While not a complete waste of two hours, Disney’s latest foray into movies inspired by one of its rides can’t step out of the shadow of other genre films it borrows from to stand out as anything incredibly interesting or even outstandingly fun.

“Jungle Cruise” tries yet again to capture the same success that the studio had with “Pirates of the Caribbean,” and it seems at first maybe it can do it. But as the film wears on and more of the obvious plot reveals itself, the joyful adventure movie gets lost along the meandering river of its own making.

Honestly, if you want a movie about a quippy American leading the headstrong and clever British lady and her younger, snooty brother into the unknown in search of something remarkable while battling supernatural forces to get there, just watch the masterpiece that is 1999’s “The Mummy.”

(Or you can rewatch the 1951 Bogart-Hepburn classic “The African Queen.” The plot is pretty similar to that classic as well, though this can be forgiven as the Disney ride was based on that movie, making it more of a full-circle moment than an all -out steal.)

The basic plot lays out like this: In the 16th century, Spanish conquistador Aguirre (Edgar Ramirez) and his crew arrived in the Amazon looking for the Tears of the Moon, a mythical tree whose petals have incredible healing properties. When the tribe whose job it was to keep the tree hidden refused to show it to him, he burns the village down and dies trying to find it himself (or does he?).

Flash forward to 1916 when a stubborn adventurer, Lily Houghton (Emily Blunt), finds out about a recent discovery of an ancient arrowhead that is said to be the key to finding the tree.

Spurred by the hope of using the elements of the petals to help the world at large, she is pursued by German Prince Joachim (Jesse Plemons), who wants the petals to help with the German army and lead them to victory in WWI. Lily, aided by her much more prim and proper younger brother, McGregor (Jack Whitehall) take the arrowhead and venture to South America, and hire the gruff riverboat captain Frank Wolff (Dwayne Johnson), who lies his way into the contract, to take them down the Amazon to find the Tears of the Moon.

As they make their way farther and farther downriver, truths come out and Frank and Lily argue but are a little smitten with each other. At the same time, the Germans are in hot pursuit, and they get some supernatural help for a leg up in the search.

Fans of the Disneyland ride will undoubtedly enjoy the many pun-centric jokes pulled straight from the skippers’ scripts from the attraction. While I love a good pun and am partial to the ride’s corny jokes, they become a bit too much after more than a 10-minute ride.

“Jungle Cruise” borrows from just about every action-adventure movie of the last 40 years but can’t do it in a way to be a cleverly conveyed Easter egg; instead it just feels like lazy storytelling.

Again, it’s not a complete waste of time, and families will probably enjoy it for a couple hours of entertainment. It’s clear that everyone in the cast is enjoying themselves and it’s fun to see all the connections to the ride, but at a certain point it feels unimaginative and it drags because of it.

Blunt and Johnson both have the acting abilities to take on the fun action-y roles before them, but their romantic tension isn’t as fun or as believable as something like Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz had in “The Mummy.” Instead, I would buy them being besties, rather than a couple, by the end. There was something palpable about the Rick and Evelyn relationship in the 1999 film that sticks with you. That doesn’t happen in “Jungle Cruise,” between the writing and the acting, that just doesn’t quite do it the way it should.

But that seems to be on par for the movie as a whole — a far cry from the brilliance of everything that came before.

“Jungle Cruise”

127 minutes

Rated PG-13 for sequences of adventure violence.

2.5 stars