Producers: Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Dom DeSanto, Don Murphy, Michael Bay, Mark Vahradian and Duncan Henderson   Director: Steven Caple Jr.   Screenplay: Joby Harold, Darnell Metayer, Josh Peters, Erich Hoeber and Jon Hoeber   Cast: Anthony Ramos, Dominique Fishback, Luna Lauren Vélez, Dean Scott Vazquez, Tobe Nwigwe, Sarah Stiles, Michael Kelly, and the voices of Peter Cullen, Ron Perlman, Peter Dinklage, Michelle Yeoh, Liza Koshy, John DiMaggio, David Sobolov, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, Pete Davidson, Colman Domingo, Cristo Fernandez and Tongayi Chirisa    Distributor: Paramount

Grade: C-

For better or worse, “Rise of the Beasts” is a “Transformers” movie for “Transformers” fans, one that makes little effort to appeal in the slightest to anyone else, as “Bumblebee,” the initial installment in this prequel phase of the franchise, did to its credit.  “Beasts,” a period piece like its predecessor (it’s set in 1994, seven years after “Bumblebee”), does try to emulate that superior entry by giving its human characters some depth, but unlike the youngsters played by Hailee Steinfeld and Jorge Lendeborg Jr. in the previous picture, the terrestrials this time around are a pretty pallid pair.

They’re Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos) and Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishback). He’s an ex-soldier struggling to find a job to help his single Brooklyn mom (Luna Lauren Vélez) and his adorable kid brother Kris (Dean Scott Vazquez), whose treatment for sickle cell disease is being cut off by the hospital because of non-payment.  Hobbled by a poor reference from a military superior, Noah reluctantly agrees to help hip neighborhood hustler Reek (Tobe Nwigwe) do a car heist.

Elena’s a museum worker expert at identifying archaeological artifacts, whose boss (Sarah Stiles) takes credit for her work.  When an odd bird sculpture (looking rather like the Maltese Falcon) is delivered, Elena suggests that it’s not Egyptian, as believed, but of Aztec or Mayan origin.  When she surreptitiously analyzes it, it cracks open, revealing a glowing rod hidden inside.

That is, in fact, a transwarp key which, as a prologue has informed us, was taken from their planet by a group of Maximals headed by Optimus Primal (voiced by Ron Perlman) to prevent it from being used by the world-devouring Unicron (Colman Domingo), who had conquered their abode, to zoom to yet another tasty planet.  Its uncovering is detected by Unicron, who sends his cruel lieutenant Scourge (Peter Dinklage) and a bunch of other Terrorcons to retrieve it.

But its presence is also intuited by the good Autobots, headed by Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen), who have been hiding in vehicular form on earth and need it to get home.  He summons all of them to the museum, including Mirage (Pete Davidson), who happens to be the car Noah is trying to steal.  He takes the human along with him on a wild chase with police in full pursuit, the first of the movie’s big set-pieces.  Scourge and his forces also arrive at the museum, leading to the second, a battle between Autobots and Terrorcons in which Optimus is saved by the sudden arrival of Maximal Airazor (Michelle Yeoh). 

In the aftermath it’s revealed that what Scourge has acquired is only half the key, and both Noah and Elena are enlisted in the Autobots’ search for the remaining half.  That takes them all to Peru, where the other Maximals come out of hiding to aid in defeating Scourge.  Many further battles follow before…well, you know.  Presumably sequels are intended to bridge the gap between this narrative and that of Michael Bay’s 2007-2017 series of five films; one of the two final-credits interpolations, featuring Ramos and Michael Kelly, suggests that another moribund Paramount franchise might somehow be melded into the continuation.

If you understand any of this folderol, you’re clearly in the target audience of “Rise of the Beasts.”  Stephen Caple Jr. directs with efficiency if little imagination, while Ramos, Fishback and the other human actors attempt to keep straight faces while going through the paces of their threadbare characters, though it’s difficult when the dialogue concocted by no fewer than five writers recalls nothing more than clichés familiar from forties chapter serials and innumerable B-action pictures.  The same sort of control is required of the voice performers, and one must feel especially sorry for Dinklage, who has to deliver Scourge’s tediously repeated orders to kill folks with a semblance of conviction.  The screenplay does make some attempt to include intentional humor in the mix, mostly in terms of the contributions of Davidson’s Mirage, but these often come across as limp improvisation on the part of the actor.

The greater part of the picture consists, however, not of live action but computer animation, and the effects, supervised by Gary Brozenich, are decent enough, even if over the course of two hours they become awfully repetitive.  Under the circumstances the production design (Sean Haworth) and widescreen cinematography (Enrique Chediak) are more than adequate, though editors William Goldenberg and Joel Negron could easily have trimmed some of the tedious battle footage.  The music score by Jongnic “JB” Bontemps is generic bombast, but one appreciates it because the first forty minutes or so of the movie are accompanied by a parade of hideous hip-hop numbers, and their replacement by orchestral material, however banal, comes as respite.

It appears that “Bumblebee” was but a momentary uptick in this generally dreadful toy-based movie franchise.  “Rise of the Beasts” isn’t as bad as the worst of the Bay series, but it’s mediocre, and certainly doesn’t provide justification for further installments, except perhaps in box office terms.          

Producers: Andrew Miano, Paul Weitz, Chris Weitz and Judi Marmel   Director: Laura Terruso   Screenplay:  Austen Earl and Sebastian Maniscalco   Cast: Sebastian Maniscalco, Robert De Niro, Leslie Bibb, Anders Holm, David Rasche, Brett Dier and Kim Cattrall   Distributor: Lionsgate

Grade: C-

If you feel like closing your eyes while watching “About My Father,” odds are you won’t miss much.  The screenplay by star Sebastian Maniscalco and Austen Earl is written like a stand-up comedy routine, with Maniscalco telling us pretty much everything that happens and how to react.  That’s not surprising since Maniscalco is a stand-up comic making his first lead appearance here. 

Closing your eyes might also help in tolerating Maniscalco’s performance, which has a desperate, deer-in-the-headlights vibe throughout.  (He looks a bit like Jerry Seinfeld, if his finger were stuck in an electrical outlet.)  On the evidence presented on this occasion, he should not quit his night job for a career starring in movies.

The plot is loosely based on Maniscalco’s actual courtship of his wife Lana Gomez; it’s reframed as Chicago hotelier Maniscalco’s July 4 trip to the ritzy Virginia summer home of Bill and Tigger Collins (David Rasche and Kim Cattrall), the parents of his girlfriend Ellie (Leslie Bibb). He’s accompanied by his widowed father Salvatore (Robert De Niro), a flamboyantly Sicilian hairdresser unsure about whether his son should take the step of proposing and refusing to hand over the family’s heirloom engagement ring until he meets Ellie’s folks.  Everything is ramped up in exaggeratedly comic fashion, of course, but the basic premise has been used many times before, as, for example, in “Auntie Mame,” where the title character took the opportunity of a trip to the family estate of her nephew’s intended to break up a romance she considered a mistake. 

That tack isn’t taken here, of course, since the movie wants to turn problems into solutions, ending with a kumbaya celebration among all the characters.  (See also “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”)  Along the way there’s a great load of slapstick and schmaltz, and also of De Niro, doing one of his lovably gruff turns as Maniscalco’s dad Salvo.

De Niro, who’s shared the screen with Maniscalco before (the comic played one of the guys De Niro whacked in “The Irishman”) gamely takes on the part of the flamboyant self-made man motivated as much by fear of losing his son as by any dislike of Ellie.  (Oddly, Salvo and Sebastian seem to live in a bubble in Chicago, without any family or friends.)  He certainly doesn’t stint on the mugging, the elaborately ethnic gestures, or the slow burns.

Yet for all the affection with which Salvo is treated, as a character he comes off as a stereotype, whose oddities (like a spritzing ritual that he and his son go through with cologne before retiring every night—apparently they still live together) seem sitcom-quirky, even if they actually have some basis in reality (as, presumably, does his dogged insistence on paying his own way for lunch).  And his sudden shift from staunchly remaining an outsider to going to great lengths to fit in comes off as just another comic contrivance.

The same sort of weirdness attaches to Ellie’s family.  We’re told their lineage stretches back to the Mayflower, but they act more like brash members of the nouveau riche than snooty old aristocrats.  Bill is at once apologetic about his place’s opulence and proud of his supposedly building his hotel empire on his own, while Tigger is presented as a ferociously opinionated U.S. senator who, from her frequent appearances on cable news, seems more barroom brawler than traditionalist (as does her rage on the tennis court).  And their sons are a typical contrast of exaggerated opposites, Lucky (Anders Holm) a hyper-privileged money guy with a streak of arrogance a mile long, and Doug (Brett Dier) the ultra-mellow New Agey type who serenades the family’s pet peacocks with a flute and plays soothing sound bowls.  Bill and Tigger have a habit of being manipulative (offering Sebastian a cushy job in D.C. and secretly buying Ellie’s artwork, a subplot that assumes absurd importance in the last act).  But it turns out that their heart is always in the right place, so all is well by the finale, with even Lucky suddenly transforming into a good guy.

There’s also a vein of crude humor that regularly surfaces: a hard-hit ball in that tennis scene that lands in a most uncomfortable place, a later occasion when Sebastian, riding what appears to be some sort of weird rocket-shoe gizmo during a lake scene, loses his swimming trunks and flounces around mid-air in the buff. (He also gets to go hysterical during a helicopter ride.)  At these moments Maniscalco seems to be striving to mimic Ben Stiller, but without much success.  De Niro gets in on the act, too, in a sequence in which he prepares an Italian dinner for the Collins family but must improvise on the ingredients, with gruesomely unfunny results.  Of course, it’s all intended as mildly naughty rather than offensive.

With the whole cast embracing the unapologetically broad style encouraged by director Laura Terruso—you have to feel for them at the close, when they all don ridiculous Christmas-themed outfits—the movie winds up feeling like a mediocre network sitcom.  It even looks and sounds like one, given the glaringly colorful production design by Javiera Varas and costumes by Brenda Abbandandolo accentuated by Rogier Stoffers’ overly bright cinematography and Stephanie Economou’s bouncy score.  Kudos to editor Scott D. Hanson, who brings the movie in under ninety minutes, though one can’t ignore his contribution to what’s still there.

“About My Father” goes for some very low-hanging comic fruit, and for some that will be enough.  But it’s the cinematic equivalent of a wormy apple or overripe banana.  There is one silver lining, though: it’s being released more than three weeks before Father’s Day, which means it will be long gone from theatres before sons will be inclined to drag their dads to see it (or vice versa).

By then it might already be streaming, though.