OPENING
Il Corpo (NR) This Italian remake of a Spanish horror film is about a police inspector (Giuseppe Battiston) investigating mysterious disappearances around a morgue. Also with Claudia Gerini, Andrea di Luigi, Amanda Campana, Andrea Sartorelli, Anastassia Bianchi, and Francesca Vettori. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Dongji Rescue (NR) This Chinese historical thriller is based on the real-life story of a group of fishing villagers who rescued more than 300 British prisoners of war after their Japanese ship was sunk in World War II. Starring Zhu Yilong, Wu Lei, Ni Ni, Yang Haoyu, Chen Minghao, Ni Dahong, and Kevin Lee. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Eden (R) Ron Howard’s historical drama is about a 1930s utopian commune in the Galápagos Islands that comes apart. Starring Jude Law, Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby, Daniel Brühl, Paul Gleeson, and Sydney Sweeney. (Opens Friday)
Enna Nu Rehna Sehna Ni Aaunda (NR) This Punjabi-language comedy stars Imran Ashraf as a student in Canada who has to deal with noisy neighbors. Also with Sapna Pabbi, Nasir Chinyoti, Nirmal Rishi, and Jassie Gill. (Opens Friday)
Hollywood Grit (NR) Max Martini stars in this thriller as a private detective investigating his daughter’s disappearance in Los Angeles. Also with Tyrese Gibson, Caylee Cowan, Benito Martinez, Linda Purl, and Patrick Duffy. (Opens Friday)
Honey Don’t! (R) Margaret Qualley stars in Ethan Coen’s thriller about a lesbian private detective investigating a Christian cult. Also with Chris Evans, Aubrey Plaza, Billy Eichner, Bill Camp, Kristen Connolly, Talia Ryder, and Charlie Day. (Opens Friday)
Paradha (NR) Anupama Parameswaran stars in this Indian film as a village girl who must travel across the country to investigate an ancient curse. Also with Sangeetha, Darshana Rajendran, and Rag Mayur. (Opens Friday)
Phaphey Kuttniyan (NR) This Punjabi-language comedy stars Neeru Bajwa and Tania as two housewives who grow rich by cheating at gambling events in their neighborhood. Also with Amrit Amby, Prabh Bains, Ashok Tangri, and Gurbaaz Singh. (Opens Friday)
Primitive War (NR) This fantasy film is about a group of Vietnam War soldiers who encounter dinosaurs while searching for a missing platoon. Starring Tricia Helfer, Ryan Kwanten, Nick Wechsler, Jeremy Lindsay Taylor, Ana Thu Nguyen, Lincoln Lewis, and Jeremy Piven. (Opens Wednesday)
Relay (R) The performances are the strength of this cerebral New York-set thriller about a research scientist (Lily James) who fears for her life after discovering malfeasance by her corporate bosses and turns to a messenger (Riz Ahmed) to ensure her safety. The messenger uses a relay service intended for the deaf and hard of hearing to guarantee that communications between him and his clients are kept confidential, and director David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water) deftly follows the strategies that the hero uses to keep himself anonymous to everyone and get paid. Ahmed is stellar as a Muslim alcoholic who does this as a way to make amends, and his soulfulness is needed in a film where his conversations are all through third parties. It works, somehow. Also with Sam Worthington, Willa Fitzgerald, Matthew Maher, Jared Abrahamson, Pun Bandhu, Eisa Davis, and Victor Garber. (Opens Friday)
The Shadow’s Edge (NR) Jackie Chan stars in this Chinese thriller as a police detective who comes out of retirement to catch a group of thieves in Macau. Also with Tony Leung Ka Fai, Zhang Zifeng, CiSha, Luna Fujimoto, Lang Yueting, Kenya Sawada, Wang Ziyi, and Brono Bajtala. (Opens Friday)
Stalin (NR) Released for the first time in this area’s theaters, this 2006 Indian action-thriller stars Chiranjeevi as a war hero who devotes his post-military life to improving the lives of the people around him. Also with Trisha, Prakash Raj, Sharada, Khushbu Sundar, Pradeep Rawat, Rambha, and Anushka Shetty. (Opens Friday at Cinemark Tinseltown Grapevine)
Trust (R) Sophie Turner (TV’s Game of Thrones) stars in this thriller as a Hollywood star who is threatened when home invaders target her remote getaway. Also with Billy Campbell, Rhys Coiro, Peter Mensah, Forrest Goodluck, Gianni Paolo, and Katey Sagal. (Opens Friday)
We’re Not Safe Here (PG-13) Solomon Gray’s horror film stars Hayley McFarland as a woman who returns from her disappearance altered. Also with Sharmita Bhattacharya, Caisey Cole, and Margaret Wuertz. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
What We Hide (NR) This thriller stars McKenna Grace and Jojo Regina as sisters who hide their mother’s dead body for fear of being separated by the foster care system. Also with Forrest Goodluck, Dacre Montgomery, Malia Baker, Fernanda Andrade, and Jesse Williams. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
NOW PLAYING
Americana (R) Tony Tost’s comic thriller is about outlaws and misfits who are out to buy or steal a Lakota ghost shirt that has come on the black market. Starring Sydney Sweeney, Paul Walter Hauser, Halsey, Simon Rex, Zahn McClarnon, Toby Huss, and Eric Dane.
The Bad Guys 2 (PG) Better than the first movie, actually. The gang (voiced by Sam Rockwell, Awkwafina, Anthony Ramos, Marc Maron, and Craig Robinson) has trouble landing jobs after getting out of prison, so a rival gang frames them for their own crimes and forces them to commit additional crimes to clear their names. The climactic sequence is a bit drawn out, but until then the movie has a nice time mocking tech billionaires who want to go into space and the tropes of heist movies, as well as a nice interlude at a lucha libre wrestling event. Mark this down as an above-average animated kids’ film. Additional voices by Danielle Brooks, Maria Bakalova, Zazie Beetz, Jaime Camil, Richard Ayoade, Lilly Singh, Alex Borstein, Omid Djalili, and Natasha Lyonne.
Coolie (NR) This Indian crime thriller stars Rajinikanth as a mysterious vigilante who stands up to the mob in a port town. Also with Nagarjuna, Soubin Shahir, Upendra, Shruti Haasan, Sathyaraj, Pooja Hegde, and Aamir Khan.
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.
Freakier Friday (PG) At least this time it isn’t some stereotypical Asian lady making the body switch happen. The sequel to the 2003 Disney comedy has Anna (Lindsay Lohan) falling in love with a British chef (Manny Jacinto), but when their respective teenage daughters (Julia Butters and Sophia Hammons) detest each other, it’s once again time for body switching. This time there’s two switches, once again involving Anna’s mom (Jamie Lee Curtis), which makes it harder to keep track of who’s in whose body, but that would matter less if the scenes were funnier or if the plot points didn’t come so haphazardly and without logic. Lohan can still bring it and Butters displays some good comic timing, but after 22 years, you’d think the sequel would have better ideas. The only time the nostalgia pays off is at the end, when Anna reunites with her ex-bandmates (Christina Vidal Mitchell and Haley Hudson) and they perform songs from the first movie. Also with Chad Michael Murray, Vanessa Bayer, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Rosalind Chao, X Mayo, Lucille Soong, June DIane Raphael, Stephen Tobolowsky, Sherry Cola, George Wallace, Chloe Fineman, Elaine Hendrix, and Mark Harmon.
Highest 2 Lowest (R) Not always smooth, but often entertaining. Spike Lee’s remake of Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low stars Denzel Washington as a wealthy music mogul who’s trying to regain control of his label when his teenage son (Aubrey Joseph) and the kid’s best friend (Elijah Wright) are kidnapped for ransom by an aspiring rapper (A$AP Rocky). It’s questionable how a villain who’s so angry and out of control could put together such a sophisticated kidnapping plot, but the film is worth it for Washington’s performance and some great action sequences like when the ransom drop is made and the kidnapper’s cohorts run the police into a Puerto Rican pride celebration in the streets. (This last features the late Eddie Palmieri performing.) It may be a minor entry in Lee’s canon, but it’s a worthwhile use of 133 minutes. Also with Jeffrey Wright, Ilfenesh Hadera, John Douglas Thompson, Dean Winters, LaChanze, Rick Fox, Frederick Weller, Michael Potts, Wendell Pierce, and Ice Spice.
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)
It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley (NR) The latest documentary from Amy Berg (West of Memphis) profiles the short-lived musician. (Opens Friday)
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.
The Knife (R) Former NFL great Nnamdi Asomugha directs and stars in this thriller about a Black family who deal with the fallout after killing a white intruder in their house. Also with Melissa Leo, Aja Naomi King, Amari Price, Aiden Price, Lucinda Jenney, and Manny Jacinto.
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.
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.
Nobody 2 (R) The sequel to the 2021 thriller partially but not completely fixes the original’s issues. Bob Odenkirk returns as a hit man who takes his family on a vacation to a water park in Wisconsin, only to discover that smugglers and crooked cops have taken over the surrounding town. Indonesian director Timo Tjahjanto (The Night Comes for Us, The Shadow Strays) takes over the sequel and brings some personality to the action sequences, but he consistently leaves dramatic material on the table regarding the hero’s teenage son (Gage Munroe) emulating his violent behavior and his wife (Connie Nielsen) knowing about his business. It feels like there’s a better, longer version of this movie that got left on the cutting room floor. Also with Christopher Lloyd, RZA, John Ortiz, Colin Hanks, Lucius Hoyos, Paisley Cadorath, and Sharon Stone.
Shin Godzilla (PG-13) This 2016 movie is a hard reset of the series, taking place in 1954 when the monster first appears in Tokyo Harbor. Hiroki Hasegawa stars as a low-level cabinet officer who has to lead a bunch of misfits and loners to stop Godzilla. Director/co-writer Hideaki Anno comes over from anime and focuses on the bureaucratic workings of the Japanese government to accomplish the task, and mines some good dry humor from the setup as well as commenting on the 2011 Fukushima disaster. Unfortunately, this comes at the expense of the monster itself, which has an expressionless design and some stiff puppetry and CGI work. That doesn’t keep this reboot from being a success. Also with Yutaka Takenouchi, Satomi Ishihara, Akira Emoto, Kengo Kōra, Mikako Ichikawa, Jun Kunimura, and Ren Ōsugi. — Cole Williams
Sketch (PG) Why doesn’t this play better than it does? Tony Hale stars in this kids’ movie as a widowed father whose young daughter (Bianca Belle) draws sketches of hideous monsters. The sketches then come to life when she drops the sketchpad in a pond that has magical powers. The premise has potential and the monsters mostly come off well, but first-time director Seth Worley can’t find anything like the right comic energy for this story. Despite Hale’s best efforts as an overwhelmed dad trying to handle a troubled kid, the drama remains stubbornly inert when the monsters are not on screen. Also with D’Arcy Carden, Kue Lawrence, Kalon Cox, Jaxon Kenner, and Genesis Rose Brown.
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.
Together (R) The best piece of body horror since The Substance wouldn’t work nearly as well if its lead actors weren’t married to each other, or if they weren’t so well-versed in playing scenes for laughs. Dave Franco and Alison Brie play a couple who move to a big house in the countryside and find that their bodies are fusing together. Australian filmmaker Michael Shanks makes his directing debut and displays some uncanny talent, as in a cavern that appears to be alive as it starts the process of our couple losing their individuality. The actors, too, find humor in the horrifying situation. The final shot is a joke that misfires, but this unique horror film is the best argument I’ve ever seen in favor of staying single one’s whole life. Also with Damon Herriman.
War 2 (NR) More of the same in this sequel to the 2019 Indian action film. Hrithik Roshan reprises his role as a former RAW agent who’s now considered a traitor and international fugitive when he’s actually working to infiltrate an international cartel of evil businessmen from the inside. He starts off the movie fighting a bunch of Japanese yakuza with a katana, while his law-enforcement nemesis (played by newcomer N.T. Rama Rao Jr.) gets a showpiece where he takes down a bunch of Somali pirates. Beyond that, there isn’t much beyond a bunch of double crosses that make increasingly less sense and chest-beating Indian patriotism that won’t mean anything to Western audiences. Also with Kiara Advani, Ashutosh Rana, Varun Badola, Arista Mehta, K.C. Shankar, Anil Kapoor, and Bobby Deol.
Weapons (R) Disquieting. Zach Cregger’s horror film is about a Pennsylvania town where 17 schoolchildren suddenly vanish on the same night, and the community turns on itself for lack of any explanations, starting with the third-grade teacher (Julia Garner) who taught all the missing kids. It all plays like Eddington in that it only takes one unforeseen event to make these civilized people ready to kill each other in the street, but this movie’s inchoate violence makes it more powerful, like a finely honed urban legend. Cregger’s comedy background also brings some unexpected humor to the proceedings, but he also implies that the trauma here will roll on for generations until the town is engulfed in one giant trauma bond. Also with Josh Brolin, Alden Ehrenreich, Benedict Wong, Amy Madigan, Austin Abrams, Cary Christopher, June Diane Raphael, Sara Paxton, Luke Speakman, Clayton Farris, and Justin Long.
Dallas Exclusives
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.
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.
