The same eyeballs Facebook wants glued to a screen are perfectly capable of rolling in exasperation. Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning (C) tells an important story about the dark side of one of our generation’s defining inventions with so little style, verve or surprise that its blandness borders on cinematic malpractice. We’ve seen what inspired directors can do with Sorkin’s screenplays: Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs, Bennett Miller’s Moneyball, Rob Reiner’s A Few Good Men and The American President, and David Fincher’s The Social Network all found compelling rhythms in his words. Here, fussy framing and fragmented flashbacks can’t manufacture narrative momentum. Mikey Madison, as a Facebook data scientist turned whistleblower, and Jeremy Allen White, as a Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, struggle to animate awkwardly written roles, while Jeremy Strong’s ruthless Mark Zuckerberg registers as an extended cameo with little bite. Almost everything that distinguished the predecessor gets a downgrade, with Alexandre Desplat’s pleasant orchestral score replacing Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s unnerving soundscapes and a listless ensemble inheriting the feed from a razor-sharp cast. Bill Burr supplies a welcome jolt as a fictionalized investor turned critic of the billionaire leader, briefly making the film feel as combative as its subject demands. The stakes have grown, but the filmmaking has shrunk. What should provoke outrage too often invites a scroll. While it stops short of Speed 2 or Staying Alive territory, this inferior sequel turns a potentially devastating reckoning into a largely forgettable status update.