OPENING
The Adventure (NR) This Chinese comedy stars Jia Bing as a 43-year-old man who magically switches places with his teenage self (Wang Hao). Also with Deng Shuai, Fei Qiming, Li Meng, and Yang Haoyu. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
All of You (R) Brett Goldstein and Imogen Poots star in this romantic comedy as platonic friends whose relationship changes when a dating service matches him with a soulmate. Also with Jenna Coleman, Zawe Ashton, Steven Cree, and Tariq Rasheed. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Balti (NR) This Indian sports drama takes place in a neighborhood where a kabaddi rivalry threatens to tear friends apart. Starring Shane Nigam, Shanthanu Bhagyaraj, Preethi Asrani, Alphonse Puthren, and Selvaraghavan. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Bau: Artist at War (PG-13) Emile Hirsch stars in this biographical drama about the con artist who used his skills to survive the Holocaust. Also with Inbar Levi, Yan Tual, Adam Tzekhman, Edward Foy, and Chris Cope. (Opens Friday)
BFFs (NR) This comedy stars Constantine Paraskevopoulos as a man who tries to re-connect with a long-lost friend (Adam Rifkin) through a series of dangerous practical jokes. Also with Terrence Howard, Jennifer Morrison, Nick Stahl, Amaury Nolasco, Anita Briem, Kane Hodder, and Taye Diggs. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Dead of Winter (R) Emma Thompson’s unlikely presence and Frances McDormand-in-Fargo accent in this wilderness-set thriller gives this movie just enough novelty value to get by. She stars as a widow who ventures to a remote lake in Minnesota to scatter her late husband’s ashes, only to accidentally stumble on the kidnapping of a teenage girl (Laurel Marsden) by a couple (Judy Greer and Marc Menchaca). The performances by Thompson and Greer as a desperate villain keep this watchable, even when the plot doesn’t hold up. Just wish that director Brian Kirk (21 Bridges) had done something more distinctive with the material. Thompson’s real-life daughter Gaia Wise appears in the flashbacks here as her character’s younger self. Also with Cúán Hosty-Blaney, Dalton Leeb, and Brían F. O’Byrne. (Opens Friday)
Eleanor the Great (PG-13) Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut stars June Squibb as a Holocaust survivor who becomes a celebrity after moving to New York at age 95. Also with Chiwetel Ejiofor, Erin Kellyman, Will Price, Rita Zohar, and Jessica Hecht. (Opens Friday)
Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie (G) The film version of the TV show stars Laila Lockhart Kraner as a girl who must reunite her cat dolls after a crazed collector (Kristen Wiig) steals her dollhouse. Also with Gloria Estefan, Kyle Mooney, Melissa Villaseñor, Ego Nwodim, Thomas Lennon, Fortune Feimster, and Jason Mantzoukas. (Opens Friday)
Homebound (NR) This Indian drama stars Vishal Jethwa and Ishaan Khatter as childhood friends who attempt to pass the national police exam together during the Covid pandemic. Also with Jahnvi Kapoor, Reem Shaikh, Harshika Parmar, Shalini Vatsa, and Vijay Vikram Singh. (Opens Friday)
The Lost Bus (R) Matthew McConaughey stars in this thriller based on the true story of a California bus driver who evacuates 22 children from a wildfire. Also with America Ferrera, Yul Vazquez, and Ashlie Atkinson. (Opens Friday at Movie Tavern Hulen).
Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror (NR) Linus O’Brien’s documentary chronicles the history of the film musical and its cult following. Starring Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Richard O’Brien, Barry Bostwick, and Jack Black. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
The Strangers: Chapter 2 (R) Madelaine Petsch and Gabriel Basso reprise their roles in this sequel to last year’s horror film. Also with Ema Horvath, Richard Brake, Pedro Leandro, Ella Bruccoleri, and Lily Knight. (Opens Friday)
The Summer Book (NR) Based on Tove Jansson’s novel, this drama stars Emily Matthews as a young girl who spends a summer with her grandmother (Glenn Close) on a remote island in the Gulf of Finland. Also with Anders Danielsen Lie, Ingvar Sigurdsson, Pekka Strang, and Sophia Heikkilä. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
They Call Him OG (NR) Pawan Kalyan stars in this Indian crime thriller as an ex-gang boss who returns to Mumbai after a 10-year absence to settle a score. Also with Emraan Hashmi, Priyanka Mohan, Arjun Das, Sriya Reddy, Rao Ramesh, Prakash Raj, and Neha Shetty. (Opens Friday)
NOW PLAYING
Afterburn (R) Dave Bautista stars in this thriller as a treasure hunter who seeks to loot Europe’s art museums after an apocalyptic event. Also with Olga Kurylenko, Daniel Bernhardt, Eden Epstein, George Somner, and Samuel L. Jackson.
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.
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (R) Colin Farrell can dance, at least. The latest film by the YouTube creator who calls himself Kogonada is the first one that he didn’t write the script for, and not by coincidence, also his weakest. Farrell and Margot Robbie play soulmates matched together by a mysterious car rental agency, who take a road trip together that leads them to doors that open onto scenes from their past lives, and occasionally onto a bare soundstage where they act out incidents that they wish had happened. Benjamin Loeb’s cinematography and Joe Hisaishi’s score are lovely, and the film catches fire when Farrell’s character re-enacts his performance in a high-school production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Seth Reiss’ script, however, has arbitrary scene changes, flat humor, and flowery dialogue. The actors deserve better. Also with Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Billy Magnussen, Sarah Gadon, Chloe East, Lily Rabe, Hamish Linklater, Jennifer Grant, and Kevin Kline. Voice by Jodie Turner-Smith.
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.
Demon Slayer — Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Infinity Castle (R) The latest installment of the anime saga has a new look and the same issues. The demon Muzan Kibutsuji (voiced by Toshihiko Seki and Greg Chun) lures the demon slayers into his castle, an impressive looking, Christopher Nolan-influenced fortress where floors and walls are constantly shifting and the crevices between dimensions peek through. This would be a great backdrop for a thriller with horror elements, but as with too many of these adventures, the fight sequences are interrupted by gauzy and overly lengthy flashbacks. Anime fans will be used to this, but this squanders a chance to rope in newcomers to the epic. Additional 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.
Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale (PG) Just as with the other movies in this series, this one tries to squeeze a whole season’s worth of drama into feature length, and the result feels rushed. Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) becomes a social pariah after her divorce becomes public, so her sister (Laura Carmichael) decides to rehabilitate her reputation by throwing a party with guest of honor Noel Coward (Arty Froushan). That would have been enough for a movie, but these filmmakers can’t leave that alone, so we get Daisy (Sophie McShera) taking over the kitchen and an American con artist (Alessandro Nivola) bilking the family out of its money and Lord Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) being reluctant to hand over control of the estate. Instead of the series pulling out the stops, it just feels like so much padding. More dramatic fireworks would have been better. Also with Jim Carter, Penelope Wilton, Dominic West, Elizabeth McGovern, Joely Richardson, Phyllis Logan, Allen Leech, Michael Fox, Robert James-Collier, Brendan Coyle, Kevin Doyle, Simon Russell Beale, Joanne Froggatt, Harry Hadden-Paton, and Paul Giamatti.
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.
Him (R) This unlikely hybrid of football drama and horror film stars Tyriq Withers as a highly touted prospect just out of college who receives an invitation to work out at a remote desert compound with his football idol (Marlon Wayans). The younger man soon starts noticing that his mentor is resorting to weird practices to extend his own playing career. The movie starts out well as an anti-football satire, and Wayans’ comedy experience serves him well as a villain who keeps his charge off balance. Unfortunately, director/co-writer Justin Tipping (Kicks) loses control of his signifiers well before the contract-signing ceremony that includes human sacrifices. This movie is overheated and undercooked. Also with Julia Fox, Jim Jefferies, Maurice Greene, Don Benjamin, Guapdad 4000, Naomi Grossman, Tierra Whack, and Tim Heidecker.
Jolly LLB 3 (NR) Akshay Kumar and Huma Qureshi reprise their roles in this third installment of the Indian comedy series about lawyers. Also with Arshad Warsi, Saurabh Shukla, Amrita Rao, Seema Biswas, and Gajraj Rao.
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.
The Long Walk (R) Stephen King’s ageless wonder of a novel becomes a powerfully tragic film. Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson play two young men in a dystopian future America who enter a contest where 50 males walk along a predetermined highway route and are executed when they can walk no more, with the last kid walking receiving a fortune. The most Hunger Games-ian of King’s books is adapted by Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence, who follows the author’s relentless focus on what a forced march like this does to the human body. Amid a landscape of cruelty inflicted on young men, the friendship that forms between the two main characters (who still know that one of them is destined to wind up dead) shines like a beacon of humanity. Their performances turn this into nothing less than this generation’s The Shawshank Redemption. Also with Judy Greer, Ben Wang, Charlie Plummer, Tut Nyuot, Garrett Wareing, Joshua Odjick, Jordan Gonzalez, Roman Griffin Davis, Josh Hamilton, and Mark Hamill.
Mirai (NR) Teja Sajja stars in this Telugu-language film as a warrior safeguarding a holy relic that can turn anyone into a superhero. Also with Manoj Kumar Manchu, Ritika Nayak, Shriya Saran, Jayaram, Tanja Keller, and Jagapathi Babu.
The Senior (PG) This Christian football drama is put together well, but stubbornly refuses to raise the pulse. Michael Chiklis plays Michael Flynt, the real-life middle linebacker at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Tex., who was kicked off his team for fighting in 1971 and then returned 37 years later at the age of 59 to complete his studies and play his last year of eligibility. Also with Mary Stuart Masterson, James Badge Dale, Brandon Flynn, Corey Knight, Chris Becerra, Shawn Patrick Clifford, and Rob Corddry.
Triumph of the Heart (NR) Marcin Kwasny stars in this Polish film about St. Maximilian Kolbe, the priest and radio operator who martyred himself in a Nazi concentration camp. Also with Rowan Polonski, Christopher Sherwood, Sharon Oliphant, Noah Archibald, Jan Bogdaniuk, Lauren Cimorelli, and Anthony D’Ambrosio.
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
Brownsville Bred (PG-13) Elaine del Valle’s autobiographical drama stars Nathalia Lares as her younger self coming of age in Texas. Also with Karina Ortiz, April Hernandez Castillo, Javier Muñoz, Jon Freda, Jonathan James Rodriguez, and Lyla Rose Castillo.
Prisoner of War (R) Scott Adkins stars as a British POW during World War II who’s forced to fight by his Japanese captors. Also with Peter Shinkoda, Donald Cerrone, Michael Copon, Gary Cairns, Gabbi Garcia, and Masanori Mimoto.
Steve (R) Cillian Murphy stars in this drama as the headmaster of a reform school fighting for his institution’s survival. Also with Tracey Ullman, Jay Lycurgo, Roger Allam, Little Simz, Joshua Barry, and Emily Watson.
