OPENING
Aadu 3: One Last Ride — Part 1 (NR) Jayasurya reprises his role in this comedy about the adventures of a tug-of-war club. Also with Vinayakan, Vijay Babu, Saiju Kurup, Sunny Wayne, Harikrishnan, Dharmajan Bolgatty, Vedhika, and Vineeth Thattil David. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Aag Lagay Basti Mein (NR) This Urdu-language comedy stars Mahira Khan and Fahad Mustafa as a Pakistani couple who relocate to Dubai to make their fortune. Also with Tabish Hashmi. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Bershama (NR) This Egyptian comedy stars Riham Abdel Ghafour, Fadwa Abed, Kamal Abu Raya, Walid Fawaz, Hesham Maged, Mostafa Gharieb, and Basem Samrah. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Bullah (NR) This Punjabi-language action-thriller stars Shaan Shahid as an agent fighting crime in his native state. Also with Sara Loren, Adnan Butt, Ali Josh, Maham Mirza, and Saleem Sheikh. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Dhurandhar: The Revenge (NR) The sequel to last winter’s action hit features Ranveer Singh reprising his role as an Indian undercover agent infiltrating Pakistan’s criminal underworld. Also with Arjun Rampal, Sanjay Dutt, R. Madhavan, Sara Arjun, Rakesh Bedi, Manav Gohil, Gaurav Gera, Danish Pandor, Akshaye Khanna, and Yami Gautam. (Opens Wednesday)
Do Not Enter (R) This horror film is about a group of treasure hunters who enter an abandoned hotel searching for riches. Starring Adeline Rudolph, Jake Manley, Nicholas Hamilton, Kai Caster, Francesca Reale, and Javier Botet. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Food Truck: Stolen Love and Moo Deng (NR) This Thai comedy stars Padung Songsang and Chaleumpoi Tikumpornteerawong as two men trying to make a living operating a food truck. Also with Mario Maurer, Yulee Choi, Chun Pachchunhiranprateep, Beer Buftalk, and Mum Jokmok. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Golden (R) Not inspired by the Oscar-winning song, this thriller stars Brian Austin Green as a counterfeiter trying to outwit enemies for a big score. Also with Glenn Plummer, Robert Miano, Josh Gilmer, Massi Furian, and Alena Savostikova. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Mr. Burton (NR) Harry Lawtey stars in this biography of Richard Burton, a Welsh coal miner’s son who grows up to be an acclaimed actor. Also with Toby Jones, Aneurin Barnard, Mali O’Donnell, Caroline Sheen, Mark Meadows, Hamish Andrews, and Lesley Manville. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
The Pout-Pout Fish (PG) Based on Deborah Diesen’s children’s book, this animated film is about a gloomy fish (voiced by Nick Offerman) who has to save his home. Additional voices by Miranda Otto, Mark Coles Smith, Nina Oyama, Remy Hii, Jordin Sparks, and Amy Sedaris. (Opens Friday)
Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (R) The sequel was never going to equal Grandma’s splattery and hilarious death in the first movie, but I was still hoping for more. Samara Weaving reprises her role from the original, being placed in a new game with her estranged sister (Kathryn Newton) as they try to avoid being killed by representatives of four families from different countries vying for control of the world. Newton is a nice addition, as is Sarah Michelle Gellar as one of the rich people hunting them, and the movie does have a funny fight scene between two women who have both been pepper-sprayed. Even so, the thriller plot keeps stopping to hash out some uninteresting buried issues between the sisters, and the comedy set pieces are neither as effective nor as frequent as the original’s. The movie really missed a trick not using the Jackson 5 song that shares its title. Also with Elijah Wood, Shawn Hatosy, Nestor Carbonell, Kevin Durand, Olivia Cheng, Antony Hall, Dan Beirne, Varun Saranga, Masa Lizdek, Nadeem Umar-Khitab, Maia Jae, Juan Pablo Romero, and David Cronenberg. (Opens Friday)
Tow (R) Rose Byrne stars in this drama as Amanda Ogle, a real-life Seattle homeless woman who sues the predatory towing company that takes away her car. Also with Dominic Sessa, Elsie Fisher, Simon Rex, Demi Lovato, Corbin Bernsen, Roma Maffia, Ariana DeBose, and Octavia Spencer. (Opens Friday)
Ustaad Bhagat Singh (NR) Pawan Kalyan stars in this Telugu-language action-comedy as a cop fighting crime. Also with Sreeleela, R. Parthiban, Raashii Khanna, Ashutosh Rana, Nawab Shah, Rajeev Kanakala, Redin Kingsley, and Rao Ramesh. (Opens Wednesday)
Vampires of the Velvet Lounge (R) If you think The Bride! is a misfire, check out this extremely bizarre mix of film noir and lesbian camp. Dichen Lachman portrays a hard-boiled ex-soldier who flirts with a vampire queen (Mena Suvari) via a dating app to infiltrate her coven of bloodsuckers. Writer-director Adam Sherman’s visuals teeter between interesting and just crap, and he’s too busy ogling women’s asses to straighten out what’s supposed to be funny in the script and what’s meant to be serious. No wonder the actors all seem like they’re acting in different movies. The film is so scattershot that you can’t even tell what individual scenes are going for, let alone the overall story. Also with Rosa Salazar, Sarah Dumont, Mark Boone Junior, Will Redmond, India Eisley, Tyrese Gibson, Stephen Dorff, Lochlyn Munro, and Tom Berenger. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Wardriver (R) This thriller stars Dane DeHaan as a computer driver forced to help a group of criminals drain a woman’s bank account. Also with Sasha Calle, Mamadou Athie, William Belleau, Karina Gale, and Jeffrey Donovan. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
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Avatar: Fire and Ash (PG-13) Actually more interesting than the first two films, though that doesn’t make this good. Human being Spider (Jack Champion) gains the ability to breathe Pandora’s air, which only creates more problems because it makes him more attractive to the humans as a test subject. The best thing the series could do is kill off both Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Col. Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who both were wearing out their welcome even before this movie. While this film is beset by many of the same issues as its predecessors, it at least introduces us to a new Na’vi clan who ally themselves with the humans to get their hands on Earth weapons. They make more interesting villains than any this franchise has had before, and their presence lets us know that the Na’vi are not just innocent victims. A better writer than James Cameron might make this world interesting yet. Also with Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Oona Chaplin, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, Brendan Cowell, Giovanni Ribisi, Jemaine Clement, David Thewlis, and Kate Winslet.
Bendito corazón (NR) This Mexican drama tells the story of various people trying to build lives in the Spanish colony during the 18th century. Starring Frank Rodríguez, Salvador Zerboni, Lisset, Humberto Fuentes, Juan Manuel Azcona, Manjarrez Belinda, and Miguel Angel Pérez.
The Bride! (R) The sort of bad movie that only a very talented filmmaker can make. Maggie Gyllenhaal’s take on the Frankenstein story has the monster (Christian Bale) in Chicago in 1936, hiring another mad scientist (Annette Bening) to make a bride for him out of a freshly murdered escort (Jessie Buckley). The film is crammed with too many ideas for the filmmaker to develop adequately, including a spasmodic dance number, a framing story narrated by Mary Shelley (also Buckley), a cross-country chase, and the monster taking a Fred Astaire-like movie star (Jake Gyllenhaal) as his role model. The movie’s gonzo spirit on such a large budget is notable, but the Bride never emerges as her own person, and you can’t make out what the movie’s about when everything is splattered against the wall like this. Also with Penélope Cruz, John Magaro, Jeannie Berlin, Matthew Maher, Julianne Hough, Zlatko Burić, Louis Cancelmi, and Peter Sarsgaard.
Crime 101 (R) Very well made, yet weirdly impersonal. Chris Hemsworth headlines this star-studded piece of L.A. noir as a high-end jewel thief eyeing a huge score. Writer-director Bart Layton (American Animals) adapts this from Don Winslow’s novel and is clearly aiming for an epic character study like Heat, but the main character is someone who tries to make himself as unmemorable as possible, and Hemsworth can’t make anything interesting out of that. The anomie spreads to his interactions with a disgruntled insurance executive (Halle Berry), a down-on-his-luck cop (Mark Ruffalo), a psychopathic replacement (Barry Keoghan), and a love interest (Monica Barbaro). There’s a good car-and-motorcycle chase in the middle and a decent hotel showdown at the end, but it’s not enough to give the movie any sort of personality. Also with Corey Hawkins, Payman Maadi, Devon Bostick, Tate Donovan, Crosby Fitzgerald, Andra Nechita, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Nick Nolte.
EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert (PG-13) Not quite the event that the filmmakers seem to think, though it still has value. Baz Luhrmann’s documentary consists of previously lost footage of Elvis Presley’s residency in Las Vegas, which he and his crew found while they were making Elvis. It’s hard not to wonder whether Presley is sweating because of his onstage exertions or all the drugs he was on at the time, and the audio clips from interviews with him don’t yield much insight into his ideas about music. You will nevertheless get to see him still looking and sounding fit while he covers his old hits as well as songs by the Everly Brothers, Ray Charles, and the Beatles. The performances stop short of electrifying, but they are good enough to make you understand why people flocked to the Vegas shows, and fans of the King of Rock and Roll will want to hear him perform through movie theater speakers.
GOAT (PG) A better sequel to Zootopia than the actual Zootopia sequel. This animated movie is about a goat (voiced by Caleb McLaughlin) who wishes to play a form of full-contact basketball against much larger animals. The pixelated look of this movie gives it a grungier feel than most other Hollywood animated features, and the Black viewpoint further adds to this film’s uniqueness. I like how the basketball courts each have their own individual features that benefit the home team. The story is based on the life of NBA legend Steph Curry, who is cutely cast against type as the voice of a giraffe. It all makes this an animated sports movie worth cheering for. Additional voices by Gabrielle Union, Nick Kroll, David Harbour, Nicola Coughlan, Aaron Pierre, Jenifer Lewis, Patton Oswalt, Sherry Cola, Andrew Santino, Ayesha Curry, Eduardo Franco, Bobby Lee, Wayne Knight, Jelly Roll, and Jennifer Hudson.
Hoppers (PG) Maybe it doesn’t tug at the heartstrings like Pixar’s best movies do, but it’s funny enough that you won’t care. A 19-year-old college student (voiced by Piper Curda) discovers that her biology professor (voiced by Kathy Najimy) has developed a program to temporarily put human consciousness into realistic robot animals, so she uses it to talk to the animals and save a beloved forest glade from being demolished. She does point out that this is the plot of Avatar, but this movie is better thought out than Avatar because it recognizes how complicated the fight for environmental justice can become. This movie delivers on entertainment value better than most recent Pixar entries, making the kids laugh without talking down to the adults. That’s all the animation giant ever needed to do. Additional voices by Jon Hamm, Bobby Moynihan, Dave Franco, Eduardo Franco, Tom Law, Vanessa Bayer, Ego Nwodim, Melissa Villaseñor, Meryl Streep, and the late Isiah Whitlock Jr.
I Can Only Imagine 2 (PG) The sequel to the 2018 Christian music biopic continues the journey of MercyMe lead singer Bart Millard (John Michael Finley) as he takes his teenage son (Sammy Dell) on tour as well as terminally ill singer-songwriter Tim Timmons (Milo Ventimiglia). Even if you’re not familiar with the Millard family’s story, none of the plot developments here will be remotely surprising, as Bart works through his issues with his own deceased father while trying to parent a kid whose medical condition needs constant supervision. Ventimiglia provides some comic snap as a musician who’s embarking on his first nationwide tour as MercyMe’s opening act, but this boilerplate Christian drama is beyond saving. Also with Sophie Skelton, Arielle Kebbel, Trace Adkins, Anjelah Johnson-Reyes, and Dennis Quaid.
The King’s Warden (NR) One of South Korea’s biggest box-office hits in history is this historical drama that occasionally justifies its status. Yoo Hae-jin portrays a bumbling 6th-century village chief who offers up his town as a place to exile disgraced nobles, only to receive a particularly dangerous guest in the dethroned young king (Park Ji-hoon). The story is based on a real-life incident, and much of the comedy comes from the clash between the uneducated villagers and the king and his courtly retainers. Western audiences may find themselves jarred to and fro by director Jang Hang-jun’s lurching between heroic drama and slapstick, but evidently the mix works well enough for Korean moviegoers. Also with Yoo Ji-tae, Jeon Mi-do, Kim Min, Lee Jun-hyuk, Park Ji-hwan, Ahn Jae-hong, and Oh Dal-su.
One Battle After Another (R) One of Paul Thomas Anderson’s more purely enjoyable movies stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a former anti-ICE revolutionary who has to save his teenage daughter (Chase Infiniti) from a supersoldier (Sean Penn) who has reason to think the girl is his own biological daughter and kill her to destroy evidence of his sexual preference for Black women. The story is loosely adapted from Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland and set in the present day, which brings out the antic, puckish side of Anderson’s filmmaking. The film has nerve-frying action sequences, including an inventive car chase in the California desert with the cars appearing and disappearing from view because of the hilly terrain. The film also gets great performances from the newcomer Infiniti, DiCaprio as a father who realizes he’s not doing so good as a parent because he’s drunk and stoned all the time, and Penn as a villain brimming with hatred for this girl he has never met. It’s not as tidy as I’d like, but it’s great anyway. Also with Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Alana Haim, Wood Harris, Shayna McHayle, Kevin Tighe, D.W. Moffett, and Tony Goldwyn.
Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man (R) Cillian Murphy reprises his role in this big-screen version of the TV show, as Tommy Shelby undertakes secret missions during World War II. Also with Rebecca Ferguson, Barry Keoghan, Stephen Graham, Sophie Rundle, Ruby Ashbourne Serkis, Ian Peck, Ned Dennehy, and Tim Roth.
Protector (R) Dispiriting. Milla Jovovich stars in this thriller as a war hero who returns stateside only for her teenage daughter (Isabel Myers) to be kidnapped by human traffickers. The most interesting thing about this is the plot revelation in the film’s last five minutes that could have been cool if it had been executed better. Elsewhere, too many of the action sequences happen offscreen, which perhaps is an acknowledgment that Jovovich is getting older. In any event, the writing is terrible enough to not be worth sitting through to get to them. Also with D.B. Sweeney, Don Harvey, Michael Stahl-David, Texas Battle, Shane Williams, Brooklyn Sudano, Gabriel Sloyer, and Matthew Modine.
Reminders of Him (PG-13) This sleep-inducing adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s novel offers considerably less entertainment value than either It Ends With Us or Regretting You. Maika Monroe stars as an ex-convict released from prison after her driving while high results in a traffic accident that kills her boyfriend (Rudy Pankow). She returns to her hometown in Laramie to see the daughter (Zoe Kosovic) whom she gave birth to inside, only to fall for her ex-boyfriend’s best friend (Tyriq Withers). Withers holds up his end, but Monroe’s idea of playing someone traumatized and grieving is to deliver a bunch of flat line readings. Also with Lauren Graham, Lainey Wilson, Monika Myers, Nicholas Duvernay, Jennifer Robertson, and Bradley Whitford.
Scared to Death (NR) This horror film stars Olivier Paris as an aspiring movie director who films a seance in a real-life haunted house, with his movie’s actors participating. Also with Lin Shaye, Bill Moseley, Victoria Konefal, Jade Chynoweth, B.J. Minor, Kurt Deimer, Lucinda Jenney, and Rae Dawn Chong.
Scream 7 (R) Can this series die already? This latest installment is certainly bad enough to kill it. Neve Campbell returns as Sidney Prescott, who has moved to a new small town and opened a cafe when a new Ghostface claiming to be original movie killer Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard) targets her teenage daughter (Isabel May). Writer-director Kevin Williamson’s script is witless, and this new town has cops who disappear for long stretches without any explanation. The same goes for Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), to the point where I started to think she was the killer. Nostalgia is all this series has left. At least Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega got out of this. Also with Mason Gooding, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Anna Camp, Joel McHale, Mckenna Grace, Celeste O’Connor, Sam Rechner, Asa Germann, Kraig Dane, Michelle Randolph, Jimmy Tatro, Timothy Simons, Ethan Embry, Mark Consuelos, Scott Foley, Laurie Metcalfe, and David Arquette.
Send Help (R) For all of us who needed the feral, unhinged, blood-soaked version of Rachel McAdams in our lives. She stars as a strategist for a corporate consulting firm who can’t break the glass ceiling until she and her horrible boss (Dylan O’Brien) are the sole survivors when the corporate plane crashes on an uninhabited tropical island. McAdams’ balls-to-the-wall approach works less well in the middle but better at the beginning (when she’s playing someone who’s too poorly socialized to make friends in the office) and at the end (when the violence takes the movie into Evil Dead territory). Speaking of which, director Sam Raimi can’t keep the movie from falling apart at the end, but the film is still blackly funny and memorable for McAdams’ berserk turn. Also with Edyll Ismail, Xavier Samuel, Chris Pang, Thaneth Warakulnukroh, and Dennis Haysbert.
Sentimental Value (R) Joachim Trier stakes a pretty fair claim to being Norway’s greatest ever film director with this family show-business drama. Renate Reinsve portrays a theater and TV actress who turns down an offer from her world-famous filmmaker father (Stellan Skarsgård) to act the lead in his new movie, then watches him hand the part to an A-list Hollywood star (Elle Fanning). Reinsve, who has a track record of playing messy women in Trier’s movies, creates a great sense of presence of this deeply troubled creative person, and she’s matched by the rest of the cast, particularly Skarsgård as a self-centered artist who seems only able to relate to his kids when he’s directing them on a set. Trier’s stylistic flourishes are out of place here, as the film relies on the old-fashioned virtues of acting and writing, and pays moving tribute to the power of art to heal a family’s wounds. Also with Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Anders Danielsen Lie, Lena Endre, Jesper Christensen, Andreas Stoltenburg Granerud, Øyvind Hesjedahl Loven, Lars Väringer, and Cory Michael Smith.
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.
Slanted (R) A promising idea comes to disappointingly little in this science-fiction satire. Shirley Chen stars as a Chinese-American teenager who undergoes a surgical procedure to become a white girl (Mckenna Grace), and if you’re gonna look like a white girl, Grace is a pretty good one to resemble. It makes sense that the protagonist has not thought a bunch of things through about her transformation (such as how she’s going to reveal the truth to her Chinese parents), but writer-director Amy Wong can’t come up with much that’s insightful or anything that’s funny about race relations. The clinic where the procedure happens is a particular missed comic opportunity. The whole thing turns into a weak riff on The Substance when it could have been so much more. Also with Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Elaine Hendrix, Amelie Zilber, R. Keith Harris, Fang Du, and Vivian Wu.
Solo Mio (PG) Surprisingly not terrible. Kevin James stars in this comedy as a man whose Italian wedding is ruined after his bride-to-be (Julie Ann Emery) leaves him at the altar. With the rest of his honeymoon non-refundable, he stays in Tuscany and enjoys grappa and gelato, makes friends with the other honeymooning couples from America, and even falls in love again. If the movie is too postcard-pretty and the laughs could come more frequently, the pace doesn’t drag. Also with Jonathan Roumie, Kim Coates, Nicole Grimaudo, Julee Cerda, Caterina Silva, Alessandro Carbonara, and Alyson Hannigan.
undertone (R) There’s less to this fascinating experiment than meets the ear. Nina Kiri portrays a podcaster who deals with audio footage of possibly supernatural phenomena when she starts hearing weird noises inside the house where she’s caring for her terminally ill mother (Michèle Duquet). First-time filmmaker and podcaster Ian Tuason shot this movie inside his actual childhood home in Toronto, but the personal resonances don’t come through, and the story has too many loose ends hanging and interesting thematic notes that go unexplored. However, given that it was inevitable that we would have a horror film about people making a podcast, he does squeeze more out of the setup than you might expect. Voices by Adam DiMarco, Jeff Yung, Keana Lyn Bastidas, Sarah Beaudin, and Ari Millen.
Wuthering Heights (R) This bodice-ripper about two insanely hot people and their forbidden love doesn’t work on Emily Brontë’s terms, but works on its own. Director Emerald Fennell’s visual sense operates at an astonishing pitch, which is crucial in preventing this movie from turning into some museum piece. The occasionally garish visuals are always a treat to look at, and Fennell infuses this movie with more S&M-laced sex than any other adaptation of Wuthering Heights. The marriage between Heathcliff and Isabella (Jacob Elordi and Alison Oliver) is deeply icky. Elordi is no slouch, but Margot Robbie owns the show as a conceited Cathy who’s brought to a tragic end by thwarted love. Fennell pares away all the silly stuff that makes the novel a literary classic, and I’m rather enamored of her trashy mind. Also with Hong Chau, Shazad Latif, Martin Clunes, Ewan Mitchell, Charlotte Mellington, and Owen Cooper.
Dallas Exclusives
Didn’t Die (NR) This horror film stars Kiran Deol as a podcaster trying to maintain her audience as the world is overrun by zombies. Also with George Basil, Samrat Chakrabarty, Katie McCuen, Ali Lopez-Sohaili, Rupak Ginn, and Rachna Khatau.
Sirāt (NR) Sergi López stars in this drama as a Spanish man who travels to the Moroccan desert to search for his missing teenage daughter. Also with Bruno Núñez Arjona, Stefania Gadda, Joshua Liam Henderson, Richard “Bigui” Bellamy, and Jade Oukid.
