OPENING
Abir Gulaal (NR) This Indian romantic comedy stars Vaani Kapoor as a woman who flees to London to escape an arranged marriage. Also with Fawad Khan, Riddhi Dogra, Lisa Haydon, Farida Jalal, Soni Razdan, and Parmeet Sethi. (Opens Friday)
Bad Girl (NR) Anjali Sivaraman stars in this Tamil-language comedy as a teenager searching for her first love. Also with Shanthipriya, Saranya Ravichandran, Hridhu Haroon, and Teejay Arunasalam. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
The Baltimorons (R) Jay Duplass’ comedy stars Michael Strassner as a Baltimore native with a medical emergency that forces him to visit his dentist (Liz Larsen) over Christmas. Also with Olivia Luccardi, Brian Mendes, Rob Phoenix, Jessie Cohen, and Drew Limon. (Opens Friday)
Code 3 (R) Rainn Wilson stars in this comedy as a burned-out paramedic who must work one last shift to train his replacement (Lil Rel Howery). Also with Aimee Carrero, Rob Riggle, Xolo Maridueña, and Yvette Nicole Brown. (Opens Friday)
Demon Slayer — Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Infinity Castle (R) The latest chapter in the anime saga has the demon slayers becoming trapped in a maze-like castle. Voices by Natsuki Hanae, Zach Aguilar, Akari Kitō, Abby Trott, Hiro Shimono, Aleks Le, Yoshitugu Matsuoka, Bryce Papenbrook, Reina Ueda, Brianna Knickerbocker, Yuichi Nakamura, and Channing Tatum. (Opens Friday)
Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale (PG) The last installment in the family saga has Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) becoming embroiled in a public scandal. Also with Hugh Bonneville, Jim Carter, Penelope Wilton, Dominic West, Elizabeth McGovern, Joely Richardson, Laura Carmichael, Sophie McShera, Phyllis Logan, Allen Leech, Simon Russell Beale, Joanne Froggatt, Alessandro Nivola, and Paul Giamatti. (Opens Friday)
Elli and Her Monster Team (PG) This German animated film is about a ghost (voiced by Dalia Schmidt-Foß) searching for a family. Additional voices by Oliver Kalkofe, Santiago Ziesmer, Max Giermann, and Svantje Wascher. (Opens Friday)
Little Hearts (NR) This Malayalam-language romantic comedy stars Shane Nigam as a man trying to handle romance while managing his family’s cardamom plantation. Also with Baburaj, Mahima Nambiar, Shine Tom Chacko, Jaffer Idukki, and Aima Rosmy Sebastian. (Opens Friday)
Looking Through Water (NR) Michael Douglas stars in this dramedy as a man attempting to connect with his estranged family by entering a fishing contest with his grandson (Walker Scobell). Also with David Morse, Tamara Tunie, Asher Grodman, Barry Livingston, Cameron Douglas, and Michael Stahl-David. (Opens Friday)
The Man in My Basement (R) Adapted from Walter Mosley’s novel, this thriller stars Corey Hawkins as a cash-strapped homeowner who accepts an offer from a stranger (Willem Dafoe) to rent his basement. Also with Jonathan Ajayi, Anna Diop, Brian Bovell, Mark Arnold, and Tamara Lawrence. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Rabbit Trap (R) Dev Patel and Rosy McEwen star in this psychological thriller as British musicians who start to lose their sanity during a getaway in Wales. Also with Jade Croot and Nicholas Sampson. (Opens Friday)
Riefenstahl (NR) Andres Veiel’s documentary chronicles the Nazi history of filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Spinal Tap II: The End Continues (R) Rob Reiner, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer reunite as the hair-metal band prepares to play a farewell concert. Also with June Chadwick, Fran Drescher, John Michael Higgins, Paul Shaffer, Jason “Wee Man” Acuna, Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Lars Ulrich, Questlove, Elton John, and Paul McCartney. (Opens Friday)
Tin Soldier (NR) Scott Eastwood stars in this thriller as an ex-soldier who infiltrates a religious cult that is targeting other ex-soldiers. Also with Jamie Foxx, Nora Arnezeder, John Leguizamo, Rita Ora, Shamier Anderson, Joey Bicicchi, and Robert De Niro. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Traumatika (NR) This horror film stars Ranen Navat as a girl who sees her mother (Rebekah Kennedy) become possessed by a demon. Also with Emily Goss, AJ Bowen, Sean O’Bryan, Susan Gayle Watts, and Sean Whalen. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
NOW PLAYING
The Bad Guys 2 (PG) Better than the first movie, actually. The gang (voiced by Sam Rockwell, Awkwafina, Anthony Ramos, Marc Maron, and Craig Robinson) has trouble landing jobs after getting out of prison, so a rival gang frames them for their own crimes and forces them to commit additional crimes to clear their names. The climactic sequence is a bit drawn out, but until then the movie has a nice time mocking tech billionaires who want to go into space and the tropes of heist movies, as well as a nice interlude at a lucha libre wrestling event. Mark this down as an above-average animated kids’ film. Additional voices by Danielle Brooks, Maria Bakalova, Zazie Beetz, Jaime Camil, Richard Ayoade, Lilly Singh, Alex Borstein, Omid Djalili, and Natasha Lyonne.
Caught Stealing (R) Darren Aronofsky without the horror-movie trappings, which turns out to be less interesting. Adapted from Charlie Huston’s novel, this crime thriller set in 1998 stars Austin Butler as a wrecked baseball phenom-turned-New York bartender who becomes caught up in his next-door neighbor’s criminal activities. The characters’ stupidity and machismo result in a much higher body count than there should be, and Aronofsky does it neatly enough, but the results feel flimsy. The only thing keeping the movie from forgettability is Butler’s performance as a drunk who hasn’t faced the defining trauma of his life. He holds down the center of this movie despite all the star power around him. Also with Regina King, Zoë Kravitz, Vincent D’Onofrio, Liev Schreiber, Matt Smith, Bad Bunny, Action Bronson, Nikita Kukushkin, Yuri Kolokolnikov, Griffin Dunne, D’Pharoah Woon-a-Tai, Carol Kane, and an uncredited Laura Dern.
The Conjuring: Last Rites (R) Ed and Lorraine Warren finally retire, and it’s at least two movies too late. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga take their last turn as the paranormal investigating couple, looking into a haunted mirror in Pennsylvania. Or at least that’s what’s supposed to happen, but our investigators take forever to actually get to the site. The movie wastes so much time on their backstory, as well as their adult daughter (Mia Tomlinson) getting married and having her own psychic visions. That doesn’t work, and neither does the scary stuff. Also with Orion Smith, Madison Lawlor, Ben Hardy, Steve Coulter, Beau Gadsdon, Kila Lord Cassidy, Elliot Cowan, Rebecca Calder, Peter Wight, Madison Wolfe, Frances O’Connor, Mackenzie Foy, Lili Taylor, and an uncredited James Wan.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps (PG-13) Finally they made a pleasing movie about this group. The film plunks us down in the middle of the saga in the early 1960s, when Reed Richards and Sue Storm (Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby) discover that they’re pregnant and, not coincidentally, Galactus (Ralph Ineson) announces his intention to devour the Earth. Director Matt Shakman’s retro-futurist aesthetic distinguishes this from other Marvel superhero movies, and the same goes for the well-oiled banter among the Four (Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach fill out the team). To a surprising extent, this feels like a 1960s movie, albeit one with contemporary special effects. Even the cute robot sidekick (Matthew Wood) isn’t too objectionable, and the movie is unencumbered by story ties to the rest of the Marvel universe. Also with Julia Garner, Paul Walter Hauser, Sarah Niles, Mark Gatiss, and Natasha Lyonne.
F1: The Movie (PG-13) The best auto-racing film ever made, especially if you see it in a theater with good speakers. Director Joseph Kosinski made you feel the speed and torque of the fighter planes in Top Gun: Maverick, and he uses those same skills to tell the story of a washed-up Formula One racer (Brad Pitt) who’s given one last shot to compete at that level by a desperate former racing teammate (Javier Bardem). The roar of the race cars is so intense that you may walk out exhausted from all the sound energy hitting your body. The subplots about our grizzled veteran mentoring a cocky young teammate (Damson Idris) and romancing his team’s technical director (Kerry Condon) don’t pull their weight, but the script delves deep into racing strategy, and the sound engineering and the cameras mounted on vehicles will make you feel like you’re there on race day. Also with Tobias Menzies, Kim Bodnia, Luciano Bacheta, Sarah Niles, Will Merrick, Callie Cooke, Samson Kayo, and Shea Whigham.
Freakier Friday (PG) At least this time it isn’t some stereotypical Asian lady making the body switch happen. The sequel to the 2003 Disney comedy has Anna (Lindsay Lohan) falling in love with a British chef (Manny Jacinto), but when their respective teenage daughters (Julia Butters and Sophia Hammons) detest each other, it’s once again time for body switching. This time there’s two switches, once again involving Anna’s mom (Jamie Lee Curtis), which makes it harder to keep track of who’s in whose body, but that would matter less if the scenes were funnier or if the plot points didn’t come so haphazardly and without logic. Lohan can still bring it and Butters displays some good comic timing, but after 22 years, you’d think the sequel would have better ideas. The only time the nostalgia pays off is at the end, when Anna reunites with her ex-bandmates (Christina Vidal Mitchell and Haley Hudson) and they perform songs from the first movie. Also with Chad Michael Murray, Vanessa Bayer, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Rosalind Chao, X Mayo, Lucille Soong, June DIane Raphael, Stephen Tobolowsky, Sherry Cola, George Wallace, Chloe Fineman, Elaine Hendrix, and Mark Harmon.
Hamilton (PG) A spike of adrenalin to the heart. Thomas Kail’s concert film of the Broadway musical came out on streaming during the pandemic, and now it’s on big screens. Lin-Manuel Miranda stars as Alexander Hamilton, and his galvanizing performance as the rapping Founding Father is as enjoyable as the endless inventiveness of his songs, which finally brought hip-hop to Broadway. The energy somehow does not flag over the film’s 160 minutes, and the play reframes the story of our nation’s birth for a new era. Also with Leslie Odom Jr., Phillipa Soo, Daveed Diggs, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Christopher Jackson, Anthony Ramos, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Ariana DeBose, Okieriete Onaodowan, and Jonathan Groff.
Highest 2 Lowest (R) Not always smooth, but often entertaining. Spike Lee’s remake of Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low stars Denzel Washington as a wealthy music mogul who’s trying to regain control of his label when his teenage son (Aubrey Joseph) and the kid’s best friend (Elijah Wright) are kidnapped for ransom by an aspiring rapper (A$AP Rocky). It’s questionable how a villain who’s so angry and out of control could put together such a sophisticated kidnapping plot, but the film is worth it for Washington’s performance and some great action sequences like when the ransom drop is made and the kidnapper’s cohorts run the police into a Puerto Rican pride celebration in the streets. (This last features the late Eddie Palmieri performing.) It may be a minor entry in Lee’s canon, but it’s a worthwhile use of 133 minutes. Also with Jeffrey Wright, Ilfenesh Hadera, John Douglas Thompson, Dean Winters, LaChanze, Rick Fox, Frederick Weller, Michael Potts, Wendell Pierce, and Ice Spice.
Jurassic World: Rebirth (PG-13) More like stillbirth, actually. The series has a new director and a bunch of new stars, and yet it’s still tedious enough to make the last three movies seem like roller-coaster rides by comparison. Scarlett Johansson plays a private contractor who helps get a team of scientists into a dinosaur-populated island for biological samples that could be turned into life-saving medications, only to run into a family stranded there after their boat is sunk by other dinosaurs. Director Gareth Edwards (The Creator) makes the dinosaurs look real enough, but neither the characters nor the action set pieces are memorable in any way. Also with Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Manuel García-Rulfo, David Iacono, Luna Blaise, Audrina Miranda, Bechir Sylvain, Niamh Finlay, Ed Skrein, and Rupert Friend.
Light of the World (PG) This animated film tells the story of Jesus (voiced by Ian Hanlin) from the viewpoint of John (voiced by Benjamin Jacobson). Additional voices by David Kaye, Jesse Inocalla, Sam Darkoh, Ceara Morgana, Dylan Leonard, Mark Oliver, and Vincent Tong.
Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra (NR) Kalyani Priyadarshan stars in this Indian fantasy film as a woman who discovers that she has superpowers meant to fight evil. Also with Naslen, Sandy Master, Arun Kurian, Chandu Salimkumar, Dulquer Salmaan, Tovino Thomas, and Sunny Wayne.
The Naked Gun (R) A reminder of why this comedy subgenre died in the first place. Liam Neeson portrays Frank Drebin Jr., investigating a murder linked to a tech billionaire (Danny Huston). There are a few scenes that hit, like the one when an infrared camera makes it appear that Frank is into all kinds of weird sex, but the gags that misfire far outnumber the ones that work, and neither Neeson nor Pamela Anderson as Frank’s love interest have the deadpan style of this comedy down. It’s never a good sign when the jokes in the final credits are funnier than the ones in the movie itself. Also with Paul Walter Hauser, CCH Pounder, Kevin Durand, Cody Rhodes, Busta Rhymes, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Priscilla Presley, and an uncredited Dave Bautista.
The Roses (R) Everyone is just horrible in this warmed over remake of The War of the Roses. Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman star as a British couple living in America whose marriage comes apart when she becomes an internationally famous chef while he becomes an architect whom no one will hire. The British stars are alert enough to suggest that they don’t really want to be at each other’s throats, and there’s a fascinating subplot with their American friends (Andy Samberg and Kate McKinnon) who are rampantly cheating on each other and seriously messed up in the head. Still, the British politesse in this story only seems to dampen things down instead of making everything funnier. The movie raises laughs in fits and starts, but never truly finds a groove. Also with Ncuti Gatwa, Sunita Mani, Zoë Chao, Jamie Demetriou, and Allison Janney.
Splitsville (R) A messy romantic situation becomes very funny in this comedy. Kyle Marvin stars as a man in a tailspin who discovers that his best friends (Michael Angelo Covino and Dakota Johnson) have an open marriage and has sex with the wife, only for the husband to try to murder him in one of movie history’s greatest comedy fight sequences. Even more chaos ensues, and the script by Covino and Marvin carefully tracks the fallout while including a number of memorable set pieces. Covino is also the director here, and his movies lean so heavily on their writing and acting that you can overlook his visual flair. He makes sure the farcical energy never flags, and turns this into a fresh take on the complications that love can experience. Also with Adria Arjona, David Castañeda, O-T Fagbenle, Charlie Gillespie, Simon Webster, Nahéma Ricci, and Nicholas Braun.
Superman (PG-13) The best Superman movie from this century. David Corenswet takes over the title role, as Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) leads a social-media crusade to have Superman treated as an illegal alien. Luthor is reimagined for our time as a libertarian billionaire who feels small and insignificant against the Man of Steel’s superpowers, and a highly dysfunctional trio of superheroes calling themselves the Justice Gang (Nathan Fillion, Edi Gathegi, and Isabela Merced) makes a funny foil to Superman. Writer-director James Gunn doesn’t make the most memorable action set pieces here, but he is willing to use fight sequences in an unorthodox way, like when Clark Kent and Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) have an earnest conversation about their relationship while the Justice Gang silently battles a kaiju in the distance. The surprising subplots and the grounding in current events makes this welcome. Also with Skylar Gisondo, Wendell Pierce, Beck Bennett, María Gabriela de Faría, Sara Sampaio, Zlatko Buric, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Mikaela Hoover, Sean Gunn, Frank Grillo, Anthony Carrigan, Alan Tudyk, Michael Rooker, Pom Klementieff, Angela Sarafyan, Bradley Cooper, and uncredited cameos by Milly Alcock and John Cena.
Twinless (R) James Sweeney directs, writes, and co-stars in this drama as a man who meets a new friend (Dylan O’Brien) in a support group for people who have lost identical twins. He’s harboring the dark secret that he never had a brother of any kind, but invented one because he had been dating his friend’s gay twin when he died. He then grows resentful when his straight friend starts seeing a woman who works with him (Aisling Franciosi). Sweeney does have an eye for striking visuals and O’Brien does well switching between the gay twin and the straight one, but the filmmaker doesn’t seem to know where to go with this story. Sweeney is a talent who might be a major one, but he needs to work his plots out more fully. Also with Tasha Smith, François Arnaud, Chris Perfetti, and Katie Findlay.
Weapons (R) Disquieting. Zach Cregger’s horror film is about a Pennsylvania town where 17 schoolchildren suddenly vanish on the same night, and the community turns on itself for lack of any explanations, starting with the third-grade teacher (Julia Garner) who taught all the missing kids. It all plays like Eddington in that it only takes one unforeseen event to make these civilized people ready to kill each other in the street, but this movie’s inchoate violence makes it more powerful, like a finely honed urban legend. Cregger’s comedy background also brings some unexpected humor to the proceedings, but he also implies that the trauma here will roll on for generations until the town is engulfed in one giant trauma bond. Also with Josh Brolin, Alden Ehrenreich, Benedict Wong, Amy Madigan, Austin Abrams, Cary Christopher, June Diane Raphael, Sara Paxton, Luke Speakman, Clayton Farris, and Justin Long.
Dallas Exclusives
The Cut (R) Orlando Bloom stars in this sports drama as a boxer who uses illegal methods to make weight for a big bout. Also with Caitríona Balfe, Clare Dunne, Gary Beadle, and John Turturro.
The Legend of Hei 2 (NR) The sequel to the 2019 Chinese animated film dispatches its heroes on a new mission. Voices by Shan Xin, Fu Chenyang, Li Lu, Huang Zhenji, and Liu Mingyue.
An Officer and a Spy (NR) Roman Polanski’s historical drama stars Louis Garrel as Alfred Dreyfus, the real-life French Jewish military officer wrongly convicted of treason. Also with Jean Dujardin, Pierre Poirot, Stefan Godin, Wladimir Yordanoff, Mathieu Amalric, Denis Podalydès, Laurent Stocker, Bruno Raffaelli, Melvil Poupaud, Vincent Perez, Luca Barbareschi, and Emmanuelle Seigner.
Pools (NR) Odessa A’zion stars in this comedy as a student who spends a night attending pool parties in her college town. Also with Mason Gooding, Tyler Alvarez, Michael Vlamis, Francesca Noel, and Ariel Winter.
Preparation for the Next Life (R) Liu Bing (Minding the Gap) directs this romance between an American soldier (Fred Hechinger) and a Chinese Muslim Woman (Sebiye Behtiyar). Also with Jasmin Richardson, Jessica Ma, Ella Rouwen Chen, Lynn Xiong, and Doug Yasuda.
Tinā (NR) Anapela Polataivao stars in this New Zealand drama as a bereaved Maori woman who finds new purpose in becoming a substitute teacher. Also with Antonia Robinson, Beulah Koale, Dalip Sondhi, Nicole Whippy, Jamie Irvine, and Matthew Chamberlain.
