WE CAN BE HEROES

★★ OUT NOW (NETFLIX) / CERT PG / 100 MINS DIRECTOR Robert Rodriguez CAST Yaya Gosselin, Pedro Pascal, Priyanka Chopra

Robert Rodriguez’s return to lo-fi children’s films is frenetic but not always fun. The set-up is simple: infallible superhero team The Heroics are defeated by an alien invasion, leaving their offspring to pick up the fight. It’s good-natured, inclusive and sunny but too on the nose — a sequence that introduces all the kids and their powers is clunky and interminable — with rudimentary storytelling and lacklustre action, all topped off by terrible covers of the Bowie title song. Rodriguez has fun coming up with some new powers (dynamic singing range) and there are knowing send-ups of superhero lore, but the takeaway is thin and forgettable.