Right from the “get,” any reimagining of a classic, cult film is going to be scrutinized up, down, left, and right.  Doug Liman’s “Road House,” a re-imagination of Rowdy Harrington’s 1989 classic film should be no exception. Yet, in this day and age, with streamers full of content and rights to retool anything in their libraries, evaluating reimaginings on their own merits, without bringing in their origin stories or making a comparison toward their origins is a challenge. Yet, they deserve a completely fair shake.

On the one hand, one could look at Jake Gyllenhaal’s performance, and walk away from this movie, saying “that was a lot of fun.” As Elwood Dalton, Gyllenhaal fully commits himself to the performance. The well-muscled stud is a former UFC fighter with a troubled past.

Jessica Williams plays Frankie, the owner of the Road House, a bar on Glass Key, and an inside joke that wears itself really thin, really quickly. She courts Dalton to help her bounce a bad element from her bar that’s driving customers away. Screenwriters Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry (with a story credit to Bagarozzi, Mondry, and David Lee Henry, based on the 1989 screenplay by Henry and Hillary Henkin) set this reimagining in the Florida Keys. The sun is bright, the heat is right, but Dalton is still troubled. That is until he meets Charlie (Hannah Lanier), perhaps the one, true bright spot in the film. She and her father, Stephen (Kevin Carroll) run the local bookstore, Glass Books.

Gyllenhaal spends most of “Road House” looking like he’d rather be reading the book Charlie gives him at the beginning of the film than fighting the thugs who rule the roost on behalf of Ben Brandt (Billy Magnussen) or courting Daniela Melchior’s Ellie, the doctor who takes a liking to Dalton, this Dalton has brains, but chooses brawn and little to no charisma. The brains/brawn combination is selective when he’s the bouncer. This story is far more interested in the underpinnings of the why’s behind the disruption to The Road House, and an enforcer named Knox (Conor McGregor in his debut role), a bright, sometimes bare-assed cartoonish thug comes on the scene. Joaquim de Almedia’s sheriff plays a pivotally unnecessary role, though the actor looked like he was having a good time.

Yes, the bare-knuckled fights between Gyllenhaal and McGregor are fun, however, Liman, Bagarozzi, and Mondry turn this “Road House” into an over-the-top mess that resembles a two-hour UFC commercial rather than a charismatic drama, though as Dalton begins investigating the how’s and why’s behind Brandt’s desire for the land that The Road House sits on, Gyllenhaal shifts into second gear.

McGregor dives into his performance head-first, and it would be a lie if that didn’t suit this critic’s fancy, so there are positives here; they’re just too far and few as the story turns more procedural.

Magnussen amps up his trademark snarkiness as Ben Brandt. His sneers feel like a desperate attempt at being the next Capone, a reference to the mafia lord Brandt wants to become. The town folks, who greet Dalton by name without even being introduced to him, are content with the aid Brandt has provided them with but are more appreciative of Dalton’s help. Beneath the sneering veneer though, Brandt comes off as another entitled brat, whose goons are unprepared for Dalton’s rage.

If you strip character development and plot contrivances from “Road House,” if you settle in for a ‘good time,’ this will be your ticket this weekend.

In this critic’s eyes, that’s a serious problem. Before its premiere at South by Southwest, in a theater no less, industry publications shined a light on the fact that Liman and company chose to have Amazon put this directly on Prime instead of a theatrical release. That Liman pleaded for a theatrical release and was rebuked speaks volumes to the iron-clad realities and lack of creativity when it comes to the business of Hollywood and its output. Yet, audiences will gobble “Road House” up because it is “in the moment.”

What was a B-level movie with an A-list cast turned cult classic, “Road House” has been reimagined as an over-the-top, cat-and-mouse brawn fest with a strong cast and nowhere to go. Admittedly, the original, clouded through a rose-colored lens, was more of the same; it was just as over-the-top, charismatic machismo. This “Road House” has no charisma and all the sneering under its veneer.

Oh, and don’t forget about the unnecessary mid-credit sequence. Now streaming on Amazon Prime.