A waterlogged Miami (“the sunken coast”) provides a sensational special effects backdrop for this otherwise routine noir merger of Altered States and Strange Days. Stock fatalistic narration leads the way: “We don’t haunt the past, the past haunts us.” Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman) is a tour guide of the mind, setting subjects in a flotation device and watching as a circular holographic image reminds a bilateral amputee remember what it was like to walk or helps a beautiful woman remember where she misplaced her house keys. The latter act is of such seeming insignificance that her presence can only lead to romance compounded by dark secrets. Nick is instantly smitten by Mae (Rebecca Ferguson), a torch-singing spider woman with no venom in her veins and a cookie-cutter wardrobe consisting of Jessica Rabbit gowns — different fabric, same hourglass cut. She’s a recovering addict, while Bannister’s assistant Watts (Thandiwe Newton, in the film’s best performance) is a relapsing drunk. A brief underwater tussle in a submerged movie theatre holds more allure than anything in The Shape of Water, but it isn’t enough to elevate Lisa Joy’s directorial bow much above passable entertainment. (2021) — Scott Marks