After a laughable opening credits sequence (the kind that makes you wanna scream “we get it” from the rooftops), we meet Damon (Freeman, “Going in Style”), a former cop now wheelchair-bound crime boss, recounting his sins in the most Party City looking of churches. What is Damon saying to his fellow religious leader friend? Who knows, because the scene — like much the rest of this movie — is barely audible (since every actor seems to have been directed to speak in a mumble tone at best.) We then are treated to a scene of rats sneaking amongst the pipes of a random interior space. And as much I wish this movie was secretly a live-action re-imagining of “The Secret of Nimh,” what follows is far from it.

The true “plot” (if you could call it that) of Vanquish revolves around Victoria (Rose, “The Meg”), Damon’s caretaker. A single mother with a drug crime-filled past, Victoria refuses to return to her prior life. She has a beautiful little girl, a memorable hair cut and a moto jacket to match, after-all. Yet when Damon takes Victoria’s daughter hostage, this once-criminal must fulfill Damon’s task in order to get her kid back. The job? Rob and kill a bunch of goons that are getting in Damon’s way.

What follows is an amateur, head-scratching “game” brought to life. And that is about the kindest description one can give to a movie, whose narrative peak revolves around Morgan Freeman encouraging Ruby Rose to kill baddies, via a Bluetooth headset. And no matter how utterly hilarious it is to see Freeman doing bare minimum reactions, while Rose offers her usual bag of model-turned-mundane movie star tricks, this is truly a bizarre example of the “John Wick” era of action cinema.

To simply put, Vanquish has me (and I’m sure many other moviegoers) wanting to ask if its insanely laughable qualities are perhaps intentional. Because its hard to not view a scene of a rat witnessing bad guys discussing their latest crime, followed by a line of dialog that says “you’re right, the guy was gonna rat us out,” as anything but a joke. It’s nearly impossible to not see the awkward camera motions within Damon’s house as being anything other than a clip from a “Saturday Night Live” digital short. And it’s pretty hard to not see Freeman offering Rose a selection of weapons, via a Crate & Barrel display in his kitchen, as anything but a visual chuckle.

Yet Vanquish could have been something. Writer/Director George Gallo did write “Bad Boys” and “Midnight Run,” and clearly knows his way around this kind of a hyper showcase of violence. But from its lifeless cinematic energy, to its narrative and technical stumbles, it feels like George didn’t have a grasp at all on what he wanted the final product of this to be. And it especially shows when it comes to the world he sets his characters in.

Perhaps we as modern audiences have come to expect too much from our current action cinema, specifically in terms of locations. Because with The Continental within the “John Wick” franchise, to even the latest lavish Russian-operated nightclub in the charmingly simple “Nobody,” a bar has been set for current entries into this genre. And yet Gallo (along with co-screenwriter Samuel Barrett) place their band of bland individuals into equally lazy and forgettable set pieces. And it doesn’t help that every one of them is either dipped in vomit green or neon blue coloring.

But ultimately the most frustrating part of Vanquish, is how it provides yet another failed attempt at making a female led-action franchise. We’ve seen all of this before with the much more interesting likes of “Nikita,” “Salt,” and even the upcoming “Black Widow” solo film. Yet none of them seem to want to break from the typical trappings nor try to move away from the glamorous yet sexy box that staples of this genre continue to regurgitate over and over. And when you can’t even try to make someone as visually interesting as Ruby Rose captivating on screen, why even bother making the film in the first place.

At the end of the day, Vanquish offers a lot for those who eat up cringeworthy cinema like their favorite buttery popcorn. Sure, its delicious, yet it’s definitely in no way “good for you.” But there’s no denying that it is far away from being a legitimate piece of filmmaking. And if you and your fellow viewers are willing to accept that (and perhaps do some prior research to what is sure to be a future episode of “How Did This Get Made”), then I encourage you to give it a go. But if you recoil reading any of this description, throw any motivations you had towards it back into the discount bin where it belongs.

The Silencing, a mystery horror-thriller directed by Robin Pront and written by Micah Ranum, incorporates such tropes as rugged men, emotional women, monstrous figures, alcoholism and sinister music. List them like this and the film reads as familiar territory that the seasoned or indeed prejudiced viewer might not be tempted by. But Pront weaves together a story of questions and enigmas with jump scares and tense set pieces to deliver a film that is, while not terribly surprising, nonetheless effective.

One of the most compelling elements of The Silencing is its setting, the remote town of Echo Falls. Set in northern Minnesota (though filmed in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada), the opening shots of rolling hills, extensive forest and river rapids quickly establish a sense of place. Cinematographer Manuel Dacosse captures sweeping shots of this wilderness, initially evoking a sense of romance and beauty. However, the opening bars of Brooke and Will Blair’s score quickly strike an ominous note. As the camera moves closer to the river, the viewer discerns a body being carried along by the current, further emphasizing a journey into dangerous territory. Ironically, the next scene informs us that we are in a wildlife sanctuary, the caretaker of which, Rayburn Swanson (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, “Oblivion”) is the first familiar element that we meet, a burly, no-nonsense man of the world who forcefully persuades two would-be hunters to leave the sanctuary.

Rayburn is an effectively grizzled and rugged outdoorsman. Coster-Waldau’s imposing physique and granite features dominate the screen, and Rayburn is a man of few words but many an impassioned grunt. Reminiscent of Hugh Jackman’s “Logan” as well as Jeremy Renner’s Cory Lambert in “Wind River,” Rayburn is a former hunter and skilled tracker, expert woodsman and very capable. Complete with loyal hound (named Thor, no less), he grimaces his way through injuries, patches up his own wounds and self-medicates with whiskey. And (of course) his family is broken, the sanctuary named after his daughter Grace who went missing five years previously. Estranged from his ex-wife Debbie (Melanie Scrofano, “Ready or Not”), who is now involved with his former friend Blackhawk (Zahn McClarnon, “Doctor Sleep”), Rayburn is trapped in the denial stage of grief, printing out missing person flyers of Grace that he puts up around town. His days are spent surveying the sanctuary through a network of surveillance cameras, perhaps hoping to catch a glimpse of Grace. While she does not appear, he certainly sees other things that prove important.

Rayburn’s arc is half of the film. The other half concerns Alice Gustafson (Annabelle Wallis, “Tag”), Sheriff of Echo Falls County. A local who left after losing her parents, then returned and was only recently elected to sheriff, Alice juggles the demands of her profession with caring for her younger brother Brookes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”). Brookes is deeply troubled for reasons that become evident as the film progresses, and tension is evident between Alice’s professional and personal responsibilities. At key points in the film, Alice is presented as overly emotional which is an unfortunate gender stereotype. That said, Alice also fulfills the role of the state typically assigned to male characters, so her representation of law and order contrasts with Rayburn’s rugged masculinity and preference for natural justice. Indeed, the two characters illustrate a key tension of the town as a whole, crossing the borders between civilization and wilderness.

A further border in the film relates to its social setting which emphasizes privilege and deprivation. Northern Minnesota includes various Native American reservations, and such a reservation is prominent in The Silencing. Sheriff Gustafson and Officer Blackhawk clash over jurisdiction, and the film pays some (fleeting) attention to the condition of contemporary Native Americans. One of the most underprivileged ethnicities in the United States, Native Americans suffer from a disproportionately high level of unemployment, poverty and addiction. The Silencing references this in passing, with a disused sawmill on the reservation occupied by people with seemingly nowhere better to go. The film does not delve into these social problems or use them as part of its thematic framework, unlike the aforementioned “Wind River” or “Drunktown’s Finest,” which is unfortunate because social and anthropological detail can make for a compelling backdrop in crime dramas. Here, the presence of Native Americans as a deprived social group seems little more than tokenistic, poorly integrated into the film’s overall horror-thriller milieu.

Nonetheless, within this milieu, The Silencing offers a highly effective tone and atmosphere. The appearance of a figure in mask and camouflage gear wielding spears is startling and alarming, especially in the forest. Narrow tree trunks wreathed in mist create an eerie image, to quote William Shakespeare’s “Henry V,” like “so many horrid ghosts.” Rayburn and the camouflaged figure, as well as others, move through this forest in a shifting dynamic of predator and prey. The camouflaged figure is a strange combination of human and inhuman, modern and traditional elements, making it uncanny and therefore unnerving. Also unnerving are some tense set pieces. Whether shooting in expansive exteriors or narrow interiors, Pront, Dacosse and editor Alain Dessauvage make great use of shadow and light. When violence occurs, it is graphic and visceral, captured in long shot with prolonged takes rather than rapid cutting. This aesthetic de-glamorizes the violence, making it nasty and repellent, and in the earlier stages of the film disturbingly senseless. In its final act, the film’s menace starts to unravel as explanations are offered and references (especially to “Psycho,” much like “The Host”) become more heavy-handed. As is often the case with psychological horror, what you don’t know is more unsettling.

Much like Denis Villenueve’s “Prisoners,” which offers a similarly dour visual and emotional tone, The Silencing is ominous and disturbing for much of its runtime, but falls apart somewhat in its final act. However, it is less jarring because of its continued emphasis on character dynamics rather than the greater ambitions of “Prisoners.” As a result, The Silencing is simultaneously less impressive and less disappointing than Villeneuve’s star-studded thriller. It may offer little we have not seen before, but Pront’s combination of familiar elements still make for an effectively gripping trip to the forest.

Right from the first image, Lily Collins (“Tolkien,” who owns the greatest set of eyebrows since Joan Crawford) makes an impression as Lauren Monroe. Lauren’s got everything — the family, the job (district attorney), the fashion (corporate vampire Barbie), and the most well manicured of hairstyles. But when Lauren’s millionaire father (Patrick Warburton, “Get Smart”) is found dead, her world comes undone.

Lauren’s inheritance includes a small sum of money (in comparison to the rest of her family) and a mysterious package. Inside, she discovers a key and a USB-drive with cryptic instructions. It doesn’t lead her to a new car, a secret mansion, or anything romantic nor glamorous. Instead it allows her to find the most dramatic of discoveries. For what is buried underneath Lauren’s childhood play area is not any sort of treasure, but rather Morgan Warner (Simon Pegg, “Mission: Impossible – Fallout”), who has been kept prisoner by her father for 30 years.

On paper, Inheritance might sound like the concept of many people’s most bonkers dreams. For it strikes that perfect balance of hokey but hocked. Yet the end result is something more mysterious than the secrets Lauren begins to learn. For it is movie that had all of its cinematic ducks in a row. Yet from the moment the Simon Pegg-sized cat gets let out of the bag, everything begins to crumble.

Pegg is an actor that has yet to gain the respect he deserves. He’s a comedic force that is a delicious blend of annoying but endearing. He can play the most lovable jerk or humble of common men with ease. But when it comes to dramatic turns, Pegg hasn’t gotten that moment to shine. He clearly has the ability and focus to achieve such results, especially when examining the brutal transformation he did to portray this role.

Yet in a pop culture realm where performances like Anthony Hopkins’ in “Silence of the Lambs,” and recently Michael Sheen’s in Fox’s “Prodigal Son” series exist, Pegg’s Morgan seems too little too late. There’s no denying that he has the talent and capabilities to leave an equally memorable impression on screen, but Pegg’s portrayal reads more grindhouse insanity than any sort of antagonistic threat. And whenever he has to enact a sense of creepiness when speaking about graham crackers, you almost expect for Bugs Bunny to pop up behind him and laugh.

Collins, on the other hand, is trying to ground Lauren in the most serious of fashions. A choice that, when juxtaposed with Pegg’s initial over-the-top energy, unravels in the messiest of ways. The clearest example of this comes during a scene where Lauren discovers another “jaw-dropping” secret of her father’s (one that is the definition of predictable). As she panics on a staircase, we’re treated to a montage of clips of Morgan exercising in a thrusting like motion. And with the constant cutting back and forth, the laughable quality of the sequence escalates to new heights.

But that isn’t to say that Inheritance doesn’t have its glimmering moments between its leads. For the best work between Collins and Pegg are in the film’s quieter sequences. Where the horrific details of the mystery are not the focus, but rather the simplistic human connection between these two soap opera level characters. It’s a shame that Stein doesn’t give more time for these two to relish in these scenes, especially considering the ridiculous nature of the third act.

The rest of the film’s cast plays it mostly safe. Chace Crawford (“All About Nina”) as Lauren’s politically driven brother stands pretty but lacking in any sort of personality, mostly due to his exposition driven dialog. While Connie Nielsen (“Sea Fever”) and Michael Beach (“Aquaman”) deliver what they can with the little that is offered to them. But certain portrayals, such as Christina DeRosa’s (“Bad Moms”) as a woman from Lauren’s father’s past, are more ham than anything served at Thanksgiving.

Though truthfully, the messiest element within Inheritance is the narrative at its core. To put simply, first-time screenwriter Matthew Kennedy delivers a Scooby-Doo episode trying to copy the work of David Fincher and Chan-wook Park. But rather than delivering a well thought out ending, the conclusion to this tale makes Scoob and the gang’s shenanigans look quite polished by comparison.

Overall, Stein and Kennedy clearly admire the great thrillers of the past. There’s a little bit of Hitchcock and Jonathan Demme sprinkled throughout their work here, both visually and narratively. But for every decently executed aspect, there is an equally bizarre element to makes the film lose its credibility. From the disturbing cosplay wigs used throughout, to dialog that reads more Mad Libs than Billy Wilder, Inheritance is movie that obviously has its heart in the right place. It just doesn’t know where to go from there.

So when the streaming platform serves up a new release, written and produced by the all-conquering Russo brothers no less, audiences were understandably salivating. We’re starving prisoners, quarantined in cells of self-isolation. Sadly, their serving, Extraction, isn’t nourishing fare. It’s all bone, gristle, and lumpy mashed potato. We’ve been cooked this dish before, better, and with more flavor.

The set-menu reads: Bangladeshi Drug Lord kidnaps Indian Drug Lord’s son. Indian Drug Lord hires tough white guy to kidnap son back. Tough white guy travels to Bangladesh, dispatches hordes of red shirts, blows stuff up. This isn’t fine dining. The Russo’s have cobbled together a bunch of stock ingredients, added heat, and hoped the end result would make an acceptable meal. It hasn’t. One would expect more from the Michelin-starred chefs behind the highest-grossing movie of all time (“Avengers: Endgame”).

Our tough white guy here is Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth, “Bad Times at the El Royale”), a likeable Aussie bloke who’s also good at shooting people. We’re introduced to Rake when he’s off-the-job, on a sunny clifftop, just hanging out with some mates and a box of cold ones. Suddenly, he leaps from the edge, plunging 30 meters into the water below. Rake doesn’t surface. Is he OK? The mates are worried. Then we see him, resting on the lake bed, legs crossed in a meditative pose. This guy is ICE COLD. But wait, he’s frowning . . . We’re shown flashbacks of a blurry wife and child. Our hero isn’t calm and composed. He’s tormented. Sad. Troubled by loss.

Tyler Rake is the action man we’ve seen many, many, many times before: The badass good guy who couldn’t care less whether he lives or dies. Indeed, it’s precisely this lack of self-preservation that makes him so bloody deadly. Tyler Rake is Riggs in “Lethal Weapon.” Or Tony Montana in “Scarface.” Or John Wick in “John Wick.” We can practically see Hemsworth clipping Keanu Reeve’s magazine into his own Glock 9mm.

One of the few elements of spice arises from the film’s setting. Dhaka is shown as a mysterious, thrumming, chaotic city. Chases and action sequences capture its frenetic atmosphere, whilst the ever-amber sun illuminates the colorful street culture. Yet still, for a country like Bangladesh that has seldom seen Hollywood’s spotlight, it all feels terribly familiar. One can picture an out-of-work editor producing something similar by chopping together scenes from “Slumdog Millionaire,” “The Raid: Redemption” and “Thor: Ragnarok.” It feels awfully unoriginal, regurgitated.

A fresh ingredient to the stew, however, is young actor Rudhraksh Jaiswal (“Kosha”), who plays doe-eyed kidnapee Ovi. His innate vulnerability and admiration of Rake as protector and “big brother” offer rare emotional moments of texture. Sadly, they’re not enough to invest us in the success of Rake’s rescue mission, which finds us counting down the minutes to a videogame-like conclusion.

Watching Extraction feels akin to staring at the front cover of a Bangladeshi travel guide and never opening to the first page. I found myself imagining Tyler Rake kicking in my front door, putting a bag over my head, and rescuing me from this militaristic flag-waving rehash. Inexplicably, there are talks of a sequel. Extraction is one too many portions already.

The spanner in the works is that her tormentor is invisible, thanks to some high-tech military gear he’s stolen. There are other captives, too, who are given short shrift, serving only to clarify what will happen to Sam if she doesn’t cooperate with his demands.

Which brings us to the first of many problems with this nano-budget British horror-thriller. While the baddie might be a ruthless S.O.B. when it comes to his other victims, he hesitates to kill Sam herself. It’s like a “Predator” fan film set in rural Warwickshire, and it undermines any sense of existential threat.

The film’s title is Stalked, although in the screener’s credits it’s known somewhat forebodingly as “Unseen.” Well, Sam isn’t exactly being stalked, and the bad guy is only unseen so long as he’s not being filmed. That’s right, this cutting-edge illusory technology has a fundamental flaw: The user is entirely visible when he is filmed through a camera lens. The hunter becomes the hunted, in the most risible way imaginable.

The film is directed by Justin Edgar (“The Marker”). It’s a cheap-looking film with no purposeful style and flat lighting. Crucially, there’s virtually no atmosphere. A sense of place — a sense of space — seems particularly important here because of the nature of the threat, but it’s absent. Most of the film is shot like a videogame: Lots of over-shoulder stabilized shots and circular tracking, as well as some (pretty neat) moments where augmented phone cam footage is matched to the background.

The videogame effect extends to the narrative, insofar as the plot makes no sense. Like playing a game while skipping the cutscenes, great swathes of logic go unheard and, indeed, unseen. Sam herself goes inexplicably unseen much of the time, even when mere feet away from her nemesis, like in a stealth game where a henchman is too dumb to notice the player standing right beside him because his 180-degree vision has been compromised by cone-defined programming.

The film struggles to deliver on any level. The horror element is tame, given the captor’s apparent wish for Sam to survive her ordeal. The action is soft, cumbersome and unconvincing; because she’s fighting an invisible presence, such scenes mostly involve Rogers contorting herself like a dancer limbering up before a show. (It’s a rigorous physical performance, to be fair). After the invisible threat there’s the virtual threat: A CG drone that looks like it’s escaped from a GameCube-era sci-fi shooter.

Finally, as a thriller Stalked doesn’t work because of its unclear rules. The bad guy keeps referring to playing “the game,” but it’s never obvious what the game is, or its purpose. Is he simply trying to highlight the flaws in experimental military technology? We never fully understand why the game is being played. A poorly staged epilogue provides a hint of an explanation — something to do with emasculation and toxic masculinity — but it’s such a generalized trigger that we might as well have been left in the dark.

Leigh Wannell’s “The Invisible Man” is just around the corner and I have faith that he can be more creative with his use of the unseen stalker concept, because Edgar’s film is ill-conceived, clumsily executed and mind-meltingly dumb. There’s nothing here to surprise or excite and — outside of Rogers’ committed performance — you’re missing nothing if Stalked goes unseen.

Although the film reveals a structural identity crisis, it’s subdued at times, thanks to its solid-enough cast lead by the genial Gina Rodriguez (“Deepwater Horizon”). She plays Gloria, a make-up artist from Los Angeles who visits her best friend Suzu (Cristina Rodlo, “The Condemned”) in Mexico. Unfortunately, after a horrendous nightclub shooting, Gloria gets kidnapped by a local drug cartel while trying to find Suzu. She’s soon forced to work for them and, with a plot-thickening turn, the DEA. Make no mistake, this is Rodriguez’s movie — Liam Neeson doesn’t show up as her long-lost step-daddy, so we witness the birth of a Latina women’s special set of skills.

While in captivity, Gloria meets the gang’s leader, Lino (Ismael Cruz Cordova, “Mary Queen of Scots”). He’s a feared, but charismatic and good-looking, gangster and, as expected, when he appears the element for romantic tension arises. Hardwicke does her best to subvert this expectation (in the original, her captor was as old as her father), however, due to the limited arc of the characters and the shoe-stringing of Rodriguez and Cordova, the film still firmly settles into an “It’s Complicated” love story, which involves the victim vs. the victor dynamic.

Since that aspect establishes itself when they first meet (and can’t escape it), Hardwicke pushes Gloria’s weighty choices to escape her circumstances for entertainment and substance. This component delivers the film’s better moments of suspense and utter devastation, although Gloria’s innocence and ignorance creates most of those of incidents, which diffuses the foreshadowing that she too could become a villain. It’s an interesting concept that never fully materializes.

In fact, many of Gloria’s motives bring confusion and contradiction. In the state of survival, Gloria labors to find her friend, but as she struggles to do so, the film’s message is clear: Persevere. Likewise, for much of this tale, each scene delivers a truthful tone of realism, until the film explores a more fantastical angle with its action sequences. Unfortunately, this approach undercuts the realistic danger Gloria faces. Ultimately, there’s no reason for Gloria to experience fear since she continues to cheat death in such improbable fashion.

If Hardwicke preferred to stride in pulp film-making, she should have fully embraced it, ditched the semi-neo-realism hallmarks and went full Tarantino. Instead, she walks a tight-rope as if Miss Bala has any chance at awards consideration (which, by the way, it does not). On that note, Rodriguez is a bright star and may some day get her chance at recognition on the big stage (she’s a Golden Globe three time nominee and one-time winner for her efforts in “Jane the Virgin” TV series), but it’s clear she needs something more tailored to her versatility. She manages to show her tough side here, but little else.