Timing might not be everything, but it's definitely something, and so it's no advantage that "Burnt" arrives in theaters as the third movie about a chef in 18 months. If this were the best of them, or a completely new take on the subject, it might not matter. But "Burnt" is the least of them, with familiar scenes and ideas served up like a dish of warmed up leftovers.

And so, fresh out of the microwave, we get another story of a once-great chef in need of personal and professional redemption (as in Jon Favreau's "Chef"), only this time his grand pursuit is another Michelin star (as in "The Hundred-Foot Journey"). As in the other movies, this chef is supposed to be a master, but unlike the other films, that assertion is hard to believe when we see what's coming out of his kitchen.

The food cooked and created by the great Adam (Bradley Cooper) — and served up to us in "Burnt" — looks like the worst fancy-phony trend cuisine: two tiny pieces of fish cut into perfect rectangles, served on a tiny bed of vegetables, with a garnish of spring flowers. Is this food or edible sculpture? I skipped dinner to see this movie, and the only time I felt a hint of missing something was during the scene when the chef, slumming, goes to Burger King. In a food porn movie like this, if a Whopper with cheese is the most delicious thing up there, there's a big problem.

The food seems to suit the man, though. Adam is pretty much an unpleasant creep bent on impressing the world, not pleasing the people around him. He's the kind of fellow who will give employees a hard time and customers a pigeon on their plate. He would depopulate a city park of its pigeons to impress the Michelin people.

Fortunately, "Burnt" has Bradley Cooper, who has a chilly appeal, but an appeal nonetheless. There's a certain preening about Cooper, an awareness of his effect on people, that is present in many of his performances, but there's usually a faint hint of self-disgust, too, which is redemptive. He makes Adam not someone likable, but someone we end up caring about against our will, because we see something in him, or think we do.

The hero's back story is sketchy, so sketchy that one wonders if even the screenwriters know the details. Apparently, Adam was a two-star Michelin chef in Paris, who cracked up and became a drunk and a heroin addict. As the movie picks up his story, he has dried out for two years and is ready to launch a comeback, this time in London. He goes to work for the son of an old friend — Daniel Bruhl in a subtle, sensitive performance — and assembles a kitchen staff.

With a mix of audacity and cluelessness, "Burnt" dares to present Adam as an obnoxious jerk, and yet expects him to retain audience sympathy. Early in the film, he has a monstrous kitchen tirade in which he grabs little Sienna Miller by the shirt and looms over her, shouting and pushing her across the room. (She plays a cook who did something slightly wrong.) He makes Michael Fassbender in "Steve Jobs" look like a model of sweet-natured tolerance.

Behind "Burnt" is the suggestion of a particular world, where food is supposed to be always evolving and where cooking as if it were still 2007 is considered an embarrassment. Such micro-worlds are not without interest, but the heart of the movie, concerning Adam's evolution into something resembling a human being, falls flat.

Part of the problem is that his evolution from a moral amoeba to a paramecium, though progress of a kind, is hard to celebrate without a microscope. But the real issue is that everything about Adam's journey feels half digested and tossed back up. We've seen it before. It was better the first time.