Roger Moore

It’s great that they moved the “toy” story towards a plucky female character helping a little girl grow up with Toy Story 5. There are a couple of hard tugs at the heartstrings in the third act to give that something of a payoff. But it’s a crying shame they didn’t have more to say than that in the fifth film in the franchise that made their reputation, at least enough to justify sullying the brand in the process.

Truth be told, this is hard-going as a movie-watching experience, a “Quest for Fire” without humor or sex, a “Robin and Marian” without romance, a “Robin Hood” without “merry” men, just accomplices.

Even if the color palette and general design feels distinctly Mexican, “Frankelda’s” story is generic, unfocused and no “Book of Life”or “Coco.” It offers little for adults and even less for its alleged target audience, children.

It’s a movie where literally every scene has a punch line we see coming and every introduction sets up a relationship painted in via strokes we’ve seen a hundred times before.

It’s horrific, gruesome at times and grim going for a “wish fulfillment fantasy” tale, even one that goes oh-so-wrong. But what shakes you is how deflatingly sad it is.

The jazz and classical musical milieu with underworld grit flourishes pulled me into “Tuner.” Jazz great Herbie Hanock even has a cameo. But every few minutes, a contrived scene, a hammy flourish of performance or some other false note took me right out of it.

Spielberg brings his usual technical prowess and directorial sizzle to some impressive chases, 360 degree pans covering impressive sets and suspenseful escapes of the cliff-hanger variety. But what’s jolting about this big budget epic is how utterly conventional it all is.

This outing just bubbles over with hope for a planet overheating and losing arable land to deserts and vital rain forests to short term oligarchical cashing in. Because regenerative farming — crop and cattle pastures, pig pen etc. rotation — is catching on.

Pike and Shaw throw themselves at this even if Mortimer has almost nothing to play, even if Cohen’s funny moments are few and far between, straining for humor in a movie that probably came along five years too late to deliver.

This cast plays the hell out of this violent parable about what one endures, who one believes caused it, the need for revenge and the cost of giving those who deserve it their comeuppance.