Parents' Guide to Inside Man: Most Wanted

They say it's not a good sign to see a sequel starring none of the original talent; there's always a reason no one wanted to return. INSIDE MAN: MOST WANTED proves there's truth in that saying. The sequel, set five years after Spike Lee's thrilling Inside Man but filmed more than a decade after the original and with no one from the creative team or cast returning, is a by-the-numbers heist film that creates a facile link to the original, as if to reassure itself it's in any way related to it, but fails to elicit real thrills of any kind.

The cast is talented and efficient, but they're all at the service of a screenplay built on clichés and stereotypes. It should have borrowed, or stolen, more from Inside Man, and less from generic TV dramas, which is what this feels like. Aml Amleen certainly commands the screen as lead negotiator Remy Darbonne, but he and everyone else in the cast deserved something richer to sink their teeth into. Perhaps discovering this film will lead more people to Lee's 2006 masterpiece, which despite being his biggest commercial hit, failed to get him financing to do the sequel of his dreams.