Producers: Kevin Misher, Jonah Hill and Kenya Barris   Director: Kenya Barris   Screenplay: Jonah Hill and Kenya Barris   Cast: Jonah Hill, Lauren London, Eddie Murphy, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, David Duchovny, Nia Long, Sam Jay, Elliott Gould, Travis Bennett, Molly Gordon, Rhea Perlman, Deon Cole, Andrea Savage, Mike Epps, Emily Arlook, Alani La La Anthony, Bryan Greenberg, Richard Benjamin, Hal Linden, Matt Walsh, Doug Hall, Yung Miami, Andrew Schulz, Jordan Firstman and DJ Drama   Distributor: Netflix

Grade: C

It’s been slightly over a century since “Abie’s Irish Rose” opened on Broadway and became the longest-running play in New York history, clocking in at 2,327 performances in a run of over five years.  It was already considered an antique by the time a movie of it was released in 1946, but apparently assuming that a creaky premise is never too old to be resuscitated, Jonah Hill and Kenya Barris have revived the story about a young couple from different backgrounds whose parents upend their marriage plans, trying to transform it into a cool take on contemporary social rifts.  But “You People” can’t camouflage its musty roots simply by applying an avalanche of crude stereotypes and standup-style jokes to the mix.

The idea that a Jewish boy’s decision to marry an Irish Catholic girl could cause much domestic consternation (the plot of “Rose”) would never fly nowadays, of course, so major surgery has been done.  Shlumpy Ezra Cohen (Hill), a discontented stockbroker whose dream is to take his podcast with his fast-talking buddy Mo (Sam Jay) national, falls for Amira Mohammed (Lauren London), a black costume designer.  His parents Arnold and Shelley (David Duchovny and Julia Louis-Dreyfus), who pride themselves on their boobishly progressive outlook, are enthusiastic, but hers, Akbar and Fatima (Eddie Murphy and Nia Long), are most decidedly not.  Their assessment that Ezra is a hopeless loser, along with their Muslim beliefs—they’re members of the Nation of Islam and Akbar a faithful disciple of Louis Farrakhan—leads Akbar to take any measures necessary to break up the engagement.

For Hill, this scenario gives him the opportunity to indulge in Jewish stereotypes that might have made even Anne Nichols, the author of “Rose,” blush.  In the opening scene, set at a synagogue, Elliot Gould and Hal Linden appear as wizened elders; their characters are a mite odd but still reasonably coherent.  As a doctor whose suggestions are more than a little inappropriate, however, Richard Benjamin is a caricature of age gone berserk.  There’s also Rhea Perlman, whose attitudes as Ezra’s granny are clichés.  And Molly Gordon as Ezra’s acerbic—and queer—sister, constantly embarrassed by her parents’ obtuseness in dealing with the Mohammeds.

That description applies to some extent to Duchovny’s Arnold, but his incongruously well-meaning remarks are made in such a dopily understated way that while wrongheaded, they pass almost unnoticed.  By contrast Louis-Dreyfus’ Shelley is such a caricature of the overbearing Jewish mother that, combined with her habit of saying unintentionally offensive things in her zeal to sound enlightened, virtually her every appearance is calculated to make viewers cringe as well as laugh.  The actress does the shtick—one episode in which involves Akbar’s most prized kufi—as well as anyone could, but it’s still shtick of the most hackneyed sort.

Amira’s friends and family fare better, but not by much. Barris has dipped into the comic possibilities of interracial marriage before, co-writing last year’s feeble reimagining of another over-the-hill premise in the Disney remake of “Cheaper by the Dozen.”  Here he digs a little deeper with the Muslim element, but the result is still bland.  Amira’s brother Omar (Travis Bennett) is a typical long-suffering son, and though her uncle EJ (Mike Epps) is portrayed as the cynical n’er-do-well, he’s more a familiar comic prop than anything else.  And while Amira’s girlfriends are depicted as a rather screechy bunch, they’re given little to do.  Neither, surprisingly, is Long, who fades into the background even more than Duchovny on the other side of the aisle.  It’s Murphy who does the heavy lifting, putting a malicious gleam in Akbar’s eye as he schemes to humiliate Ezra by insisting he join a basketball game in the hood, or taking him to a black barbershop (where Anthony Andrews, no less, presides—only one of many cameos), or, in his nastiest move, crashing Ezra’s Las Vegas bachelor party to get the goods on his past misbehavior.

Yet all of the plotting and gruesomely ill-considered behavior is conveniently swept aside for a predictably sweet finale.  Oh, there’s a temporary roadblock to the wedding, but only to serve to make the inevitable nuptials even more satisfying.  That getting there requires overnight changes in some of the characters makes no difference; all that matters is getting there.

There are a few moments in “You People” that suggest an edgier path the moviemakers might have taken.  A dinner conversation that turns heated when it’s debated whether the Holocaust should be compared to slavery is a case in point, but these are few and far between; facile humor and slapstick are more frequent.  Hill and London are mostly agreeable, though his trait of trying to accommodate himself to everyone gets tiresome—he ends up seeming little more than a human doormat, which makes his podcast dream (and eventual success)  even more implausible, though Jay gets in a few good riffs—and her occasional harshness can grate.  Everyone else fills the script’s demands, which in this case is not always a virtue.  Technically the picture’s a professional job: Maxine Shepard’s production design, Mark Doering-Powell’s cinematography and Michelle Cole’s costumes all give it the look of a solid streaming movie—which is, after all, what it is.  But the repeated use of long photo-and-graphic montages as transitional devices is excessive, and their frequency, especially as they’re invariably accompanied by Bekon’s hyper score, makes the movie, edited by Jamie Nelson, feel flabby.

“You People” isn’t a terrible watch.  It has some funny moments and even a few that strain for something more.  But coming from the guy who made a surprisingly auspicious writing-directing debut with “Mid90” (and given some solid performances), and the creator of the pleasant sitcom “Black-ish,” it’s a disappointment—an attempt to revivify a hoary old premise that would have been better left to molder.    

Producers: Paige Pemberton and Paul B. Uddo   Director: Roxanne Benjamin   Screenplay: T.J. Cimfel and Dave White   Cast: Alisha Wainwright, Amanda Crew, Carlos Santos, Zach Gilford, Briella Guiza, David Mattle and Ramona Tyler   Distributor: Paramount Home Entertainment

Grade: C 

The latest installment in the partnership between Blumhouse and Epix to make low-budget horror movies is this straightforward creepy children tale that offers nothing new, content to do the tried-and-true but doing it reasonably well.  Dedicated horror fans should find Roxanne Benjamin’s sophomore feature, the bluntly titled “There’s Something Wrong With the Children,” a competent if hardly inspired means of spending ninety minutes; others can safely look elsewhere.

The efficiently simple script by T.J. Cimfel and Dave White finds two couples, Margaret and Ben (Alisha Wainwright and Zach Gilford) and Ellie and Thomas (Amanda Crew and Carlos Santos), longtime friends, going off for a weekend getaway to a remote collection of rental cabins called The Far Syde.  Ellie and Thomas have brought their two rambunctious kids Lucy (Briella Guiza) and Spencer (David Mattle). 

The first night features a thunderstorm that the children enjoy watching, but Margaret and Ben notice some tension between Ellie and Thomas.  The next morning all six take a long hike through the surrounding forest, coming upon the ruins of what might be an old fort or factory.  Climbing in, they follow a path that leads to a deep hole, perhaps an old well, that fascinates Lucy and Spencer. 

That night Ellie confesses to Margaret the source of the trouble at home—they experimented in sex with another couple that left Carlos distressed.  Margaret suggests that the kids stay with her and Ben that night so that their friends can reconnect free of distraction.  Though Ben, who’s told Carlos he’s not ready to have children himself, is initially nonplussed, he agrees.

But during the night the children disappear, and Ben goes out in search of them.  He suspects they’ve gone back to the ruins, and is correct: but just as he reaches them, they jump down the hole, and he presumes they’ve died.  When he returns and tells his wife what’s happened, she’s distraught, but in the morning the children are back with their parents, happy and apparently unharmed.  Margaret suspects that Ben is suffering from a delusion—he’s suffered from manic episodes and is on medication—but he’s certain of what he saw.

There’s a tipoff to what’s happening during the hike early on, when gabby Lucy described her favorite trading-card video character as an eater of souls.  Ben is sure the children have been taken over by some malignant power, but Margaret, and later Ellie and Carlos, dismiss the suggestion as a manifestation of his illness—to their eventual regret, of course.  Lucy and Spencer begins playing wicked tricks on Ben, and then on the other adults.  And of course the shenanigans turn lethal.  A forest ranger (Ramona Tyler) turns up in response to a plea for help, but as usual in such fare, her rational response to an irrational situation proves less than helpful. 

Benjamin handles the small-scaled action decently enough, and cinematographer Yaron Levy keeps the camera close to give the film a properly claustrophobic feel, even in the scenes within the huge ruins that stand in contrast to the modest cabins that are the main elements of Owl Martin Dwyer’s stark production design; Andrew Drazek’s edits crisply and The Gifted, an L.A. duo, contributes to the mood with a frequently overblown score.  In a few fleeting scenes it’s indicated that the kids’ real forms now resemble some sort of gigantic insect; these visual effects are adequate at best.

The adult actors are all okay, with Wainwright and Gilford standing out; she’s especially good in the final reel, where she takes center stage and provides the intensity the ultimate confrontation requires, while he manages Ben’s transformation from confidence to nervous self-doubt in fair fashion.

But what suspense the narrative generates really depends on the children, and Guiza and Mattle deliver nicely, initially coming across as typical raucous adolescents and then turning sinister and, in the final stages, coolly malevolent.  And then do it with just unnerving smiles and some light effects on their eyes.

For what it is, “Something Is Wrong With the Children” is a proficient trip through some familiar horror territory.  The problem is that it isn’t very much.