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Alappuzha Gymkhana (NR) This Indian film is about a group of students who find careers by competing in their college’s boxing team. Starring Naslen, Lukman Avaran, Ganapathi, Sandeep Pradeep, Anagha Maya Ravi, Franco Francis, and Shine Tom Chacko. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Arjun S/O Vyjayanthi (NR) This Telugu-language crime thriller stars Nandamuri Kalyan Ram, Arjun Rampal, Saiee Manjrekar, Srikanth, Vijayashanti, and Sohail Khan. (Opens Friday)
Colorful Stage! The Movie: A Miku Who Can’t Sing (NR) Based on the mobile video game, this Japanese anime musical is about a group of teenagers who discover an alternate world of emotions. (Opens Friday)
It Feeds (NR) This horror film stars Ashley Greene as a psychiatrist who must protect her daughter (Ellie O’Brien) after a demonic entity breaks into her home office. Also with Shawn Ashmore, Juno Rinaldi, Mark Taylor, Scott Baker, and Dave Dewar. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Kesari Chapter 2 (NR) This sequel to the 2019 historical epic continues the story of the fallout from the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Starring Akshay Kumar, R. Madhavan, Ananya Panday, Regina Cassandra, Simon Paisley Day, and Steven Hartley. (Opens Friday)
One to One: John & Yoko (R) Kevin Macdonald and Sam Rice-Edwards’ documentary is about the 1972 charity concert for special-needs concert that John Lennon and Yoko Ono put on in New York. (Opens Friday)
Pabrik Gula (NR) This Indonesian horror film is about a group of seasonal workers at a sugar refinery who are haunted by evil spirits. Starring Arbani Yasiz, Ersya Aurelia, Erika Carlina, Bukie B. Mansyur, Wavi Zihan, Benidictus Siregar, Arif Alfiansyah, and Sadana Agung Sulistya. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
The President’s Wife (NR) Based on a true story, this French political drama stars Catherine Deneuve as Bernadette Chirac, the wife of France’s president (Michel Vuillermoz) who takes revenge on him after he leaves her for another woman. Also with Denis Podalydès, Sara Giraudeau, Laurent Stocker, François Vincentelli, and Maud Wyler. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Sneaks (PG) This animated movie is about a left designer sneaker (voiced by Anthony Mackie) that’s separated from the right one (voiced by Chloe Bailey) during a sneaker convention in New York City. Additional voices by Laurence Fishburne, Martin Lawrence, Keith David, Macy Gray, Quavo, Mustard, Rico Rodriguez, Roddy Ricch, Young Miko, and Swae Lee. (Opens Friday)
The Teacher (NR) Saleh Bakri stars in this drama as a Palestinian schoolteacher torn between loyalty to his nation and his job. Also with Imogen Poots, Muhammad Abed Elrahman, Paul Herzberg, Mahmoud Bakri, Andrea Irvine, and Stanley Townsend. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Turno Nocturno (R) This Mexican horror film stars Paulina Gaitán as a nurse who’s haunted by a ghost during her new job working the night shift at a hospital. Also with Tony Dalton, Adriana Llabres, Azul Guaita, Iazua Larios, Patricia Reyes Spíndola, and Enoc Leaño. (Opens Friday)
The Ugly Stepsister (NR) This Norwegian take on the Cinderella story stars Lea Myren as a woman who will stop at nothing to capture the handsome prince (Isac Calmroth). Also with Thea Sofie Loch Næss, Ane Dahl Torp, Flo Fagerli, Malte Gårdinger, and Ralph Carlsson. (Opens Friday)
The Wedding Banquet (R) This remake of Ang Lee’s 1993 comedy is about a gay couple (Bowen Yang and Han Gi-chan) who strike a deal with a lesbian couple (Lily Gladstone and Kelly Marie Tran) to enter into a sham marriage. Also with Joan Chen, Françoise Yip, Bobo Le, Camille Atebe, Emma Yi, and Youn Yuh-jung. (Opens Friday)
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The Amateur (PG-13) Rami Malek is miscast in this action-thriller, and that’s sort of the point. He stars as a CIA intelligence analyst who seeks revenge after his wife (Rachel Brosnahan) is murdered in a terrorist attack. Based on Robert Littell’s novel (which got made into a Hollywood spy thriller back in 1981), the story specifically takes as its protagonist a man who can’t look a bad guy in the eye and then pull the trigger on him. Even though the action hero is highly intelligent and highly motivated, the movie knows that it takes more than that to make a viable operative. Unfortunately, the movie around our unconventional hero is too conventional, and his eluding of his own agents in European backwaters isn’t handled creatively enough. Also with Laurence Fishburne, Julianne Nicholson, Holt McCallany, Danny Sapani, Adrian Martinez, Evan Milton, Barbara Probst, Marc Rissmann, Jon Bernthal, and Michael Stuhlbarg.
Captain America: Brave New World (PG-13) A lean two-hour Marvel superhero film that yields some decent thrills. Anthony Mackie takes over the shield as the new Captain America working with and then against a new president (Harrison Ford) to avert a war between America and Japan as well as clear Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) of guilt in an assassination attempt on the president. Director/co-writer Julius Onah pares down the scale of the film without sacrificing the maximalist set pieces that Marvel fans are used to. Less successful is the supervillain (Tim Blake Nelson) and his overly convoluted plot to turn the president into the Red Hulk. Mackie well deserves a star vehicle like this and makes for an edgier and more modern Captain than Chris Evans did, and Ford manages to be fully engaged in his role. Also with Danny Ramirez, Shira Haas, Giancarlo Esposito, Xosha Roquemore, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, William Mark McCullough, Takehiro Hira, Liv Tyler, and an uncredited Rosa Salazar.
The Chosen: Last Supper (NR) Not to be confused with the other movie about the Last Supper that’s reviewed below, this continuation of the TV series also deals with Jesus’ final meeting with his disciples. Starring Jonathan Roumie, Shahar Isaac, Reza Diako, Jordan Walker Ross, Catherine Lidstone, and Elizabeth Tabish.
Dog Man (PG) Dav Pilkey’s series of children’s books becomes this frenetic but unexpectedly moving animated film. Director Peter Hastings does the voice of a stupid cop and his genius dog whose lives are saved after a bombing when the dog’s head is glued onto the man’s body. Together, Dog Man aims to thwart a cat supervillain (voiced by Pete Davidson) with a lot of abandonment issues. Those lead the cat to ditch his cloned kitten self (voiced by Lucas Hopkins Calderon), and the movie has some sweet moments when Dog Man takes in the abandoned kitten. Some better writing and a bit of slacking off with the pace might have made this into a great movie. Additional voices by Lil Rel Howery, Isla Fisher, Poppy Liu, Billy Boyd, Maggie Wheeler, Laraine Newman, Cheri Oteri, and Stephen Root.
Drop (PG-13) There are several plot contrivances too many in this thriller. Meghann Fahy stars as a psychotherapist and widowed mother who goes on a blind date at a fancy Chicago restaurant, only for a mysterious caller to keep sending digital drops to her phone threatening the lives of her family if she doesn’t kill the man she’s dating (Brandon Sklenar). The movie has some intrigue in narrowing down the perpetrator to somebody in the restaurant, and Broadway star Fahy does some good work as someone who’s haunted by a previous abusive relationship. However, the puppetmaster who’s trying to manipulate her remotely is too absurd to be credible. Christopher Landon previously directed Happy Death Day and Freaky, and he did wittier work in those than he does here. Also with Violett Beane, Jacob Robinson, Reed Diamond, Gabrielle Ryan, Jeffery Self, Sarah McCormack, Ed Weeks, Travis Nelson, and Ben Pelletier.
Good Bad Ugly (NR) Ajith Kumar stars in this Tamil-language action-comedy about a gang boss who tries to go straight. Also with Trisha Krishnan, Arjun Das, Prabhu, Prasanna, Sunil, Rahul Dev, Redin Kingsley, Raghu Ram, Darkkey Nagaraja, Karthikeya Dev, and Simran.
The King of Kings (PG) Leaden in both visual and narrative terms, this animated Christian film has the story of Jesus Christ (voiced by Oscar Isaac) being narrated by Charles Dickens (voiced by Kenneth Branagh) for some reason. Neither the telling of the Passion story nor the framing story in Victorian England are interesting in itself, and the intersections of the two don’t work. The opportunities for great visuals from the animation are there, but the filmmakers don’t take any of them. It’s hard to tell what the purpose of all this is. Painters and other visual artists have done much better at making Christian art. Additional voices by Uma Thurman, Ben Kingsley, Pierce Brosnan, Jim Cummings, Fred Tatasciore, Roman Griffin Davis, and Forest Whitaker.
A Minecraft Movie (PG) The charm that has won the video game millions of followers around the world is little in evidence in this film version. Jack Black stars as the ruler of the Overworld, who has to prevent the queen of the Nether (voiced by Rachel House) from taking over, with the help of a group of visitors from Idaho (Jason Momoa, Emma Myers, Danielle Brooks, and Sebastian Hansen) who have accidentally been pulled into the Minecraft world. Director Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite) finds a nice comic groove in Idaho, but once everybody goes into the game, his sense of pacing and timing deserts him. The writers frantically move these characters back and forth to make up for the fact that the game famously has no story, and the actors scream their lines. Making an intellectual property into a good movie requires a filmmaker with peculiar talents, and this movie doesn’t find one. Also with Jennifer Coolidge, Bret McKenzie, Matt Berry, Jemaine Clement, and an uncredited Kate McKinnon.
Parvulos (NR) This Mexican horror film is about a family defending their cabin in the woods from a zombie attack. Starring Mateo Ortega Casillas, Farid Escalante Correa, Leonardo Cervantes, Carla Adell, Norma Flores, Horacio F. Lazo, and Noé Hernández.
Snow White (PG) If this Disney live-action remake is too flawed to drown out the noise around it, it’s good enough to obscure that noise for a long stretch. Rachel Zegler plays the orphaned princess whose wicked stepmother (Gal Gadot) orders her killed for the crime of being more beautiful. Despite a darker color palette that distinguishes this from other Disney remakes, this film’s initial dramatic setup is flat, and the CGI dwarves are a huge distraction. Even so, the movie kicks into life with the villain’s aria “All Is Fair” and the romantic interest (Andrew Burnap) busting Snow White on her royal privilege in “Princess Problems,” and Zegler herself brings the appropriate energy in an expanded version of “Whistle While You Work.” If only the story of Snow White taking her kingdom back worked on any level, we could call this a success. Also with Hadley Fraser, Lorena Andrea, Emilia Faucher, Ansu Kabia, George Appleby, and Samuel Baxter. Voices by Patrick Page, Jeremy Swift, George Salazar, Andrew Barth Feldman, Martin Klebba, Jason Kravits, Andy Grotelueschen, and Titus Burgess.
Warfare (R) Too focused for its own good, this war film sets out to change the way war is depicted in a movie, and fails. Set in 2006, the film is about a platoon of Navy SEALs in Iraq who become trapped in a house after the locals figure out where they are. This is based on a real-life incident lived through by Ray Mendoza, who co-directs the movie with Alex Garland (Civil War). The movie does some good work building anticipation as the Navy SEALs await the attack, but it’s so hellbent on removing anything extraneous to the action that it falls flat utterly as a piece of storytelling. The characters are interchangeable and the action itself doesn’t do anything that other war movies haven’t already accomplished. Starring Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Joseph Quinn, Alex Brockdorff, Aaron Mackenzie, Finn Bennett, Michael Gandolfini, and Charles Melton.
The Woman in the Yard (PG-13) Missing greatness through some conceptual flaws, this horror movie stars Danielle Deadwyler as a mother widowed and disabled by the same car accident who’s trying to raise her children (Peyton Jackson and Estella Kahiha) on their remote rural farm. The appearance of a mysterious woman clad all in black (Okpui Okpokwasili) sitting on their property brings all her unresolved trauma to the surface. Director Jaume Collet-Serra knows his way around a claustrophobic horror film, but the film would have worked better if the same actress had played the mother and the woman in black. Even better would have been some more thinking through about what the woman is supposed to represent. Nevertheless, this exercise remains watchable and effective in spots. Also with Russell Hornsby.
A Working Man (R) This might have been okay if it weren’t for the overplotted script. Jason Statham stars in this thriller as an ex-British soldier-turned-construction foreman in Chicago who has to call on his former skills after his boss’ teenage daughter (Arianna Rivas) is kidnapped by human traffickers. This is based on Chuck Dixon’s novel Levon’s Trade, and all the extra stuff about Russian mobsters, crooked cops, bikers who deal meth, and the daughter (Isla Gie) whom the hero is raising by himself might have worked on the page. Here, though, it feels like so much padding for the protagonist to kill his way through. Director David Ayer doesn’t even come up with any memorable fight sequences for all this. Also with Michael Peña, Maximilian Osinski, Merab Ninidze, Noemi Gonzalez, Emmett J. Scanlan, Eve Mauro, Jason Flemyng, and David Harbour.
Dallas Exclusives
Gazer (R) Ariella Mastroianni stars in and co-writes this horror film about a mother who struggles to perceive time. Also with Renee Gagner, Jack Alberts, Emma Pearson, Marianne Goodell, and Tommy Kang.
Gunslingers (R) This Western stars Nicolas Cage and Stephen Dorff as former outlaws who must defend their town against bandits. Also with Heather Graham, Tzi Ma, Randall Batinkoff, Cooper Barnes, and Costas Mandylor.
Janis Ian: Breaking Silence (NR) Varda Bar-Kar’s documentary profiles the 1970s music star and her impact on the culture. Also with Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, Laurie Metcalfe, Jean Smart, and Lily Tomlin.
Psycho Therapy: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer (NR) This comedy stars John Magaro as a blocked writer who discovers that his marriage counselor (Steve Buscemi) is also a retired serial killer. Also with Britt Lower, Sydney Cole Alexander, Anthony Michael Lopez, Ward Horton, and Jacob Ming-Trent.
Zero (NR) This British dystopian film stars Lauren Grace and Anya McKenna-Bruce as two sisters trying to survive a post-apocalyptic event. Also with Oliver Woollford, Archie Renaux, Kieron Bimpson, Abbie-Jane Gates, Jamie Irvine, and Megan Zina.
