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“Thi Mai (Rumbo a Vietnam)” is another bubble-gum colored Spanish travelogue comedy, this one set mostly in Vietnam.

It sets us up for “heartwarming,” for culture clash/language barrier gags, for madcap misadventures and a little romance — some straight, some gay.

Almodóvar changed Spain, or at least Spanish rom-coms. Every Netflix comedy is gay-friendly proof.

Virtually nothing promised by this one comes off, making for an irritating movie stuffed with trite scenes and insurmountable obstacles, all of which are neatly surmounted by the finale.

It’s damned irritating is what it is.

It begins with a bad day — Elvira (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón), a banker of  a certain age, is “pre-retired” by her ageist boss.

She’s just gathering her girls, harried, unworldly housewife Rosa (Adriana Ozores) and testy hardware store co-owner Carmen (Carmen Machi) for a “Tonight, we drink” vent-fest, when tragic news is added to the menu.

Carmen’s daughter dies in a car wreck. Months later, her friends cannot pull her out of her funk, she and her husband can’t bear to even reopen the store. And then Pilar calls. That adoption of a Vietnamese orphan that daughter Maria was setting up?

“She’s approved!”

Carmen’s impulse is to race to Vietnam and claim this little piece of her daughter as her own. No, that is NOT how it works. And yes, the idea is not unlike getting a new puppy after your dog dies.

A repellent comparison, which anybody watching this cannot help but make.

There’s nothing for it but for Elvira to join her in this quixotic quest, and for Rosa to escape her needy/control-freak husband and their tuned-out teens to do the same.

Upon arrival, they meet Andres (Dani Rovira), a gay man ready to start his life in Vietnam with his in-country lover Jose. Andres speaks enough Vietnamese to get the ladies out of their first jam. He’s helpful.

Then they meet Dan (Eric Nguyen), guide and adoption agency intermediary. Dan becomes Obstacle One against acquiring Thi Mai,” the little girl Maria was to adopt.

Because…paperwork, legalities, no standing and “I’m very sorry.”

The film descends into a series of miscommunications, “sneak arounds” to try and get to someone over Dan’s head, to pass on a doll to the child, to make this very difficult thing happen in an instant because that’s what Carmen wants more than anything else in the world.

The ladies wind up in the casino, in assorted wrong places (a rice paddy), and the language barrier scenes, at least, are handled with a deft touch. Don’t translate what the Vietnamese are saying, have the ladies (speaking Spanish, or Spanglish) struggle to mime out their meaning as whatever Vietnamese person they’re dealing with tries to understand and chatter back.

“How do you say, ‘Are you sure this is chicken?'”

Rosa is worried sick they’re going to feed her cooked dog.

One other scene that comes off is Andres’ botched reunion with Jose, a comical debacle parked in the middle of Halong Bay, with its towering, forested islands as a backdrop.

The rest? Merely irritating nonsense. The ladies aren’t funny enough to wring laughs out of the script, and the gay jokes are both out-of-date and too few in number to compensate.

MPAA Rating: TV-MA, sexuality, smoking, drinking

Cast:Carmen Machi, Adriana Ozores, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Dani Rovira and Eric Nguyen

Credits: Directed by Patricia Ferreira, script by Marta Sánchez.  A Netflix Original.

Running time: 1:39

Never got the fanaticism surrounding this title. But I wasn’t nine when it came out.

Can’t knock that cast, though. Perhaps only Superfan Josh Gad could get Sean, Martha, Corey, Josh et al together again.

That, and the enforced inactivity of a viral outbreak. This should be fun.

https://people.com/movies/josh-gad-to-host-the-goonies-reunion-with-original-cast-members-for-a-special/

A bomb when it opened, reviewed as if Robert Altman was trying to sabotage his then-lauded reputation and end his major studio pictures career, a misfire that halted Robin Williams’ ascent, “Popeye” (1980) lives on as a monument to ’70s cinematic excess, a harbinger of ’80s cinematic excesses to come.

It’s a fascinating bauble in epic form, “Altmanesque” in the sense of messy, chattering lives doing that chattering in a place that never existed — but which lives on, as a tourist attraction on the island of Malta in the Mediterranean.

Yes, Wolf Krueger’s massive, clapboard abd makeshift-looking, sea-stained “Sweethaven” set — Anchor Bay — still stands. It alone is reason enough to reconsider the picture, which has shared traits with other under performing Big Budget epics such as “Catch-22,” “Chaplin” and Spielberg’s “1941.”

There’s wrongheadedness in the whole enterprise. But they literally “don’t make’em like that any more.”

Harry Nilsson’s sweet, forlorn and nostalgic songs compliment but don’t save Jules Feiffer’s aimless, meandering screenplay.

Altman’s normal saving graces, an ensemble riffing and improvising and talking over one another, has a hard time filling that enormous, eye-popping set. Having a couple of members of his rep company (Shelley Duvall, Paul Dooley) on board wasn’t enough.

Sticking the gifted mime, tumbler and clown Bill Irwin in as many shots as he could doesn’t make enough of a difference.

And yet here we are, 40 years later, remembering a movie that stops film buffs — to this day — when we stumble across it channel surfing.

Williams practically needs subtitles for us to catch all his (sometimes improvised) asides and one-liners.

“Don’t touch nothin‘. You might get a venerable disease.”

The running gags never quite wear out their welcome, Father Oyl (Olive’s Dad) muttering “You owe me an apology” to everyone over every utterance or slight.

The “Tax-Man” (Donald Moffatt, who rose to fame with “The Right Stuff) interrupting every action or transaction with a bill — “Four dollars twenty-five cents, movin’ out tax… Not up to no good, are you? Because if you are, there’s a 50 cent ‘up to no good’ tax.”

Oh, to see screenwriter Feiffer’s tax returns while he was inventing that guy for the screenplay.

Here’s what killed the picture — the ending. Ray Walston’s scene-chewing (with virtually no decent lines) “Poopdeck Pappy,” Popeye’s Dad, arrives in the third act and ensures the movie leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth. It’s not all on Walston (“Damn Yankees,” “My Favorite Martian”). Feiffer couldn’t write his way out of this one.

But “Popeye” is perfectly watchable, often downright entertaining, up to that finale. It’s visually rich enough to reward the alert viewer with all these Altmanesque Easter Eggs among the bit players and extras, most of whom only pop off the screen after repeated viewings.

There’s Beatles’ fan, musician and artist Klaus Voorman, conducting an ensemble. Famed rock percussionist Ray Cooper, bald even then, shows up, and there’s Van Dyke Parks at the piano.

And boy howdy, look what “Andy Griffith Show” regular is over there, picking on the old ban-jo — Doug Dillard.

Two future Oscar winners are in that cast — Williams, and in a distinctive bit part (mother to a man-mountain boxer Popeye fights), Linda Hunt.

The one new face and voice that grabbed my attention this last viewing was Dennis Franz, playing a mouthy thug about to get his butt-kicked by Popeye. “Hill Street Blues” and “NYPD Blue” were in the future.

Franz, Dillard, Hunt and character actor Richard Libertini, the whole lot were flown to Malta and kept there until this picture wrapped, an exercise in excess few would dare hazard today.

Maybe with good cause. It has its charms. And I’ll still take this comic book movie over more than a few of the digital animation-assisted ones that Marvel’s churned out over the past decade.

Altman would live long enough for a glorious comeback, Williams and Hunt would win their Oscars, producer Robert Evans would go on to brag about making classics and epic messes like this in “The Kid Stays in the Picture,” and Sweethaven would live on — as an earworm, a status a couple of songs in the film achieved, and as a better-painted-set-turned-attraction, one that tourists can visit and dine on seafood in, with a side a spinach.

MPAA Rating: PG

Cast: Robin Williams, Shelley Duvall, Paul Dooley, Paul L. Smith, Linda Hunt, Ray Waltson, Donald Moffatt, Dennis Franz, Richard Libertini and Bill Irwin.

Credits: Directed by Robert Altman, script by Jules Feiffer, based on the E.C. Seegar comic. A Paramount release.

Running time: 1:54

The teenage girl wants the rodeo clown to give away his secrets, how he does his job distracting the bull when the bullrider’s been thrown or in trouble.

“How do you know when the rider’s about to fall off?”

“When his head hits the ground.”

“Bull” is the compelling, understated and surprising story of how these two got to that conversation. Writer-director Annie Silverstein’s debut immerses us in a little-filmed world of working class poverty where one life is hitting a dead end and another going off the rails just as it leaves the station.

Screen newcomer Amber Havard is Kristal, “Kris,” a 15 year-old whose life seems laid out before her, no salvation in sight. She lies like she breathes, poker-faced every time she does. She’s a walking, rarely-talking stereotype — poor white trash, living off her temper and her irresponsible impulses, the last kid on Earth you’d want looking after an adoring little sister, or a pit bull.

It’s the dog that’s run her afoul of Abe, the 50ish black man living down the street. The dog has a habit of breaking into his chicken coop and killing chickens. Abe, given a stoic resignation by Rob Morgan (“Stranger Things,””Daredevil”), lets himself get mad at one thing. He knows these chickens by name.

Kris is more than her diabetic grandmother can handle, and we are not surprised that A) Momma (Sara Allbright) is in prison and B) Kris is taking after her, fighting at school, paying no heed to a future that ends lives like hers almost before they’ve begun.

Kris’s impulse is to get even with the guy who chewed her out over his chickens. She sees he’s out of town on weekends. Messing around his house, her minor vandalism turns into “Let’s impress my ‘friends'” by breaking in and hosting a trash-the-house, drink-his-booze, steal-his-drugs party.

She’s Miss “Can’t you just take me to juvie?” to the cops. But grandma’s pleas have Abe letting her work off some sort of restitution.

Silverstein’s film avoids the timeworn traps of this sort of movie. There’s no epiphany that comes from caring for the stranger’s chickens. But as he makes her help him in his sideline, teaching boys to bull ride, this becomes her new impulse. And with the way she is, we know it won’t be her last.

Abe’s drugs were pain medicine, and he needs it for that weekend job — dressing as a clown (“I ain’t no clown.”) and working in the ring, keeping riders safe at the rodeo. He used to ride himself, and has the scars and aches to prove it.

He works in that world, where seeing a black face is still rare. But he’s a part of another one, where guys like him and old pal Mike (Troy Anthony Hogan) teach black teenagers the skills needed for the black rodeo, a veritable “chitlin’ circuit” alternative to the pro rodeo circuit that makes it on TV.

Silverstein’s film shows us a culture clash where there is no “clash.” Eyebrows might be raised as this white girl hanging around black men and Texas (Angleton, Houston) African American culture. Abe might seem like a better role model than Kris’s family and peers — kids who have no prospects, no ambition and little sign of being cared for. But they’ve got phones and tattoos because impulsive parents enable impulsive teens.

But these are not screen lives with sweeping character arcs. Abe is at the end of the line in his career, something an old flame (Yolanda Ross) reminds him of, but can’t make him agree to. Kris barely interrupts her run of bad choices as new choices start to present themselves.

She remains her Mamma’s child, even if realizing that is the first step towards escaping her fate.

“Bull’s” calling card is its sense of capturing lives as they’re being lived, immersing us in this world, dreading that next ride, that next blunder, fearing for our leads and those close to them.

It’s everything a screen drama and indie film should be — a novel story, characters we rarely see and care about and immersion in a world we know nothing about.

MPAA Rating: unrated, drug and alcohol use, sex/nudity, profanity, violence

Cast: Rob Morgan, Amber Havard, Yolonda Ross, Sara Allbright

Credits: Directed by Annie Silverstein, script by Annie Silverstein and  Johnny McAllister. A Samuel Goldwyn release.

Running time: 1:48

The acting isn’t bad, the Barcelona and environs settings gorgeous and there’s a nice tug of the heartstrings in the finale.

But in all honesty, only one thing works in “In Family I Trust,” a Spanish rom-com based on a Laura Norton novel. It’s a running gag, and it involves a dwarf.

The movie surrounding that? Tepid tapas, I have to say.

Bea grew up in a big house full of love and an absent (seaman) father, sitting on the roof every evening, dreaming of becoming an architect.

Years later, she’s living the dream, about to make a big hotel design presentation. Her live-in workplace romance, Victor (Fernando Guallar) proposes, on impulse, in the shower.

“What the Hell?” Bea (Clara Lago) says, in Spanish with English subtitles, if you like. “SI!”

But damn, she can’t even get to the presentation without being bombed with TV evidence of Victor’s fling with a famous TV reporter the night before. Sure, Bea introduced them at a bar, and maybe there was this little “free pass” agreement between them about that one person on Earth each is allowed to sleep with.

But slapping the dude when you’re pitching rich hoteliers, and flinging the model on the floor, is a way to end everything with a bang. She’s homeward bound, where sister Irene (Alexandra Jiménez) is the town mayor, shoving a new “bio-mass” (tree cutting) energy plant through, sister Débora (Paula Malia) is clinging WAY too tightly to her newborn, and Mom (Pedro Almodóvar favorite Carmen Maura)?

“I have a year to live.”

That news is not-quite-shoved-to-the-side-entirely as Bea reinvents herself as a treehouse architect, and Mr. Bio-Mass (Álex García) becomes her first client. He drives a vintage pink Mercedes, which is worth commenting on.

“Only a guy who’s irresistible (and knows it) would drive a car like that.”

Obstacles to love are many, none of them the least bit interesting, none that cannot be solved by Mom’s new solution to everything.

“Have a shot,” she says, tipping over the bottle. “Soon you’ve be over him.”

But — spoiler alert — here’s the only bit that works. It’s not about the biomass controversy, not about Bea’s romantic tug of war, not gay brother Leon’s love affair with a cop, not about Mom’s drinking and dying.

SOMEbody’s baby is starting to look a lot like the “entertainment” at a year-ago bachelorette party.

Ahem.

Sorry, but every damn time this running gag returns, with its “Oh, he’ll be fine, just accept him. It’s nobody’s fault” reassurances (Um, it IS somebody’s fault. Cough, cough.) it is hilarious.

Funny idea, well-executed in that “Death at a Funeral” way, amusingly played.

The rest? “Trust” this “familia” not to deliver the laughs.

MPAA Rating: TV-MA, sexuality, profanity, drinking

Cast: Clara Lago, Álex García, Alexandra Jiménez, Paula Malia, Fernando Guallar , Carlos Cuevas and Carmen Maura

Credits:  Directed by Patricia Font, script by Darío Madrona, Carlos Montero, based on the novel by Laura Norton.  A Netflix Original.

Running time: 1:37

Here’s a “Last Picture Show” era story of growing up in the rural West, the crippling burdens of small town life and that one new friend who can help you lift your downcast eyes “To the Stars.”

Sounds sensitive, maybe a little dated, with a hint of Big Subject to be addressed in it? On the nose. Which is a failing of this still-touching feature from the director of “Land Ho!”

The “first impressions can be deceiving” theme is laid out in the first scene. Shy teen Iris Deerborne (Kara Hayward of “Manchester by the Sea”) gets fussed over by her Mom (Jordana Spiro) and Mom’s friend, fretting over a prom dress they’ve been working on.

Gruff farmer Dad (Shea Whigham) cuts them off and sends her on her way to school.

Grumpy Dad, it quickly turns out, is the reasonable one, just trying to “give her a break.” Mom is a big reason Iris is scared of her own shadow.

The harassment she’s subjected to by pick-em-truck classmates walking to school confirms the crippling pigeon-hole Iris has been shoved into. The boys taunt her with “Stinky Drawers,” and are on the cusp of crossing over to assault when, behold, an avenging angel rides to her rescue.

Hurled rocks and expletives are how we, Iris and the punks meet Maggie (Liana Liberato, “The Best of Me,””If I Stay”). She’s a city girl, she explains.

“I’ve got a mouth like a gutter,” she apologizes. Iris practically sprints away from her.

If these two are going to be friends, Maggie, who lives close by, is going to have to be persistent. Showing up at the pond where Iris takes midnight swims, for instance. Iris is slow to let down her guard.

The mean girls clique at school, led by Clarissa (Madisen Beatty) are all set to take City Girl into their ranks, if only she’d learn Iris is an “Untouchable.” Clarissa is an unfiltered bitch, hitting Iris right where it hurts — her ugly nickname, her booze-crippled home life.

Iris can’t bear to look the handsome hired hand (Lucas Jade Zumann) in the eye, out of fear, fear that her lush of a mother reinforces at every turn. Iris has a secret shame. Mom picks at it, and puts down the attentions from the new girl and her new mother in town.

“She gets her clothes from DEE-orr!” She’s going to tire of Iris and toss her aside. Mom expects, NEEDS this to happen.

And Maggie may talk a big game about her “Life Magazine photographer” Dad (Tony Hale) and model-gorgeous Mom (Malin Akerman) and how “they wanted me to be a model.” But for all their efforts to say grace before dinner, to fit in, Mom’s quick agreement to join the ladies at Hazel’s (Adelaide Clemens) in-home beauty shop at church, something dark is hinted at there as well.

“I left my JOB for you,” Dad hisses at every unaccounted for minute in Maggie’s day. Maggie has a secret shame, too.

We see the two of them bludgeoned by misunderstanding parents and cruel classmates, all of them hellbent on smothering this relationship in the crib. But Iris needs an outsider’s take on her situation to start to understand it.

Maggie just needs a friend who’ll stick by her, even after they fight.

Shannon Bradley-Colleary’s screenplay feels quaint, as if it’s broaching the subject of same-sex attraction in the era it is set — 1960 Oklahoma. But the extreme reactions to this sort of unspoken “deviance” make the shock of how quickly attitudes changed, half a century after “Magnificent Seven” was showing at the local cinema, feel fresh.

Too many scenes feel over-familiar, although the cliched “beauty makeover” by the new friend is punctuated by a surprise twist.

Dated touches aside, the two leads are so immersed in their roles that they make us buy in, too. Liberato is the more experienced, and she makes the emerging “assertive woman ahead of her time” stereotype ring true, and Hayward’s depiction of Iris’s crippling shyness and resignation to her fate touching.

The supporting players build on that reality, with Spiro devouring the tipsy, narcissistic villainy of Francine and Whigham beautifully conveying the stern but kind father and husband trying to counter her cruelty, even though nothing in his upbringing or the expectations of what it means to be a man at the time have prepared him to do that.

And as well-worn as depictions of America’s rural-urban divide are, Martha Stephens’ film is a timely reminder that social change and progress comes from cities. It’s the violent resistance to that change that emerges from the “heartland.”

“To the Stars” may be a mixed bag of over-familiar obstacles and dated themes. But this period-perfect piece and a solid cast take us back to an uglier time, just as we were about to forget it.

MPAA Rating: unrated, violence, teen drinking, profanity

Cast: Kara Hayward, Liana Liberato, Jordana Spiro, Malin Akerman, Tony Hale,  Adelaide Clemens and Shea Whigham

Credits: Directed by Martha Stephens, script by Shannon Bradley-Colleary. A Samuel Goldwyn release.

Running time: 1:49

“The Willoughbys” is a kids’ cartoon conceived in that no-kids-land, the border country between “Yellow Submarine” and, oh, “Hotel Transylvania 3.”

There’s whimsy and originality in the design and animation, and a trip to rehab in the screenplay.

No, having Ricky Gervais as the almost-snarky narrator-cat, give us an opening speech about what sort of story it WASN’T going to be, all sweet and cuddly and kid-pandering, doesn’t atone for that.

It starts promisingly, builds towards something Roald Dahl cutting and cute, and kind of comes to pieces, like crumb cake.

It’s about a family of gingers — self-absorbed upper-class twits, The Willoughbys, who have been history’s leaders, warriors and adventurers. But the water’s run out of the gene pool, and the couple we meet as “Father” (Martin Short) and “Mother” (Jane Krakowski), are happily holed up in a midtown Oceania (neither British, nor American, just…Orwellian) house where they dance and kiss and coo and knit.

Until the kids arrive. Tim (Will Forte) is the first. And he’s read the Riot Act by Dear Old Dad right at the get-go.

“If you need love, I beg of you, find it elsewhere!”

Jane (Alessia Cara) and the twins, both named Barnaby (Seán Cullen) follow. Same deal. The parents are totally self-involved, and into each other — not the kiddies.

There’s a bold statement for a PG-rated cartoon. Married happiness ends when the children show up.

The couple “eat TODAY’S food. You rat YESTERDAY’S food.”

No wonder Tim is drawn rail-thin. Jane is in the habit of singing what her present state of mind and situation are, which just earns rebukes from Mother.

Yes kids, some people NEVER should have children.

The script somewhat pointlessly drops a baby, Baby Ruth, on their doorstep. They “re-orphan” her at a candy factory run by Commander Melanoff (Terry Crews).

Then Tim and Jane hatch a scheme to save them all. They’ll invent a travel agency that can book their neglectful parents on a long trip. “What if we orphaned ourselves.”

Only the parents hire a rotund, rambunctious Nanny (Maya Rudolph) to “care” for them, something they’ve never done. Well, aside from the red wigs Mother has knitted for the quartet.

Nanny sings — “ALL nannies sing!” — cooks and carries on, but Tim isn’t having this usurping of his rule of the “family.” That leads to the Sorrow and the Pity. Or its animated equivalent.

It’s a chatty movie with a few complex ideas and a lot of bigger words than your average child animation fan would know. With Mr. Gervais on board, is this some sort of satire aimed more at adults?

If it is, here are the two places I laughed. The kids head to the candy factory “at the end of the rainbow” (Stay off drugs, screenwriters). Tim notes “This is the BAD part of town.”

A homeless guy starts picking out the music to “Dueling Banjos.”

Another grown up gag? The parents catch a little public radio, at some point, and the distinct feminine affectations of Ira Glass (“This American Life”) pop up — navel-gazing radio for the hopelessly self-involved.

I almost laughed at the giddily greedy realtor the parents hire — mid-trip — to sell their house (kids NOT included) for them.

So while there’s wit in the design, and the animation is up to snuff, this is no “Klaus,” no obvious sign that Netflix is ready to give Pixar, Dreamworks, Sony Animation or Blue Sky a run for their money. Hiring directors with “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2)” and “Space Chimps” experience did not help.

Why they didn’t just write a check to Laika (“Coraline,” “Paranorman”) or another check to Aardman (“Sean the Sheep”) escapes me.

MPAA Rating: PG for rude humor and some thematic elements

Cast: The voices of Will Forte, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short, Alessia Cara, Terry Crews and Jane Krakowski

Credits: Directed by Kris Pearn, Cory Evans and Rob Lodermeier , script by Kris Pearn and Mark Stanleigh. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:32

How much time do we allow for a vintage “wuxia” picture for “the good stuff” to begin?

Asking for a friend.

Sure, you cut some slack for the early films in the genre of martial arts period pieces that reached their pinnacle with “Crouching Tiger,” “House of Flying Daggers” and “Hero.” But “Dragon Inn” and “Come Drink With Me” set the stage for the flying, fist-flinging, sword-slinging epics to follow, and inspired them by being fun and furious.

“The Fate of Lee Khan” (1973) was a late arrival of those early years. And there are perfectly obvious reasons its not listed among the greats, the early greats of this literary-turned-film phenomenon.

It’s stagey, set on basically one set, with a few exteriors at the beginning and for the Big Brawl at the End.

It’s talky, and the banter isn’t particularly witty — heavy on exposition. It’s about a 13th century conflict, a tyrannical leader — Lee Khan (Feng Tien) — his visit to the remote Spring Inn (because “Dragon Inn” was taken) and efforts to steal a map of war plans.

The little bursts of action generally spin around the owner, Wan Jen-mi (Li Hua Li) and her beautiful, martial arts-and-pickpocketing skilled and somewhat short-tempered wait staff.

And that’s just not enough to put this over.

I’m not that familiar with the films of King Hu, but a quick Google reveals he was never known for fight choreography. Fine. But if the story, the performances, the gags and the righteous beat-downs are supposed to sell this, they don’t.

The trash talk and threats are of the “You must be tired of living!” (subtitles) variety.

The only laughs come from the singing, rhyming jester (Ying-Chieh Han) who works the room for tips, gets on most people’s nerves, and then gets himself involved in the plot that involves Wan Jen mi and the mysterious Wang Cheng (Ying Bai).

It’s pretty enough to look at, in a sort of colorfully-underlit way. The fights better staged than photographed and edited. And the tedium overwhelms whatever excitement we might have hoped for, considering the genre, the title and the fact that somebody (Film Movement) thought this was a “forgotten gem” that deserved reconsideration.

Not really. Judging from this, “The Fate of Lee Khan” was to die of boredom waiting for the “fun parts” to begin.

MPAA Rating: unrated, some bloody violence

Cast: Li Hua Li, Feng Tien, Ying Bai, Angela Mao, Chin Hu, Feng Hsu and Ying-Chieh Han

Credits: Directed by King Hu, script by King Hu and Chung Wang.  A Film Movement Plus release.

Running time: 1:45

Hollywood has so pounded the “serial killer thriller” to death that you kind of wish they’d close the door on the subject.

But here’s a Polish version that’s as sharp as a cold slap in the face, as grisly as anything Hannibal Lecter dreamed up, and then some.

“The Plagues of Breslau” is social satire and history, police procedural and a grim, judgemental police indictment. It teaches and teases and is so tight that it’s rolling the credits before you have the chance to process everything that’s been thrown at you.

A short history lesson — “Breslau” is the old Germanic name for Wroclaw, a celebrated, historic and by reputation well-educated city in Silesia, on the Western edge of Poland. That’s where our story is set.

Our detective, Helena Rus (Malgorzata Kozuchowska), is sitting in her car, weeping, when we meet her, and not over that haircut. She’s recently suffered a loss.

Hurling her into a murder case doesn’t lessen her vulnerability. But pesky freelance TV reporters (Maria Dejmek) and annoying crime-scene bystanders get on her nerves and bring out the threats.

“In ten seconds, everyone here gets fingerprinted and processed as a possible suspect,” she growls, in Polish with English subtitles. “In our lovely country, that takes four hours. Ten, nine, eight.”

She’s just as touchy with her brutish, selfie-obsessed lout of a partner, whose radio call name is “Bronson” (Tomasz Oswiecinski).

“Don’t make me f—–g repeat myself!”

The first body is found stitched into a rare cowhide and stuffed in a stall as a street market. A tip — if bloodied corpses and explicit autopsies make you squeamish, move along.

The word “degenerate” has been branded on the victim’s abdomen.

The next victim, creatively delivered in pieces the very next day, has “plunderer” branded on his skin.

As the words are written in Polish, “that rules out foreigners,” the lady coroner quips. “A very methodical whack job,” is her cursory verdict.

The case is about to become a sensation, so a third expert is brought in, a profiler from the central office. All the experts in this corner of Poland are women, a sly bit of social commentary slipped into the slaughter.

A bluff and burly woman, she (Daria Widawska) sizes up crime scenes in a flash, immediately recites the Polish history that this killer seems to be repeating (a 1741 “cleansing” of the city’s wrongdoers by Frederick the Great) and even second-guesses the doctors who pronounce Bronson “brain dead” after getting caught up in an epic stunt pulled off by the killer.

One “victim” per day, each with some mortal personal or social sin attached to their resume, burned onto their flesh. Can the cops reason out a way to get ahead of the killer and stop the spree?

Satire enters the picture through casting, visuals and the nature of the crimes. The police, aside from Det. Rus and our profiler, are doltish and slow off the mark.

“They’ll fire us all for this, right?” an assistant to the chief mutters, to the general agreement of all who surround him, including his boss.

Crime scenes are sloppy, autopsies are carried out under strips of fly paper in a morgue you can practically smell.

One of the victims was the monstrous boss of a slaughterhouse, where he refused to run the AC “because it cost money,”  and locked the bathrooms, forcing employees to wear diapers on their cruel 12 hour shifts.

The sense of corruption, of criminals unpunished, a culture that’s never shed the Soviet domination that so scarred it for much of the last century (one crime takes place during a performance of the Russian opera, “The Fiery Angel”).

Flies surround the cynical, hair-flipping TV reporter, who berates her cameraman for being “no man” for flinching every time someone in authority threatens him.

The justice system doles out “political immunity” to well-connected criminals, the police “don’t help people,” and bully the alleged watchdogs — the press. The press? They’re chasing blood-stained ratings.

And this avenger has come among them to “cleanse” the city anew.

One set-piece, involving explosions and racehorses loosed in the city, is flat-out dazzling. Let’s hope the “Hollywood remake” does it as well.

The performances are more engrossing than affecting, with Kozuchowska never letting Helena show a scintilla of empathy. And some of the plot twists may give you whiplash.

But “The Plagues of Breslau” throws a lot of fresh ideas at the genre and blood on the screen, making for one of the most surprising pictures to wear the label “serial killer thriller” in years.

MPAA Rating: TV-MA, graphic, gruesome violence

Cast:Malgorzata Kozuchowska, Daria Widawska, Tomasz Oswiecinski , Maria Dejmek

Credits: Directed by Patryk Vega, script by Sylwia Koperska-Mrozinska and Patryk Vega.  A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:33