OPENING
Architecton (G) Victor Kossakovsky’s documentary is about the history of concrete and stone in architecture. (Opens Friday at Alamo Drafthouse Denton)
The Bad Guys 2 (PG) The sequel to the 2022 animated film has the gang (voiced by Sam Rockwell, Awkwafina, Anthony Ramos, Marc Maron, and Craig Robinson) blackmailed into pulling one last crime. Additional voices by Danielle Brooks, Maria Bakalova, Richard Ayoade, Lilly Singh, Alex Borstein, Omid Djalili, and Natasha Lyonne. (Opens Friday)
Chal Mera Putt 4 (NR) The fourth film in the Punjabi-language comedy series is about a group of friends in the U.K. who find a bag full of cash. Starring Amrinder Gill, Simi Chahal, Iftikhar Thakur, Diya Jandu, and Lee Nicholas Harris. (Opens Friday)
Cloud (NR) Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s film is about a Japanese online entrepreneur (Masaki Suda) who starts to experience a series of inexplicable events. Also with Kotone Furukawa, Amane Okayama, Daiken Okudaira, Yoshiyoshi Arakawa, Masataka Kubota, and Mutsuo Yoshioka. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Dhadak 2 (NR) This sequel to the 2018 Indian romantic film stars Triptii Dimri, Siddhant Chaturvedi, Saad Bilgrami, Manjiri Pupala, Deeksha Joshi, and Vipin Sharma. (Opens Friday)
Kingdom (NR) This Telugu-language action-thriller stars Vijay Deverakonda as an Indian operative who is caught up in an international incident with Sri Lanka. Also with Satyadev, Venkitesh, Bhagyashri Borse, Goparaju Ramana, and Manish Chaudhari. (Opens Friday)
Mahavatar Narasimha (NR) This Indian animated film is about a demon who seeks revenge on the god Vishnu. (Opens Friday at Cinemark Tinseltown Grapevine)
The Naked Gun (R) A reminder of why this comedy subgenre died in the first place. Liam Neeson portrays Frank Drebin Jr., investigating a murder linked to a tech billionaire (Danny Huston). There are a few scenes that hit, like the one when an infrared camera makes it appear that Frank is into all kinds of weird sex, but the gags that misfire far outnumber the ones that work, and neither Neeson nor Pamela Anderson as Frank’s love interest have the deadpan style of this comedy down. It’s never a good sign when the jokes in the final credits are funnier than the ones in the movie itself. Also with Paul Walter Hauser, CCH Pounder, Kevin Durand, Cody Rhodes, Busta Rhymes, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Priscilla Presley, and an uncredited Dave Bautista. (Opens Friday)
Omniscient Reader: The Prophet (NR) A movie breaking box-office records in South Korea, this fantasy film stars Ahn Hyo-seop as a reader who finds that the fantasy novel he is reading is coming true in reality. Also with Lee Min-ho, Chae Soo-bin, Shin Seung-ho, Nana, and Jisoo. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Osiris (NR) This science-fiction movie is about a group of Special Forces commandos who are kidnapped and hunted by space aliens. Starring Max Martini, Linda Hamilton, Brianna Hildebrand, LaMonica Garrett, and Michael Irby. (Open Friday in Dallas)
River of Blood (R) This action-thriller is about four kayakers who find themselves in the territory of a cannibal tribe in Thailand. Starring Sarah Alexandra Marks, Joseph Millson, Louis James, Ella Starbuck, David Wayman, Tiffany Hannam-Daniels, and Einar Haraldsson. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
She Rides Shotgun (R) Adapted from Jordan Harper’s novel, this thriller stars Taron Egerton as an ex-convict who must protect his 11-year-old daughter (Ana Sophia Heger) when she’s targeted by mobsters. Also with John Carroll Lynch, Rob Yang, Travis Hammer, David Lyons, Keith Jardine, and Odessa A’zion. (Opens Friday)
Son of Sardaar 2 (NR) The sequel to the 2012 action-comedy stars Ajay Devgn as a man who fakes a military record to gain approval for his marriage. Also with Mrunal Thakur, Ravi Kishan, Neeru Bajwa, Deepak Dobriyal, Kubbra Sait, Chunky Panday, and Guru Randhawa. (Opens Friday)
To a Land Unknown (NR) This Palestinian comedy stars Mahmood Bakri and Aram Sabbah as two refugees in Greece who are caught up in a smuggling plot. Also with Angeliki Papoulia, Mohammad Alsurafa, Mondher Rayahneh, and Mohammad Ghassan. (Open Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Trouble Man (NR) Michael Jai White stars in and directs this thriller about a private investigator hired to find a vanished music star (La La Anthony). Also with Method Man, Mike Epps, Gillian White, Orlando Jones, and Keith Sweat. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
NOW PLAYING
Eddington (R) Ari Aster appears to have gone somewhat deranged from the Covid pandemic. His satirical Western stars Joaquin Phoenix as a New Mexico sheriff who clashes with his small town’s mayor (Pedro Pascal) over masking policy and the George Floyd protests. There’s a whole bunch of other stuff, too, including white supremacists killing cops while wearing Black Lives Matter gear, Native American activists from the reservation bordering the town, and a Christian cult leader (Austin Butler) who definitely thinks that the Epstein report is being buried. Aster has his finger on the pulse of a divided America, but he seems unsure of what he wants to say about it, and this movie suffers from the same bloat as his previous post-pandemic film Beau Is Afraid. This is an excellent 90-minute movie that’s unfortunately buried in a 148-minute running time. Also with Emma Stone, Deirdre O’Connell, Micheal Ward, Cameron Mann, Matt Gomez Hidaka, Amélie Hoeferle, Luke Grimes, William Belleau, and Clifton Collins Jr.
Elio (PG) Deserves to be mentioned alongside Pixar’s other Latin-themed films Coco and Encanto, even if it’s the least of those. The Elio of the title is an orphaned 11-year-old boy (voiced by Yonas Kibreab) who’s obsessed with space aliens and spends hours drawing large signs that beg the little green men to come and get him. The movie’s good with the sort of alienation that drives people to give up on Earth and pin their hopes on more evolved alien beings, and Pixar’s trademark visual splendor is in full evidence when Elio is actually abducted by aliens who mistake him for Earth’s leader. It’s all cut with Pixar’s trademark sense of humor, too, but the film starts to lose its shape in its final third when Elio has to travel between Earth and space to avert an intergalactic war. The movie comes frustratingly close to greatness, but it’s better than the live-action remakes that Hollywood has in theaters now. Additional voices by Zoe Saldaña, Brad Garrett, Remy Edgerly, Jameela Jamil, Matthias Schweighöfer, Ana de la Reguera, Atsuko Okatsuka, Shirley Henderson, Brandon Moon, and Kate Mulgrew.
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.
Hari Hara Veera Mallu Part 1: Sword vs. Spirit (NR) This rather mediocre Indian historical epic stars Pawan Kalyan as a 17th-century outlaw who keeps getting hired both by India’s Mughal rulers and by the Hindu resistance to pull various thefts, with the climactic one centering around the Koh-i-noor diamond. The antihero could well be a fascinating figure, but the writing isn’t up to scratch, and neither are the fight sequences (which were choreographed by Kalyan himself). Let’s just hope that the planned sequel gives us better entertainment. Also with Bobby Deol, Niddhi Agerwal, Sachin Khedekar, Sathyaraj, Vikramjeet Virk, Dalip Tahil, Raghu Babu, Subbaraju, Kabir Bedi, Tanikella Bharani, and Anupam Kher.
The Home (R) Pete Davidson could not be more miscast than he is in this dusty horror film. He portrays a small-time criminal who’s sentenced to community service as the maintenance man at a nursing home, where he ignores the lucid patients who tell him that something bad is happening there. He ignores the rules for the staff at his whim, and when the place’s secret is finally revealed, it’s so hokey that it’s not worth the wait. Davidson sleepwalks through his role as a trauma victim, and writer-director James DeMonaco brings a lot less energy and imagination here than he brought to his installments of The Purge. Also with Bruce Altman, Ethan Phillips, Marilee Talkington, Mary Beth Peil, Linder Sutton, and John Glover.
How to Train Your Dragon (PG) Chalk up another live-action remake of an animated kids’ movie that I can’t see the point of. Mason Thames (The Black Phone) stars in this remake of the 2010 animated film as the Viking who discovers that his tribe have been slaughtering dragons for no good reason. Toothless the Dragon is now generated by CGI and never once convinces us that he’s a real animal, and none of the human actors (not even Gerard Butler, reprising his voice role from the original as the Viking chief) put forward a case that this needed to be fleshed out with human actors. The only good addition here is the joke about the origin of Hiccup’s Viking helmet. Also with Nico Parker, Julian Dennison, Gabriel Howell, Bronwyn James, Harry Trevaldwyn, Murray McArthur, Peter Serafinowicz, Ruth Codd, Naomi Wirthner, and Nick Frost. (Opens Friday)
I Know What You Did Last Summer (R) You can’t make me scared of a killer who dresses like the Gorton’s fisherman. I just can’t do it. For this sequel to the 1990s horror franchise, a new group of young people (Chase Sui Wonders, Madelyn Cline, Jonah Hauer-King, Sarah Pidgeon, and Tyriq Withers) inadvertently causes a fatal car accident outside the North Carolina port town. When they fail to own up to it, the slasher in the slicker starts picking them off one by one, and they have to consult the survivors of the previous attacks (Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr.) for advice. Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (Do Revenge) takes over this series, but nothing works, not the murder scenes, not the attempts to incorporate comedy into the film, not the final solution, not the callbacks to the previous movies, and not even the final girl’s bisexuality. The failure here is total. Also with Billy Campbell, Austin Nichols, Gabbriette Bechtel, Joshua Orpin, Brandy Norwood, and Sarah Michelle Gellar.
Jurassic World: Rebirth (PG-13) More like stillbirth, actually. The series has a new director and a bunch of new stars, and yet it’s still tedious enough to make the last three movies seem like roller-coaster rides by comparison. Scarlett Johansson plays a private contractor who helps get a team of scientists into a dinosaur-populated island for biological samples that could be turned into life-saving medications, only to run into a family stranded there after their boat is sunk by other dinosaurs. Director Gareth Edwards (The Creator) makes the dinosaurs look real enough, but neither the characters nor the action set pieces are memorable in any way. Also with Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Manuel García-Rulfo, David Iacono, Luna Blaise, Audrina Miranda, Bechir Sylvain, Niamh Finlay, Ed Skrein, and Rupert Friend.
Lilo & Stitch (PG) Beyond the technical skill of integrating a CGI-generated Stitch (voiced by Chris Sanders) with live actors and scenery, this remake follows the animated original so closely that you wonder what the point is. Maia Kealoha portrays the little Hawaiian girl being raised by her older sister (Sydney Elizebeth Agudong) when the chaotically destructive space alien crash lands near her and she adopts the alien from the local animal rescue. Director Dean Fleischer Camp (Marcel the Shell With Shoes On) makes it all seamless, but the familiar story beats aren’t any more moving now than they were in the 2002 original. The additions of Zach Galifianakis and Billy Magnussen as the aliens trying to capture Stitch bring surprisingly little. Also with Tia Carrere, Courtney B. Vance, Amy Hill, Kaipo Dudoit, Jason Scott Lee, and Hannah Waddingham.
Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning (PG-13) This may not be Tom Cruise’s last outing as Ethan Hunt, but it does feel like a farewell to a franchise’s defining star. He has to reunite with his team members to capture the AI that is currently destroying the world. The result is unfortunately quite a disjointed movie in which Ethan appears to traverse the globe at the speed of light while awkward montages take in all the stars who have graced this series through the decades. The movie’s nostalgia kick does bring back Rolf Saxon as the CIA tech guy whom we haven’t seen since Ethan robbed his office in the original movie, and the stunts feature Cruise hanging off the wing of a biplane as well as a sequence in a sunken submarine that’s excellent suspense. It’s a better goodbye than Jason Bourne got. Also with Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Pom Klementieff, Esai Morales, Henry Czerny, Holt McCallany, Nick Offerman, Hannah Waddingham, Janet McTeer, Tramell Tillman, Mark Gatiss, Greg Tarzan Davis, Lucy Tulugarjuk, Katy O’Brian, Cary Elwes, and Angela Bassett.
Oh, Hi! (R) This problematic and very funny comedy stars Molly Gordon as a woman who goes to a remote Airbnb with the man she’s dating (Logan Lerman) and has sex with him with the property owner’s bondage gear, but when he says he’s not looking for a relationship, she keeps him chained up so that he’ll fall in love with her. Writer-director Sophie Brooks (The Boy Downstairs) leaves very little fat on this film, gets some well-oiled chemistry out of her small cast, and has some jokes land even when they’re not meant to. Gordon (who’s credited as a story writer here) acts up a storm, too, especially in the climactic scene when she finally apologizes to her ex-boyfriend for chaining him up, but the movie too often seems to think her behavior is cute. Still, Brooks and Gordon show that they might well have a truly great comedy in them. Also with Geraldine Viswanathan, John Reynolds, Polly Draper, and David Cross.
Saiyaara (NR) You can see why this Indian romance is breaking box-office records over there, though that doesn’t make it good. Ahaan Panday stars as a struggling musician with a vicious temper stemming from unresolved trauma. He’s forced to grow up when he meets a woman (Aneet Padda) who yearns to write poetry but is struck by early-onset Alzheimer’s. The individual scenes work well enough, and the newcomers in the lead roles are both fine. Still, the overall story is maudlin, and the movie veers dangerously close to saying that love can cure Alzheimer’s. It still comes out a watchable romance, though your patience for Bollywood sentimentality may vary. Also with Rajesh Kumar, Geeta Agarwal, Varun Badola, Shaad Randhawa, Sid Makkar, Alam Khan, Shaan Groverr, and Neil Dutta.
Smurfs (PG) Once again, the charm of this venerable comic series eludes Hollywood’s attempt to bring it to the big screen. When Gargamel and his more evil brother (both voiced by J.P. Karliak) kidnap Papa Smurf (voiced by John Goodman), it’s up to Smurfette (voiced by Rihanna) and No Name Smurf (voiced by James Corden) to unite Smurf Village and bring him back. An all-star voice cast has to take a back seat to Rihanna’s wobbly American accent and No Name Smurf’s flimsy search for an identity of his own. Despite an interlude when director Chris Miller (Puss in Boots) puts the Smurfs through different styles of animation, the gags misfire repeatedly. Our animation industry should give up and let the French have a crack at the Smurfs. Additional voices by Octavia Spencer, Nick Offerman, Dan Levy, Amy Sedaris, Natasha Lyonne, Sandra Oh, Jimmy Kimmel, Nick Kroll, Hannah Waddingham, Alex Winter, Maya Erskine, Billie Lourd, and Kurt Russell.
Sorry, Baby (R) Scene after scene in this remarkable debut film hits its target. Non-binary filmmaker Eva Victor stars as an English lit graduate student who is raped by her professor (Louis Cancelmi), and the film’s non-sequential chapters cover her life in the five years afterward. The film boasts some of the most exquisite dialogue in some time, as our heroine has encounters with an incredibly insensitive doctor (Marc Carver) and two university administrators (Liz Bishop and Natalie Rotter-Laitman) who explain that they can’t do anything to the attacker while repeating the same mantra: “We understand what you’re going through. We are women.” The potentially grim subject matter is balanced out by a great deal of leavening humor, as the trauma suffered by our protagonist rolls on even while funny things happen to her. Also with Naomi Ackie, John Carroll Lynch, Kelly McCormack, E.R. Fightmaster, Jordan Mendoza, Cody Reiss, and Lucas Hedges.
Superman (PG-13) The best Superman movie from this century. David Corenswet takes over the title role, as Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) leads a social-media crusade to have Superman treated as an illegal alien. Luthor is reimagined for our time as a libertarian billionaire who feels small and insignificant against the Man of Steel’s superpowers, and a highly dysfunctional trio of superheroes calling themselves the Justice Gang (Nathan Fillion, Edi Gathegi, and Isabela Merced) makes a funny foil to Superman. Writer-director James Gunn doesn’t make the most memorable action set pieces here, but he is willing to use fight sequences in an unorthodox way, like when Clark Kent and Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) have an earnest conversation about their relationship while the Justice Gang silently battles a kaiju in the distance. The surprising subplots and the grounding in current events makes this welcome. Also with Skylar Gisondo, Wendell Pierce, Beck Bennett, María Gabriela de Faría, Sara Sampaio, Zlatko Buric, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Mikaela Hoover, Sean Gunn, Frank Grillo, Anthony Carrigan, Alan Tudyk, Michael Rooker, Pom Klementieff, Angela Sarafyan, Bradley Cooper, and uncredited cameos by Milly Alcock and John Cena.
28 Years Later (R) The third installment of the series is a memorial to those who have died from the plague in real life, which turns out to be not quite enough to carry it. Alfie Williams portrays a 12-year-old boy growing up on an island off Britain’s coast where the people have remained uninfected, but when he hears about a doctor (Ralph Fiennes) who has survived on the big island, he takes his mother (Jodie Comer) to him to find out why she’s getting unexplained headaches and nosebleeds. The young Williams’ performance is good enough to make this work as a coming-of-age story. I just wish it worked better as a zombie movie, or as a setup for the next film in the series. This movie reunites director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland, and it may be time for a fresh set of eyes on this series. Also with Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Edvin Ryding, Stella Gonet, Chi Lewis-Parry, and Jack O’Connell.
Dallas Exclusives
Four Letters of Love (NR) Based on Niall Williams’ novel, this film stars Fionn O’Shea and Ann Skelly as ghosts who threaten to be separated by humans. Also with Pierce Brosnan, Helena Bonham Carter, Dónal Finn, Olwen Fouéré, Michelle Lucy, Imelda May, and Gabriel Byrne.
Shoshana (NR) Michael Winterbottom’s romantic thriller stars Harry Melling as a British cop who falls in love with a Jewish woman (Irina Starshenbaum) in 1930s Tel Aviv. Also with Douglas Booth, Gal Misrav, Aury Alby, Ofer Seker, and Ian Hart.
