Yershov

Credits: Directed by Sergei M. Eisenstein and Dmitriy Vasilev, scripted by Sergei M. Eisenstein and Pyotr Pavlenko. A MosFilm production, a Corinth release.

Running time: 1:48

A rare Sunday AM Preview showing will let kids, their parents and critics see this adaptation of the books and PBS TV show.

The dog doesn’t talk in this rendition, which opens early this week.

“Red Notice” doesn’t go to hell straight away. Oh no.

The first act is “Thomas Crown Affair,” witty and caperish and fun. The second act is “National Treasure” warmed over — a treasure hunt with lots of Big Budget action derring-do. Meh.

The third act? “Indiana Jones’ Greatest Hits.”

Zzzzzzzz… No. Literally.

You start with FBI profiler Hartley (Dwayne Johnson) chasing “the world’s second best” art thief (Ryan Reynolds) through capers and quips.

“That was a fun foot chase, right? Lots of twists and turns. Who knew it’d end like this?”

“I did.”

It forces these two to team up against The Bishop, the world’s greatest art thief (Gal Gadot), hunting down “Cleopatra’s Eggs” (invented, no such thing) from Spain to Argentina.

And it climaxes with Ed Sheeran as a punchline.

Let down? Yeah, a bit.

The first act’s gags had me giggling — a Reynolds riff or three, Johnson commandeering a Product Placement Porsche for a chase — and wrecking it three seconds later.

The second act grinds to a halt, the third takes on delusions of theme park rides and a franchise.

Nope and nope.

Just spitballing here, but I’m guessing his “Skyscraper” and “Central Intelligence” director talked Johnson into taking Netflix Bitcoin for this, and DJ hustled up DC queen Gadot and Every Action Comedy’s Best Friend, Canada’s second sweetest export, Reynolds.

And if they don’t regret it, maybe The Wrestler Formerly Known as The Rock can drop all the “MCU and DC Universe” crossover talk. Because this bust pretty much stops payment on that check.

Reynolds’ Nolan Booth isn’t just a master thief, he’s an escape artist — “six for six…One more, and I get a ‘Shawshank’ jacket.”

Johnson’s profiler seems to get the drop on him almost as often as the Italian Interpol cop (Ritu Arya) who busts in on most every heist and locale they wind up in, and the movie winds up in a lot — Rome, Bali, etc.

When she packs BOTH of them off to Interpol prison in snowy Siberia, the viewer is given pause.

“Forget Guantanamo! INTERPOL has RUSSIAN prisons?”

Gadot glams up the joint as the fly in the ointment, and is most impressive not in mimicking her Wonder Woman moves in “trophy room” fights. The twinkle in her eye in a few moments of sadism is some of the best acting we’ve ever seen her do. We hope it’s acting, anyway.

Johnson has evolved into a first-rate straight man and bulk-rate punchline. And Reynolds makes everything, even middling pix like “Red Notice” — the title is Interpol’s “highest” warrant, the script claims — bubbly enough to endure.

There’s no sense pummeling a popcorn picture whose greatest sins are running out of new ideas, running out of gas and running through Reynolds’ repertoire of riffs as it does.

But this is by far the worst Rawson Marshall Thurber outing to star Dwayne Johnson, and even though it’s made for Netflix (briefly in theaters as I type this), the Big Guy always with a Big Plan for What’s Next has got to be thinking maybe it’s time to change phone numbers.

Because when you hit that wall in the third act, it’s not just ginger pop Ed Sheeran staring back at you. It’s what a certain Canadian wit would call “resting failure face.”

Rating: PG-13 for violence and action, some sexual references, and strong language

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot, Ritu Arya and Chris Diamantopoulos

Credits: Scripted and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:57