Maybe I Do (PG13)

95 minutes, opens on Thursday

2 stars

The story: Richard Gere, Diane Keaton, William H. Macy and Susan Sarandon play two sets of unhappily marrieds cheating on their spouses with the other’s. Wait till they find out their kids are steadies who are planning to wed.

Maybe I Do is a multi-generational comedy of marital errors adapted by sitcom veteran Michael Jacobs (Boy Meets World, 1993 to 2000; Girl Meets World, 2014 to 2017) from his 1977 stage production Cheaters.

Those 46 years show in the mothballed dialogue and Jacobs’ airless directing, even as the septuagenarian actors – a pleasure, though, it is to see them together – seem to parody their earlier selves in a flaccid farce that intertwines the three couples over two nights.

On the first, Gere’s American Gigolo-suave Howard is ending a four-month dalliance with Sarandon’s narcissistic sexpot Monica.

Their respective partners are Keaton’s Grace, a kook of the Annie Hall (1977) variety, and Macy’s cuckold Sam. The lovelorn pair spark a connection after noticing each other alone at the movies.

Howard and Grace’s petulant daughter (Emma Roberts) and Sam and Monica’s bland son (Luke Bracey) arrange for the families to finally meet and provide pre-nuptial counsel, and such is how everyone winds up in a New York City house for an awkward dinner on the second evening.

The infidelities are revealed. There are pratfalls and confrontations, leading to neat reconciliations.

This is all the movie has to say about the challenges of lifelong commitments: for the young and confused, as much as the middle-aged and disappointed.

It is conservative in its take on marriage and retrograde in its characters, who have no identities beyond their romantic relationships.

Hot take: The ensemble of starry pros have worked too long, come too far and are much too good for the dated romcom.

Bird Box Barcelona (M18)

111 minutes, available on Netflix

3 stars

The story: A mysterious force hypnotises anyone looking at it into committing suicide, and it has decimated the global population nine months after its invasion in the 2018 post-apocalyptic Netflix horror Bird Box.

The European spin-off Bird Box Barcelona will never equal the sensational meme-trending success of Bird Box, which is the fourth most-watched film on Netflix.

It does not have Sandra Bullock’s Hollywood star presence for one thing.

Making their way across the ruins of Barcelona in Spain in search of shelter and safety are now engineer Sebastian (Mario Casas) and his young daughter, Anna (Alejandra Howard).

But Sebastian, unlike Bullock’s heroine, is an unreliable protagonist who does not have good intentions: Why does he tell everyone he encounters he is alone when Anna is standing right beside him?

He proves a danger to his camp of blindfolded survivors, among them an English psychiatrist (Georgina Campbell).

This is the intriguing reversal in the expanded mythology written and directed by Spanish brothers David and Alex Pastor.

There are exciting set pieces. Nonetheless, the Pastors have done enough end-times thrillers – The Last Days (2013), in particular, won a clutch of awards – to recognise the sameness of the genre’s corpse-strewn wastelands.

Enter the Seers, a doomsday cult led by a sinister priest (Leonardo Sbaraglia). It has become the main threat, crusading for the powerful entities it believes to be mankind’s salvation.

The bleak tale warns of religious fanaticism where the original played on the maxim “see no evil”.

Whether monsters or seraphs, the unseen creatures are a creepy presence, their arrival heralded by a celestial choir.

Hot take: Remove those blindfolds and see the couple of effective twists. This ostensible sequel, though unnecessary, is at least no mere retread.