Harriet

The fact that there’s finally a widely-available biopic about Harriet Tubman is a major achievement, but the Lifetime movie treatment that the typically reliable Kasi Lemmons (Eve’s Bayou; Talk to Me) provides in Harriet is a disservice to the great woman’s legacy.

In her first starring role, Cynthia Erivo (Widows) is lifeless and uncharismatic as our heroine, whose surprisingly dull path to the Underground Railroad is marred by a distracting trope of visions from God steering her decisions and further cheapened by a non-R rating that yields a bizarrely soft look at slavery.

If that disconnect wasn’t odd enough, the film’s white cast hams it up in unintentionally humorous ways that suggest they were given the script to a Gone with the Wind parody.

Told via boring, boilerplate visuals and cloying musical cues from the likewise usually trustworthy Terence Blanchard, Tubman’s daring deeds deserve better than this significant step back for the cast and crew — and slave narratives as a whole.

Grade: C-minus. Rated PG-13. Starts Nov. 1 at AMC Classic, Biltmore Grande, Carolina Cinemark, and Grail Moviehouse

(Photo: Focus Features)