Tim Story's update of the blaxploitation classic is shamelessly regressive. Male dinosaurs again walk the earth with misogynistic and homophobic impunity. These are the laughs, folks. Don't be surprised if they stick in your throat.Middle generation Shaft looks good roaring around in his souped-up Monte Carlo SS. It's too bad the characters as a whole didn't have a better vehicle.This movie is 'ruin your childhood' bad, right down to the hideous auto-tuned end credits song they chose to use instead of the original 'Theme From Shaft.'A fluffy update of a gritty classic.This feels more like a junior-grade, not particularly well thought out Harlem-set Beverly Hills Cop reboot than it does a gritty, hard-edged Shaft sequel.[Shaft is] the worst and most problematic film of 2019-or any other year, for that matter.Ultimately, the only truly retro thing about this weirdly reactionary potboiler is its politics.Cheerfully retro past the point of winking at us, through the point of smirking at us, up to the point of pushing back in favor of toxic masculinity.An appealing reboot.This is a very strange movie... They've taken one of the coolest, suavest characters in movie history and cast him in this multigenerational "grumpy old dad" sitcom.The blaxploitation hero's new reboot/revamp/retcon is the most depressing movie of the year.It stinks to heaven.What the new Shaft movie doesn't have, aside from raw gumption or style, is a context that makes it seem urgent.[T]his movie isn't smart enough to find any comic inspiration in the generation gap between Shaft Prime and Shaft Sr. It just makes them both Cranky Old Heavily-Armed Guys.Whether you take this iteration of the character as an affectionate throwback or a cringe-worthy anachronism, it's hard to watch "Shaft" without feeling a little wistful.An action comedy that's neither consistently funny nor especially exciting, despite Samuel L. Jackson's second stab at the part.Remember "Shaft"? How about more "Shaft," but with more hacky jokes about millennials and an incredibly ugly homophobic streak?Its nothing-special plot, the product of writers Kenya Barris and Alex Barnow, features ill-defined villains and briefly touches on Islamophobia and military veteran PTSD and drug abuse - and never follows up on any of those issues.Among all the cardinal sins of moviemaking it commits (up to and including reusing an iconic needle drop from a Martin Scorsese movie), the worst is this: It makes Shaft look uncool.Times sure have changed since the old Shaft made women swoon by simply treating them like shit. As for the new Shaft, is he still a bad mutha? Shut your mouth.