OPENING
Beast (R) This Australian sports drama is about a retired MMA fighter (Daniel MacPherson) who must fight one last match for his family. Also with Russell Crowe, Bren Foster, Mojean Aria, Kelly Gale, Saphira Moran, Nathan Phillips, and Luke Hemsworth. (Opens Friday)
ChaO (NR) This Japanese anime film is about a mermaid (voiced by Anna Yamada) who becomes engaged to a human man (voiced by Oji Suzuka). Additional voices by Kenta Miyake, Taro Nikuguso, Shunsei Ōta, and Anna Tsuchiya. (Opens Friday)
Dacoit: A Love Story (NR) Adivi Sesh stars in this Indian thriller as an ex-convict seeking revenge on the girlfriend (Mrunal Thakur) who betrayed him. Also with Anurag Kashyap, Prakash Raj, Resad Ajim, Sunil, Zayn Marie Khan, and Vaibhav Tatwawadi. (Opens Friday)
Exit 8 (PG-13) Adapted from the video game, this Japanese horror film is about a man (Kazunari Ninomiya) who becomes trapped in a subway station. Also with Yamato Kochi, Naru Asanuma, and Hirota Ōtsuka. (Opens Friday)
Faces of Death (R) Loosely based on the 1978 horror film, this film stars Barbie Ferreira as a website content moderator who finds a series of videos that might depict real-life deaths. Also with Dacre Montgomery, Jermaine Fowler, Josie Totah, JD Evermore, and Charli XCX. (Opens Friday)
Heads or Tails? (NR) This Italian Western is about a woman (Nadia Tereszkiewicz) who flees across the country’s wilderness pursued by Buffalo Bill (John C. Reilly). Also with Alessandro Borghi, Peter Lanzani, Mirko Artuso, Gabriele Silli, and Gianni Garko. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Holy Ghetto (NR) iLan Azoulai’s documentary is about four people who frequent Tel Aviv’s red-light district. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Hunting Matthew Nichols (R) This found-footage horror film stars Miranda MacDougall as a documentarian seeking to solve her brother’s decades-old disappearance. Also with Christine Willes, Trevor Carroll, Bernard Cuffing, Jay Hindle, and James Ross. (Opens Friday)
Love Insurance Kompany (NR) Pradeep Ranganathan and Krithi Shetty star in this comedy as two people working on a software algorithm meant to produce guaranteed love for everyone. Also with S.J. Suryah, Seeman, Yogi Babu, Shah Ra, Malavika, Sunil Reddy, and Nifya Razul. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Newborn (R) David Oyelowo stars in this psychological horror film as an ex-convict released after seven years of solitary confinement. Also with Barry Pepper, Olivia Washington, Rukiya Bernard, Naomi Simpson, and Jimmie Fails. (Opens Friday)
Palestine 36 (NR) This historical drama is about various characters during the Palestinian revolt against British rule in 1936. Starring Hiam Abbass, Robert Aramayo, Karim Daoud Anaya, Liam Cunningham, Billy Howle, Saleh Bakri, Yasmine al-Massri, and Jeremy Irons. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Tangoman (NR) Sergei Tumas stars in this thriller. (Opens Friday)
You, Me & Tuscany (PG-13) Pleasant enough, I guess. Halle Bailey stars in this comedy as a thwarted chef-turned-professional New York housesitter who finds herself temporarily homeless until an Italian businessman (Lorenzo de Moor) tells her about a family villa that’s sitting empty in his absence. She travels to the Italian countryside and crashes at his place without permission, but when his family discovers her, she lies and tells them that she’s his fiancée. To complicate matters further, she falls for his cousin (Regé-Jean Page). The farce here is leaden, but Page’s charm helps to smooth over the bumpy parts. The novelty of a Black American woman finding herself at home amid Italy’s sun-dappled scenery and fine food is enough to put this across. Her Italianized recipe for shrimp and grits sounds like it would work, too. Also with Isabella Ferrari, Marco Calvani, Stella Peccolo, Paolo Sassanelli, Tommaso Cassissa, Desirèe Pöpper, Stefania Casini, and Aziza Scott. (Opens Friday)
NOW PLAYING
Biker (NR) This Indian sports film is about a group of motorcyclists competing on the motocross circuit. Starring Sharwanand, Malvika Nair, Rajasekhar, Atul Kulkarni, and Dayanand Reddy.
Bonolota Express (NR) This comedy from Bangladesh is about a group of strangers whose secrets come out during a fogbound train trip. Starring Mosharraf Karim, Chanchai Chowdhury, Azmeri Haque Badhon, Labonno Chowdhury, Sariful Razz, Sabrin Azad, and Masha Islam.
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.
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.
A Great Awakening (PG-13) Thoughtful enough to be the next great Christian drama, but taken down by other issues. The film follows both Benjamin Franklin (John Paul Sneed) as he sets up a printing business in the American colonies and George Whitefield (Jonathan Blair) as he turns his ambitions from acting to preaching the Word of God in Britain. The two men meet before the American revolution, and the deist Franklin finds inspiration in Whitefield’s speeches. It’s a good story, but director/co-writer Joshua Enck takes too long building things up — we’re more than an hour into the story before our two main characters finally meet. The writers (who also include Blair) do well to traverse the limits of religious faith and the need for human action based on that, but the whole thing has too many stops on the heroes’ journey. It needed some neater editing. Also with Russell Dean Schultz, Robert Bigley, JT Schaeffer, Josh Bates, Carson Burkett, Stephen Foster Harris, Ryan Jameson Hippe, and Daniel Stargel.
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.
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.
Raakaasaa (NR) Insufferable. Sangeeth Sobhan stars as a tech worker who returns to his Indian village from America, only to discover that the villagers have to perform a human sacrifice to a demon every 50 years, and he has arrived just in time to be the one offered up. This Telugu-language film can’t decide whether it’s supposed to be a horror film or a comedy, and Sobhan’s comedy stylings as a well-heeled bro bitching about the lack of wi-fi are vastly annoying. The hijinks stretched out to this length make this a real slog to sit through. You will have plenty of opportunities to hit the bathroom or the popcorn counter if you find yourself in this one. Also with Nayan Sarika, Ashish Vidyarthi, Getup Srinu, Rajasekhar Aningi, and Vennela Kishore.
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.
The Secret Between Us (NR) Michael Jai White stars in this drama as a pillar of his community whose buried secret comes to light. Also with Dominique Wilson, Destinee Monét, Lisa Arrindell, Laura Fairchild, Denzell Dandridge, and Tommy McNulty.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (PG) The Mario brothers (voiced by Chris Pratt and Charlie Day) rescue Yoshi (voiced by Donald Glover) while Bowser Jr. (voiced by Benny Safdie) kidnaps Princess Rosalina (voiced by Brie Larson) in this sequel. While there’s entirely too much going on, this is still better than the first movie. The new voice talent gives the thing some new energy and the filmmakers inject some visual wit that wasn’t there in the original, such as interludes made to look like sock puppet theater and Japanese anime, as well as a casino whose gaming floor extends to the walls and ceiling. Some Mario-fied Minions make an appearance as well. There’s certainly worse stuff made for the little ones out there. Additional voices by Jack Black, Anya Taylor-Joy, Keegan-Michael Key, Issa Rae, Luis Guzmán, and Glen Powell.
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.
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
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.
