“Melania” Is a Forty-Million-Dollar Journey Into the Void

From the first seconds of “Melania,” we know we’re watching a commercial: the camera swoops and glides over the luxury waterfront estate Mar-a-Lago, and then, back on the ground, a snakeskin stiletto emerges from an S.U.V. Visually, it’s slick but exceedingly mid. The director Brett Ratner cozied up to the Trumps after spending years in movie-biz exile amid multiple allegations of sexual harassment and assault. (He has denied wrongdoing.) For his comeback, he has summoned all the artistic ambition of a local Realtor who just got a drone. Backed by the familiar chords of “Gimme Shelter,” the opening scene proposes a documentarian’s corollary to the rule about restaurants with a view: the spendier the soundtrack, the flatter the film.