OPENING
The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist (PG) Daniel Roher’s documentary doesn’t tell me anything really new about AI, but it does clarify a lot of the issues that I had floating around in my head. His hand-drawn animation also helps make it quite entertaining. The Oscar-winning filmmaker (Navalny) interviews a lot of the big industry names in artificial intelligence — though Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are notable by their absence — and gives an even-handed look at both the potential benefits and dangers of the new technology while he himself discovers that his wife is pregnant and their son will have to navigate a world with AI in it. This is best viewed by neophytes who aren’t sure what AI is but are concerned about its effects, which I think is a lot of people. Starring Sam Altman, Yuval Noah Harari, Tristan Harris, Deborah Raji, Dario Amodei, Rocky Yu, Aza Raskin, Connor Leahy, Demis Hassabis, Randima Fernando, Karen Hao, Ilya Sutskever, Jason Matheny, Shane Legg, and Reid Hoffman. (Opens Friday)
Alpha (R) The latest horror film by Julia Ducournau (Titane) stars Mélissa Boros as a rebellious French 14-year-old who contracts a terrible disease after getting a tattoo. Also with Tahar Rahim, Golshifteh Farahani, Finnegan Oldfield, Louai El Amrousy, Marc Riso, Jean-Charles Clichet, and Emma Mackey. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
André Is an Idiot (NR) Tony Benna’s documentary follows André Ricciardi, a terminally ill man searching for happiness on a road trip. (Opens Friday at Look Cinemas Bedford)
Band Melam (NR) This Telugu-language romance stars Harsh Roshan and Sridevi Apalla as childhood friends who reunite years after their separation. Also with Saikumar Pudipeddi. (Opens Friday)
Bunny!! (NR) Trấn Thành directs and co-stars in this Vietnamese psychological thriller about a podcaster (LyLy) who is drawn into a dangerous romance. Also with Pháo, Vĩnh Đam, Quốc Anh, Quỳnh Anh Shyn, Ngọc Nguyễn, and Pháp Kiều. (Opens Friday)
Holy Days (R) Nat Boltt directs, co-writes, and co-stars in this comedy about a group of nuns (Judy Davis, Jacki Weaver, and Miriam Margolyes) who encounter surreal adventures on a road trip. Also with Craig Hall, John Bach, Jonny Brugh, Elijah Tamati, and Tanea Heke. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
A Magnificent Life (PG-13) The surrealist touches that made The Triplets of Belleville such an enchanting animated film have now gone out of Sylvain Chomet’s storytelling, and we’re all poorer for it. His latest effort is a biography of Marcel Pagnol (voiced by Laurent Lafitte), the novelist and playwright who embraced the new technology of cinema and became one of France’s foremost directors in a golden age of filmmaking. For the most part, this thing could have been told with live-action and it would have been the same dull and dutiful story about a humble man who becomes beloved by audiences around the world. Maybe this works better if you know enough French to appreciate the literary qualities of Pagnol’s work, but this gives surprisingly little fresh insight into the filmmaker’s work. Additional voices by Géraldine Pailhas, Thierry Garcia, Anaïs Petit, Vincent Fernandel, Elsa Pérusin, and Sophie Maréchal. (Opens Friday)
Marc by Sofia (PG-13) Sofia Coppola’s documentary profiles fashion designer Marc Jacobs. Also with Spike Jonze. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
She Dances (PG-13) Steve Zahn stars in and co-writes this comedy as a single father chaperoning his teenage daughter (Wynn Everett) at a dance contest. Also with Rosemarie DeWitt, Sonequa Martin-Green, Audrey Zahn, Mackenzie Ziegler, Michael Cudlitz, and Ethan Hawke. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Suyodhana (NR) This Indian film is about a movie sound-effects artist (Priyadarshi Pulikonda) who is accused of his father’s murder. Also with Drishika Chandar, Saikumar Pudipeddi, Rajshree Nayar, Vishnu Oi, and Devi Prasad. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
They Will Kill You (R) A mess, but better than either Scream 7 or Ready or Not 2. Zazie Beetz stars in this comic horror film as an ex-convict who takes a job as a maid at a Manhattan hotel, only to discover that the staffers and guests plan to offer her up as a human sacrifice to Satan in exchange for eternal life. The Russian director/co-writer Kirill Sokolov (Why Don’t You Just Die?) continues to show a flair for bloody slapstick in his fight sequences, one of which has our heroine locking herself in a closet in front of the bad guys, who look at each other and wonder what she just accomplished. The cool visuals and humor don’t make up for the way the movie runs out of story and invention well before its gory climax. Also with Patricia Arquette, Tom Felton, Myha’la, Paterson Joseph, Chris van Rensburg, and Heather Graham. (Opens Friday)
13 Days, 13 Nights (NR) This French drama is about the Afghan soldiers guarding the French embassy in Kabul during the Taliban’s takeover. Starring Roschdy Zem, Lyna Khoudri, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Sina Parvaneh, Yan Tual, and Fatima Adoum. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
You’re Dating a Narcissist! (NR) This comedy stars Marisa Tomei as a psychiatrist who tries to stop her daughter (Ciara Bravo) from marrying an unsuitable man. Also with Sherry Cola, Marco Pigossi, José María Yazpík, Jonah Platt, Cali Morales, and Ashley Nichols. (Opens Friday)
NOW PLAYING
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.
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.
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.
Dhurandhar: The Revenge (NR) Almost four hours long, and with enough double-crosses and action set pieces to make the time fly by. Ranveer Singh reprises his role as an Indian Sikh undercover agent who passes himself off as a Pakistani Muslim and takes control of Karachi’s criminal underworld by betraying and murdering his boss (Akshaye Khanna) before doing the same to rival gangs, the police, and ISI. Maybe the extended flashback detailing the hero’s journey from the military to prison to the spy trade could have been dispensed with, along with the nationalist crap about the greatness of Narendra Modi’s India, but writer-director Aditya Dhar has made a successful jumbo-sized crime epic. This isn’t as thoughtful or as good as The Godfather, but it’s worthy to be mentioned in the same breath. Also with Arjun Rampal, Sanjay Dutt, R. Madhavan, Sara Arjun, Rakesh Bedi, Manav Gohil, Gaurav Gera, Danish Pandor, Bimal Oberoi, Danish Iqbal, Mustafa Ahmed, Udaybir Sandhu, Salim Siddiqui, Ashwin Dhar, Ankit Sagar, and Yami Gautam.
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.
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.
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.
Project Hail Mary (PG-13) Based on Andy Weir’s novel, this science-fiction movie is entertaining enough for the price of admission and maybe even an upcharge to a premium format. Ryan Gosling portrays an astronaut who travels to a star light-years away to find a solution to why our sun is dying. He meets an alien being whose world is facing the same problem with its sun. Gosling spends a great deal of time talking to himself, partly because his character is trying to keep from going insane from the solitude and partly because he has trouble communicating with the alien, but if any actor can make this assignment look easy, it’s Gosling. The filmmaking team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The Lego Movie) drills down into the trial-and-error that goes into the characters’ scientific work and manages to find both humor and beauty in the vastness of space. The movie earns its uplift because of the way the two life forms are willing to collaborate to save their civilizations. Also with Sandra Hüller, Ken Leung, Milana Vayntrub, Priya Kansara, Orion Lee, and Lionel Boyce. Voices by James Ortiz and an uncredited Meryl Streep.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Dallas Exclusives
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.
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.
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.
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.
