Doctor-of-Nothing

Snickers, indeed.

Despite the nougat, Edwards and Koepp couldn't even stick the opening. An accidentally melted candy bar may have led to the invention of the microwave, but the abject ridiculousness behind the idea of Rebirth's airborne Snickers' wrapper only leads to a film littered with a series of predictable characters, scenes, locations, creatures and faux wonder that anyone who saw the original film has seen hundreds of times since. There is absolutely nothing new or inventive in sight.

Along with Mission Impossible and 28 Years Later, it's another mega million summer snore. Go see Friendship -- it's made for less than the catering budget on those films and far more intelligent and engaging and successful.

The toy's a monkey but the film is a real dog.

Not even remotely funny, or scary, or cogent, the film's infantile and staggeringly dull narrative plays like a 98 minute Saturday Night Live skit that runs out of steam in the post-credit sequence.

Everything about this misguided exercise is redundant and half-baked -- from its sophomoric take on twins to its low rent Rube Goldbergian killing machines. The bloodletting on a 90 second Ren and Stimpy cartoon is far more imaginative, engaging and meaningful.

But most egregious is the script's oft-repeated, but unexplored thematic -- accidents happen, everybody dies, and that's that.

Perkins' Longlegs didn't work either, but at least it had a vibrant visual design and sense of movement; The Monkey just sits there, well, like the Monkey.

1 -Typical convoluted tale with an anchor of exposition at the end to make sense of the muck.

2- Tonally inconsistent. Once upon a time there was a cartoon before the main feature. Black Doves sticks the cartoon in the middle of the narrative (and I use that word loosely) with the addition of two female assassins who bear no relation to the surrounding seriousness of the proceedings. (Yes, the story is nominally concerned with couples, but the ladies Wickian indestructibility and superhero attitude is flat out misguided.

3 - What does Keira's character gain via her job? Money? Power? What? Working for a whispering mercenary in a trench coat who serves info to the highest bidder regardless of who the bidder is -- that is somehow morally and soulfully satisfying?

4 -- There was absolutely no reason to tell this story in a non-linear fashion. All it does is short-circuit whatever emotion the writers believe they are building.

5 - Ben Whitshaw is one of the best actors on the planet. And he makes this mess tolerable. But, it cannot be denied, that either he appears to be channeling Peter Dinklage or Peter Dinklage is channeling him.