OPENING
Above and Below (NR) This action thriller is about a group of yachters who are attacked by pirates at sea. Starring Laura Marano, Donncha Tynan, Ryan Bertroche, Christina Ochoa, Louis Mandylor, and Antonio Banderas. (Opens Wednesday)
Bhai Tera Star Hai (NR) Raghav Juyal stars in this Indian comedy as a famous actor whose gambling addiction gets him into trouble with gangsters. Also with Sanjay Kapoor, Niki Walla, Niharika NM, and Barkha Singh. (Opens Friday)
I Want Your Sex (R) Gregg Araki’s latest film is this comedy about a young intern (Cooper Hoffman) who enters into a BDSM relationship with the artist (Olivia Wilde) who employs him. Also with Mason Gooding, Chase Sui Wonders, Daveed Diggs, Roxane Mesquida, James Duval, Margaret Cho, Johnny Knoxville, and Charli xcx. (Opens Friday)
Pluto (NR) This Malayalam-language science-fiction comedy stars Neeraj Madhav, Aju Varghese, Vineeth Thattil David, Aarsha Chandini Baiju, Nimna Fathoomi, and Althaf Salim. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Srinivasa Mangapuram (NR) Jaya Krishna and Rasha Thadani star in this Telugu-language romance. Also with Dayanand Reddy, V.K. Naresh, Mohan Babu, and Brahmaji. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Unmadham (NR) This Indian thriller stars Kunchacko Boban as a police constable who re-opens a cold case with supernatural elements. Also with Krishna Prabha, Lijo Mol Jose, Siddique, Sudheesh, Vishak Nair, Kiran Peethambaran, Arun Cherukavil, and Sijoy Varghese. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
NOW PLAYING
The Devil Wears Prada 2 (PG-13) This sequel is quite enjoyable in the same way as the original, but it has one big irritating issue. Anne Hathaway reprises her role as Andy, a newly unemployed journalist who takes a job at Runway, which is now embroiled in a PR crisis. The sequel registers how fashion media has changed in the last 20 years, but gets distracted by a succession battle after the fashion magazine’s owner (Tibor Feldman) suddenly dies. It would have been better devoting more time to Andy trying to detoxify Runway’s workplace culture and bring Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) into line. The characters have been away long enough for us to be happy to see them, and the script is smart enough that you won’t hate yourself for reveling in its posh setting. Shame that it goes too easy on its characters. Also with Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci, Justin Theroux, Tracie Thoms, Patrick Brammall, Caleb Hearon, Simone Ashley, Helen J. Shen, Rachel Bloom, B.J. Novak, Lucy Liu, Kenneth Branagh, and Lady Gaga.
Disclosure Day (PG-13) This distinctly minor entry into Steven Spielberg’s canon finds the director in the mode of mystic crystal revelations. This thriller is about a cybersecurity expert (Josh O’Connor) and a TV weather forecaster (Emily Blunt) who have never met before but must team up to go public with video proof of extraterrestrial life on Earth. I can’t help thinking this would have been better if it had been made in the 1990s with Agent Mulder and Agent Scully. The lore about little green men is overly familiar, and the movie is better when the filmmakers remember that it’s about our heroes being chased by an NGO. Still, every time Spielberg tries to get into our feelings, he steps into the muck. Project Hail Mary did everything this movie does without so much strain. Also with Colman Domingo, Eve Hewson, Wyatt Russell, Elizabeth Marvel, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Tommy Martinez, Hettienne Park, Jeremy Shamos, and Colin Firth.
Evil Dead Burn (R) Meh. The latest installment of the horror series has an interesting idea but bungles the execution. Souheila Yacoub portrays a French woman whose American husband (George Pullar) beats her before he’s killed by the deadites. After that, his family members who covered up for him during his life start turning into deadites, too, and hunting her down. Director/co-writer Sébastien Vaniček pulls off a nice one-take shot that follows his protagonist as she crawls on the floor while the in-laws fight off the latest zombie. However, his script is way too sloppy to achieve its metaphor. The 2013 reboot was good, but since then, the series has been faltering fast. Also with Hunter Doohan, Tandi Wright, Luciane Buchanan, Erroll Shand, Maude Davey, Victory Ndukwe, and Alyssa Sutherland.
Gauthali (NR) This Nepalese drama is about a young woman (Simran Khadka) searching for freedom after being forced into marriage as a child. Also with Arun Chhetri, Madan Krishna Shrestha, Rabindra Jha, Sita Devi Timilsina, and Rajendra Nepali.
Hadestown: The Musical (NR) This concert film was only supposed to play for one week in theaters, but it’s being held over, and you can easily see why. Brett Sullivan’s documentary captures a London performance of this Broadway musical that uses Dixieland-style jazz to illustrate the ancient Greek story of Orpheus and Eurydice (Reeve Carney and Eva Noblezada). The songs by Anaïs Mitchell carry the thing well enough, but it’s worth it to take in Noblezada’s blazing stage presence, Carney’s angelic singing voice, and Patrick Page (with a cast on his foot, because he got hurt during rehearsals) as a sepulchral-voiced Hades. Let’s have more Broadway shows in our multiplexes, especially if they rock as hard as this one. Also with André de Shields, Bella Brown, Madeline Charlemagne, Allie Daniel, and Amber Gray.
Her Private Hell (R) A random series of arcane gestures and symbols. Sophie Thatcher portrays an actress making a film with her former lesbian lover-turned-stepmother (Havana Rose Liu) in a city that’s being terrorized by a serial killer who may be Satan himself. At least, that’s what I can discern through the pink fog that envelopes both the setting and the plot. Nicolas Winding Refn’s latest film looks and sounds gorgeous, thanks to cinematographer Magnus Nordenhof Jønck, production designer Gitte Malling, and composer Pino Donaggio, but the miasma obscures any sense of what’s going on or what’s on the filmmaker’s mind. This is like the lesser works of Alejandro Jodorowsky or Peter Greenaway: It’s horrible, but somehow you can’t look away. Also with Charles Melton, Kristine Froseth, Diego Calva, Shioli Kutsuna, Aoi Yamada, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Parker Sawyers, and Dougray Scott.
The Invite (R) In the same league as Woody Allen’s best stuff. Olivia Wilde directs and co-stars in this comedy as a housewife whose marriage to a music teacher (Seth Rogen) is on the rocks when she invites their upstairs neighbors (Edward Norton and Penélope Cruz) to a dinner party, only to find out that the neighbors are swingers who want to invite them for group sex. The director delivers a virtuoso visual performance, moving her camera around the single setting crisply and efficiently, and she casts herself cannily as someone who’s desperate to please. Rogen might just be even better as a former musician who has checked out of his job as a music teacher, and screenwriters Rashida Jones and Will McCormack (who adapt this from a Spanish stage play) serve it all up with dialogue that’s good enough to eat. The whole thing is tense and funny and insightful about marriage like nothing else at the multiplex.
Michael (PG-13) There is no movie here. In a bid to appease the Jackson family and their lawyers, director Antoine Fuqua and screenwriter John Logan have thrown out every bit of plot, character development, and atmosphere that would make this Michael Jackson biopic into a semblance of a story. The film takes place in 1966-88, with Juliano Valdi playing little Michael and Jaafar Jackson as the adult. Everything from Janet Jackson to the pedophilia allegations is studiously ignored, and we don’t even get any insight into Michael Jackson’s creative process or psychology to compensate for it. Both Valdi and Jaafar Jackson imitate Michael’s fluid dance moves, which is no mean feat, but the man himself comes off as a cipher, so what hope do the supporting characters have? This is a good deal less than a nostalgia act, and Fuqua and Logan have nothing to do except play the hits. Also with Colman Domingo, Miles Teller, Nia Long, Larenz Tate, Kendrick Sampson, Laura Harrier, KeiLyn Durrel Jones, Jessica Sula, Deon Cole, and Mike Myers.
Minions & Monsters (PG) The series goes all cinephile, which turns out to be a pretty good thing. The Minions (voiced by Pierre Coffin) wash up in Hollywood in the 1920s and become silent-film stars before the advent of sound film ruins their careers as actors. The setup allows the filmmakers to engage in all manner of references to movies from that time period, as well as acknowledge that the Minions owe much of their comedy to the stylings of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd. Next to those, the halves of the plot involving most of the Minions looking for another supervillain and a small group of them trying to make their own movie are both rather pallid. It’s still cleverer than the Scary Movie reboot, and a perfect introduction to silent movies for your kid. Additional voices by Christoph Waltz, Allison Janney, Jesse Eisenberg, Trey Parker, Zoey Deutch, Phil LaMarr, Bobby Moynihan, Jeff Bridges, and George Lucas.
Moana (PG) As with too many other live-action Disney remakes, the studio rushed in with this without pondering why they were doing it. Catherine Laga’aia takes over the role of the Polynesian princess, and she has a fine voice. Even that, though, doesn’t register as an improvement on the animated 2016 original, which is too fresh in our minds to need a remake. If Disney can’t be bothered with rethinking its remakes, why should you bother paying for a ticket, and why should I bother writing it up? Also with Dwayne Johnson, John Tui, Frankie Adams, Eric Scanlan, and Rena Owen. Voice by Jemaine Clement.
Motor City (R) If this movie’s central conceit is a gimmick, it’s quite an effective one. In this thriller with maybe 10 lines of dialogue spoken, Alan Ritchson portrays a Vietnam Special Forces veteran in 1977 Detroit who falls in love with a stripper (Shailene Woodley), only for a drug lord (Ben Foster) who’s also in love with her to frame him for drug smuggling and get him sent to prison. What would have been a dreadfully ordinary movie with dialogue becomes an exercise in telling the story through action, acting, and music, with the movie using a great deal of rock and R&B from the time period. Director Potsy Ponciroli (Old Henry) patches up the holes in the plot by placing so much emphasis on the visuals, and the elevator fight scene between the hero and a crooked police detective (Pablo Schreiber) is a great highlight. Also with Lionel Boyce, Amar Chadha-Patel, Ben McKenzie, Mister Fitzgerald, Dominic Bogart, Rafael Celebrián, and Jack White.
Obsession (R) A scary new entry in the long tradition of stories about the dangers of gaining your heart’s desire. Michael Johnston stars in this horror film as a weak man who can’t tell his crush (Inde Navarrette) that he’s in love with her, so he finds a novelty toy that grants people’s desires and wishes for her love. Navarrette is only 5’0” and manages to be utterly terrifying as a level-headed woman who suddenly morphs into an ultra-clingy demon who’s willing to murder anyone who gets between her and her man. Writer-director Curry Barker comes from a comedy background conjures a number of memorable visuals here, and if the momentum flags somewhat in the film’s second half, he still comes up with a fiendish climax that sends you out of the theater with an indelible chill. Also with Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless, Justice, Anthony Casablanca, and Andy Richter.
The Odyssey (R) Not free of flaws, but a cogent modern interpretation of Homer’s epic poem. As you might guess, this epic needs the biggest screen you can find so that you can properly appreciate its natural vistas and visual set pieces like the boat steering between Scylla and Charybdis. Writer-director Christopher Nolan is too scrupulous when it comes to the violence in the epic poem; more blood would have brought home the movie’s point that Odysseus (Matt Damon) won the Trojan War by violating sacred values and is trying to restore them. Some of the actors in this cast laden with A-list stars do get lost, but Anne Hathaway finds the rage beneath Penelope’s regal exterior and Lupita Nyong’o pulls off an impressive double role as Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra. Instead of a turgid homework assignment, this earns its epic status thanks to Nolan’s contemporary angle on the story. Also with Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Zendaya, Jon Bernthal, John Leguizamo, Himesh Patel, Elliot Page, Samantha Morton, James Remar, Mia Goth, Corey Hawkins, Bill Irwin, Benny Safdie, Jovan Adepo, Logan Marshall-Green, Will Yun Lee, Ryan Hurst, Shiloh Fernandez, Rafi Gavron, and Travis Scott.
Pinocchio: Unstrung (R) This British re-telling of the fairy tale as a slasher movie stars Richard Brake as the carpenter who creates a wooden boy. Also with Cameron Bell, Jessica Balmer, Mya Brown, Peter DeSouza-Feighoney, and Karolina Knight. Voices by Jude-Evan Lloyd and Robert Englund.
Supergirl (PG-13) A rare movie where the woman is the screw-up from a privileged family who has to straighten out her life to be worthy of her family’s legacy. Milly Alcock portrays the superheroine as an aimless alcoholic who frequently gives her enemies a chance to defeat her because she’s fighting while drunk or hungover. The Australian actress gets a nice crack at the character’s anger, pain, and self-pity, which even gives emotional weight to Krypto the dog after the bad guys poison her pet. However, the fight sequences are not only unmemorable in themselves, they’re poorly integrated into the story. Director Craig Gillespie has a hard time managing the tone, too. The movie starts with a great idea, but doesn’t advance it far enough. Also with David Corenswet, Eve Ridley, Mathias Schoenaerts, Diarmaid Murtagh, David Krumholtz, Emily Beecham, and Jason Momoa.
Toy Story 5 (PG) The latest installment in the series is all about Jessie the Cowgirl (voiced by Joan Cusack), which helps make it one of the best. With Bonnie (voiced by Scarlett Spears) getting a new tablet (voiced by Greta Lee) as a gift, the toys see a future of neglect, and their attempts to get rid of it end up calling Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks) out of retirement and transporting both Jessie and Bullseye back to her old home, now occupied by a new girl and another set of toys. Conan O’Brien injects a ton of energy and poop jokes as an outdated device designed to potty-train toddlers, but the movie’s success hangs on Jessie discovering the impact she made on her previous owner and coming to terms with the fact that kids will always outgrow their toys. Additional voices by Tim Allen, Bonnie Hunt, Annie Potts, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Ernie Hudson, Matty Matheson, Mykal-Michelle Harris, Kristen Schaal, Tony Hale, Melissa Villaseñor, Alan Cumming, Keanu Reeves, and Bad Bunny.
Young Washington (PG-13) As wooden as George Washington’s teeth. William Franklyn-Miller portrays the future president of the USA as an ambitious young military officer whose desire to prove himself to his British commanders leads him to some humiliating defeats in the French and Indian War. It’s an interesting choice for the movie to focus on the setbacks that ultimately led to his fame, and some of the battle sequences are done with a modicum of skill by director on Erwin. Yet the drama between those sequences is leaden, and Franklyn-Miller brings little zest to the lead role. This doesn’t give much more entertainment value than a history textbook. Also with Andy Serkis, Mary-Louise Parker, Mia Rodgers, John Foss, Michael Benz, Jonno Davies, Joel David Smallbone, Montana Cypress, Kelsey Grammer, and Ben Kingsley.
Dallas Exclusives
Horsegirls (PG-13) This drama is about an autistic young woman (Lillian Carrier) who sets out to prove her independence to the world. Also with Gretchen Mol, Iqbal Theba, Jerrod Haynes, Joel Austin, Kovana Shine, Brea Phan, and Kenzie James.
A Mosquito in the Ear (NR) Based on an Italian graphic novel, this drama stars Jake Lacy and Nazanin Boniadi as a couple who decide to adopt a child. Also with Ruhi Pal, Micky Singh, Amina, Chatanya, Dhaniram, and Kavish.
