OPENING
Bride Hard (R) Rebel Wilson stars in this action-comedy as a secret agent who has to serve as a bridesmaid at her best friend’s wedding. Also with Anna Camp, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Anna Chlumsky, Gigi Zumbado, Sherry Cola, Justin Hartley, Sam Huntington, Mark Valley, Colleen Camp, and Stephen Dorff. (Opens Friday)
8 Vasanthalu (NR) This Indian coming-of-age drama stars Ananthika Sanilkumar as a teenager navigating romance as she grows into a woman. Also with Sumant Nitturkar, Ravi Theja Duggirala, Hanu Reddy, and Kanna Pasunoori. (Opens Friday)
Found Footage: The Making of the Patterson Project (NR) Max Tzannes’ found-footage comedy is about a group of filmmakers trying to make a found-footage horror film. Starring Chen Tang, Brennan Keel Cook, Dean Cameron, Erika Vetter, Suzanne Ford, Del Alan Murphy, Rachel Alig, and J.R. Gomez. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Hi-Five (NR) This Korean action-comedy is about five ordinary people who acquire superpowers after receiving organ transplants from a dead superhero. Starring Park Jin-young, Yoo Ah-in, Lee Jae-in, Ran Mi-ran, Kim Hee-won, Ahn Jae-hong, and Oh Jung-se. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Inside (NR) This Australian prison drama stars Vincent Miller as a young convict who’s mentored by two different inmates. Also with Guy Pearce, Toby Wallace, Colleen MacIntosh, Nikki Shiels, Sean Millis, Chloe Hayden, and Cosmo Jarvis. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Kuberaa (NR) This Telugu-language thriller stars Dhanush as a homeless beggar who becomes rich by turning to crime. Also with Nagarjuna, Rashmika Mandanna, Jim Sarbh, Dalip Tahil, and Sayaji Shinde. (Opens Friday)
Pavements (R) Alex Ross Perry’s docudrama uses a number of metafictional techniques to tell the story of the 1990s alt-rock band Pavement. Starring Stephen Malkmus, Joe Keery, Nat Wolff, Fred Hechinger, Griffin Newman, Logan Miller, Zoe Lister-Jones, Michael Esper, Tim Heidecker, and Jason Schwartzman. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Sitaare Zameen Par (NR) A remake of the Spanish film Champions, this Indian sports film stars Aamir Khan as a basketball coach who must take over a team of autistic players as punishment for a DUI. Also with Genelia Deshmukh, Aroush Datta, Gopi Krishnan Varma, Vedant Sharmaa, Naman Misra, Rishi Shahani, Rishabh Jain, and Dolly Ahluwalia. (Opens Friday)
NOW PLAYING
Ballerina (R) Ana de Armas does a star turn in this spinoff from the John Wick series as a trained assassin who goes rogue when she sees a chance to avenge herself on the people who killed her father when she was a child. In doing so, she incurs the wrath of the Director (Anjelica Huston), who sends John himself (Keanu Reeves) to stop her. The series still sucks at world-building, and director Len Wiseman tries to turn this into another installment of his Underworld series by filming lots of raves with strobe lights popping. The action sequences remain strong as ever, though, with one fight sequence having our ballerina trying to detonate grenades in close quarters without hurting herself and a flamethrower duel that’s an exercise in wretched excess. De Armas’ feminine grace injects some freshness into the series. Also with Gabriel Byrne, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Norman Reedus, Victoria Comte, David Castañeda, Waris Ahluwalia, Juliet Doherty, Ian McShane, and the late Lance Reddick.
Bring Her Back (R) The latest horror film by Danny and Michael Philippou (Talk to Me) is a mess, but it has some wrenching moments. Billy Barratt portrays an orphaned 17-year-old in South Australia who follows his legally blind stepsister (Sora Wong) into the home of a foster mother (Sally Hawkins) who specializes in special-needs kids, only to discover sinister secrets in her home. As to what those are, the movie misdirects us ingeniously, with ominous signs pointing toward everyone, including the mute orphaned boy (Jonah Wren Phillips) whom she’s also caring for. Yet the story is full of loose ends, and the little girl’s visual impairment comes off like a plot convenience, since any child who could see what’s going on would run for the hills. Hawkins is still remarkable as a grieving mother who’s far gone, and the brothers retain their talent for horrifying visuals on a budget. Also with Mischa Heywood, Stephen Phillips, and Sally-Anne Upton.
Dangerous Animals (R) Of the two thrillers set on Australian beaches, this is better than The Surfer. Dallas native Hassie Harrison stars as an American surfer living out of her van on Queensland’s Gold Coast when she’s taken prisoner by a serial killer (Jai Courtney) who wants to feed her to sharks and film her in her last moments. Harrison (from TV’s Yellowstone) is the best reason to see this movie as an expat fleeing a bad childhood in the States, and Courtney is a match for her as a megalomaniac villain who waxes philosophical about sharks’ place in the ecosystem. You can do worse when it comes to potboilers from Down Under. Also with Josh Heuston, Ella Newton, Rob Carlton, and Liam Greinke.
Final Destination: Bloodlines (R) I forgot how stupid these movies were. Kaitlyn Santa Juana stars as the granddaughter of a woman (played in flashbacks by Brec Bassinger) who saved hundreds of people’s lives in the 1960s, so the death curse takes all those decades to catch up with her progeny. The film is on a much larger scale than the previous films, especially depicting the disaster averted in the past. However, the Rube Goldberg contrived contraptions that kill the people are just as dumb as ever. The late Tony Todd gives one of his final performances as an old man who’s in line for the death curse, and his speech about the importance of enjoying life is the only thing here with any weight. Also with Teo Briones, Richard Harmon, Owen Patrick Joyner, Alex Zahara, April Telek, Tinpo Lee, Max Lloyd-Jones, Rya Kihlstedt, Anna Lore, and Gabrielle Rose.
How to Train Your Dragon (PG) Chalk up another live-action remake of an animated kids’ movie that I can’t see the point of. Mason Thames (The Black Phone) stars in this remake of the 2010 animated film as the Viking who discovers that his tribe have been slaughtering dragons for no good reason. Toothless the Dragon is now generated by CGI and never once convinces us that he’s a real animal, and none of the human actors (not even Gerard Butler, reprising his voice role from the original as the Viking chief) put forward a case that this needed to be fleshed out with human actors. The only good addition here is the joke about the origin of Hiccup’s Viking helmet. Also with Nico Parker, Julian Dennison, Gabriel Howell, Bronwyn James, Harry Trevaldwyn, Murray McArthur, Peter Serafinowicz, Ruth Codd, Naomi Wirthner, and Nick Frost. (Opens Friday)
Karate Kid: Legends (PG-13) The latest young talent to hit the series is Ben Wang as a teenage Beijing kung fu student who’s uprooted to New York City. The main plot should have been the one where he uses his skills to train the pizzeria owner down the block (Joshua Jackson) to come out of retirement as a prizefighter, but the film barely expends any effort transitioning to another plot where the boy has to learn from both Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) and Daniel-san (Ralph Macchio) to defend himself from karatekas in a city-wide martial-arts tournament. The movie’s attempt to find a unified field theory for martial arts may not work, but it’s still preferable to the xenophobia of the Ip Man series, and Wang (from TV’s American Born Chinese) has charisma to burn. He could carry his own installment of the series, if he was given a better story to work with. Also with Ming-Na Wen, Sadie Stanley, Wyatt Oleff, Aramis Knight, Ge Yankei, Marco Zhang, and William Zabka.
The Last Rodeo (PG) Neal McDonough stars in this Christian drama as a cowboy who comes out of retirement because of his family’s financial need. Also with Mykelti Williamson, Sarah Jones, Graham Harvey, Irene Bedard, and Christopher McDonald.
The Life of Chuck (R) Mike Flanagan has adapted Stephen King stories numerous times for TV with good results, but this take on one of King’s non-horror stories is pure glop. Told in reverse chronological order, this story concerns an accountant named Chuck at three stages of his life (Benjamin Pajak, Jacob Tremblay, and Tom Hiddleston) as he bears tragedies and seeks his purpose in the universe. The first third of the film takes place during a mysterious apocalypse that wipes out life, and it’s filmed so soothingly that it’ll put you to sleep. There is a fun interlude when Hiddleston shows off his dancing skills, but this movie’s attempt to uplift you only achieves the opposite. Also with Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, Carl Lumbly, Mia Sara, David Dastmalchian, Harvey Guillén, Q’orianka Kilcher, Matthew Lillard, Rahul Kohli, Violet McGraw, The Pocket Queen, Kate Siegel, and Mark Hamill. Narrated by Nick Offerman.
Lilo & Stitch (PG) Beyond the technical skill of integrating a CGI-generated Stitch (voiced by Chris Sanders) with live actors and scenery, this remake follows the animated original so closely that you wonder what the point is. Maia Kealoha portrays the little Hawaiian girl being raised by her older sister (Sydney Elizebeth Agudong) when the chaotically destructive space alien crash lands near her and she adopts the alien from the local animal rescue. Director Dean Fleischer Camp (Marcel the Shell With Shoes On) makes it all seamless, but the familiar story beats aren’t any more moving now than they were in the 2002 original. The additions of Zach Galifianakis and Billy Magnussen as the aliens trying to capture Stitch bring surprisingly little. Also with Tia Carrere, Courtney B. Vance, Amy Hill, Kaipo Dudoit, Jason Scott Lee, and Hannah Waddingham.
Love Guru (NR) Not a remake of the notorious 2008 Mike Myers comedy flop, this Pakistani romantic comedy stars Mahira Khan as an architect who is torn between two eligible men. Also with Humayun Saeed, Ramsha Khan, Ahmed Ali Butt, Vardah Aziz, and Marina Khan.
Materialists (R) Celine Song proves to be one of America’s most promising filmmakers with this film that appears to be a plush New York dating comedy but is actually much more hard-headed. Dakota Johnson portrays a professional matchmaker at a Manhattan agency who finds her own romantic life torn between a handsome private equity manager (Pedro Pascal) and her ex-boyfriend (Chris Evans) who’s a broke theater actor. This movie is as painfully conscious of money as any Jane Austen novel, and all of the leads give fine performances fueled by quiet desperation about their money or lack thereof. They’re set up for success by Song (Past Lives), who delivers some of the most exquisite movie dialogue you’ll ever hear as well as some funny jokes. When the heroine does choose love over money, it feels like a weighty decision informed by everything that has gone before. She refuses to treat this movie like a fun little throwaway, which is what makes this great. Also with Zoe Winters, Marin Ireland, Dasha Nekrasova, Emmy Wheeler, Louisa Jacobson, Eddie Cahill, Sawyer Spielberg, and John Magaro.
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.
Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning (PG-13) This may not be Tom Cruise’s last outing as Ethan Hunt, but it does feel like a farewell to a franchise’s defining star. He has to reunite with his team members to capture the AI that is currently destroying the world. The result is unfortunately quite a disjointed movie in which Ethan appears to traverse the globe at the speed of light while awkward montages take in all the stars who have graced this series through the decades. The movie’s nostalgia kick does bring back Rolf Saxon as the CIA tech guy whom we haven’t seen since Ethan robbed his office in the original movie, and the stunts feature Cruise hanging off the wing of a biplane as well as a sequence in a sunken submarine that’s excellent suspense. It’s a better goodbye than Jason Bourne got. Also with Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Pom Klementieff, Esai Morales, Henry Czerny, Holt McCallany, Nick Offerman, Hannah Waddingham, Janet McTeer, Tramell Tillman, Mark Gatiss, Greg Tarzan Davis, Lucy Tulugarjuk, Katy O’Brian, Cary Elwes, and Angela Bassett.
The Phoenician Scheme (PG-13) Arid. Wes Anderson’s latest film stars Benicio del Toro as an incredibly unethical business mogul who dodges attempts on his life and bankruptcy while trying to pass on his business empire to an estranged daughter (Mia Threapleton) before she enters a convent. The apple-pie order of Anderson’s other films is here, but not the human emotion that distinguishes his best work. The filmmaker does try for relevance by having his business mogul use shady business tactics like Donald Trump’s, but that doesn’t add up to a coherent or a funny movie. Also with Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Bryan Cranston, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed, Jeffrey Wright, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Mathieu Amalric, Richard Ayoade, Alex Jennings, Hope Davis, Rupert Friend, Steve Park, F. Murray Abraham, Willem Dafoe, and Bill Murray.
Project X (NR) Not a remake of the 2012 teen comedy by that name, this Egyptian thriller stars Karim Abdel Aziz as a detective trying to bust a European antiquities smuggling ring. Also with Yasmine Sabri, Mariam El Gendy, Essam El Sakka, Hana El Zahed, and Ahmed Ghozzi.
Sinners (R) Ryan Coogler’s foray into Jordan Peele territory is wild and wildly original, even when it doesn’t make sense. Michael B. Jordan plays identical twins who return from Chicago to their Mississippi hometown in the 1930s to open a blues joint with their cousin (Miles Caton) who happens to be an otherworldly musician. Jordan gives two bracing performances as brothers with different jobs and temperaments, the Mississippi town is more layered than we usually see in Hollywood movies, and there’s a great sequence with the blues musician delivering a song so powerful that it opens a rift in time and space as well as attracting vampires. Coogler winds up with a few too many ideas in his intellectual stew, but it frames Delta blues in a wholly unexpected way and emerges as a worthy vampire movie. What other movie can say that? Also with Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosaku, Li Jun Li, Jack O’Connell, Lola Kirke, Jayme Lawson, Saul Williams, Andrene Ward-Hammond, Peter Dreimanis, Omar Miller, Yao, Delroy Lindo, and Buddy Guy.
Thunderbolts* (PG-13) Several shades darker than your typical Marvel superhero movie, which is part of what distinguishes it from the pack. When the CIA director (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) tries to take complete control of the U.S. government, a group of mercenaries in her employ (Florence Pugh, Wyatt Russell, Hannah John-Kamen, David Harbour, Sebastian Stan) band together to stop her. The villain’s secret weapon is a mentally ill drug addict (Lewis Pullman) who can trap people in their worst nightmares. The film is wobbly on the subject of toxic masculinity and occasionally plays like a derivative of Everything Everywhere All at Once, but it sometimes achieves a power of its own. Pugh delivers a precisely pitched performance in the lead, and Louis-Dreyfus makes a terrific foil to her as someone who hides her lust for power behind her precious wisecracks. The Marvel series is morphing into something new, which is better than repeating itself. Also with Geraldine Viswanathan, Olga Kurylenko, Chris Bauer, Violet McGraw, and Wendell Pierce.
The Unholy Trinity (R) There’s an interesting plot in this Western, but the filmmakers fail it. Brandon Lessard stars as a 19th-century gunslinger in Montana whose attempt to avenge his executed father gets him caught between an Irish sheriff (Pierce Brosnan) and an outlaw and ex-slave (Samuel L. Jackson) who partnered with the dead man to steal a huge amount of Confederate gold. The plot packs some decent surprises and Jackson brings his customary energy to the role, but Lessard gives very little and Australian director Richard Gray (Robert the Bruce) doesn’t give the proceedings enough zest. Neither a disquisition on Man’s unfettered greed nor a thriller that zips along, this is a box of unrealized potential. The movie takes place in a town called Trinity, but the title doesn’t fulfill its promise. Also with Veronica Ferres, Gianni Capaldi, Q’orianka Kilcher, Ethan Peck, Tim Daly, and David Arquette.
Dallas Exclusives
Art for Everybody (NR) Miranda Yousef’s documentary chronicles the estate of landscape painter Thomas Kinkade, whose sudden death was followed by the discovery of a cache of unknown works by him.
Diablo (R) Scott Adkins stars in this thriller as an ex-convict who kidnaps a crime boss’ daughter. Also with Marko Zaror, Lucho Velasco, Dianna Hoyos, Alanna de la Rossa, and Juan Camilo Castillo.
Echo Valley (R) This thriller stars Julianne Moore as a rancher whose daughter (Sydney Sweeney) suddenly shows up at her home after accidentally killing her boyfriend. Also with Domhnall Gleeson, Kyle MacLachlan, Edmund Donovan, Albert Jones, Katya Campbell, and Fiona Shaw.
