A 19-year-old student athlete at the University of Notre Dame just competed on the televised July 14 semifinals of “American Ninja Warrior” in Las Vegas. He really isn’t doing it for the glory or the chance to “go pro” as a full time ninja warrior.

With “Smurfs,” a blend of animation and live action, director Chris Miller has given the titular blue elves, Belgian cartoonist Peyo’s trademark creatures, a big-screen reboot. Although his would-be fresh start promotes positive values and is mostly free of problematic material, it’s also numbingly uninteresting.

Capsule reviews of theatrical movies available now for streaming or scheduled for broadcast on network or cable television as well as notes on TV programming for the same week.

Adult viewers willing to grapple with harsh material will find that the well-crafted but bleak dark comedy “Eddington” (A24) inspires some uneasy laughs. Those in search of light entertainment, by contrast, should definitely look elsewhere.

Tom Llamas became the first Latino anchor of an American weekday nightly news broadcast this year when last March he was officially named both “NBC Nightly News” anchor and managing editor, as well as anchor of “Top Story” on “NBC News NOW.”

“Clair Obscur: Expedition 33” (Kepler), the debut title from French studio Sandfall Interactive, follows a cohort of citizens desperate to save a large number of people from imminent death. As it does so, the role-playing game also explores themes of grief, family and community.

In the spring of 1938, when the figure of Superman made his first appearance in the pages of DC’s “Action Comics #1,” President Franklin Roosevelt’s efforts to combat the Great Depression via the New Deal were at their height. There had as yet been only one world war and Lou Gehrig was still playing for the New York Yankees.

It’s too simplistic to refer to “Sorry, Baby” (A24) as a #MeToo movie. Yet the film is topical as well as important and compelling.

Some 35 years ago, author Michael Crichton pondered the disastrous implications of using DNA to revive various species of dinosaurs. Suffice it to say that the consequences of this ill-advised fictional project, as chronicled on screen across the decades, have borne little resemblance to an episode of “The Flintstones.”

The same crackling wit that marked the 2022 debut of the murderously malfunctioning android of the title is present again as she makes a seemingly unlikely comeback in “M3GAN 2.0” (Universal). As was the case with the original film, however, her latest adventures are best savored by mature moviegoers.