Love him or hate him, you know pretty much what you’re getting with Kevin Hart. His movies are built on a foundation of fast-talking shtick as he inevitably plays someone thrust into circumstances beyond his control due to his past failings.

The problem is that the shtick – never particularly robust to begin with – is definitely wearing thin.

So we have “Night School,” a largely unfunny lowbrow comedy that proves unable to come up with more than a handful of decent jokes despite sporting a frankly-unbelievable six credited screenwriters. Not even the presence of Tiffany Haddish and a not-at-all-bad supporting ensemble is enough to make this movie clear what is a decidedly low bar.

One of the realities of Hollywood’s love of sequels, remakes and reboots is that you’re guaranteed a fairly wide range of quality, though history shows that you’re much more likely to get a dud than a diamond. The most effective projects seem to be the ones that can manage to update a property while still retaining the aspects that made them successful in the first place.

That said, be honest – you’ve probably never spoken aloud (or even thought) the sentence “I sure would like to see an updated reboot of the 1995 family film ‘Jumanji’ – preferably starring The Rock.”

And yet that’s what we’ve gotten with “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.” It probably seems odd to be getting a movie like this some two decades after the original, but that’s not even the biggest surprise about the whole thing. The biggest surprise?

It’s actually pretty good.

Kiddie film full of potty humor and surprising sincerity

Animated family film has plenty of humor, heart

Sometimes, a movie comes along that you just know you're going to like. Maybe it's the filmmaker or the subject matter. Maybe it's just the trailer. Whatever the reason, you are absolutely certain that you are going to enjoy the film.

Dynamic Kevin Hart/The Rock pairing offers comedic chemistry

It's relatively easy to make a passable action comedy. Just string together a handful of jokes with some decently-crafted action sequences into something vaguely resembling a plot, then toss a few recognizable faces into the mix. Boom a serviceable and (probably) not-terrible action comedy.

Buddy cop sequel blandly mediocre

One of the wonderful things about Hollywood is that you just never know. Every once in a while, a film will come along that becomes a surprise box office hit, drawing huge audiences and making back its relatively meager budget five-fold.

However, one of the not-so-wonderful things about Hollywood is their general attitude of 'If it worked once, it'll work again.'

Kevin Hart comedy offers surprising number of laughs

As someone who goes to the movies a lot, I see a lot of trailers. With each passing year, I've become more and more comfortable with and more and more adept at determining the potential pros and cons of a film through just those few minutes. It's not necessarily about quality I've been known to like bad movies and not care for good ones but about personal taste.