OPENING
Adulthood (R) Alex Winter writes, directs, and co-stars in this comedy about two siblings (Josh Gad and Kaya Scodelario) who discover a dead body in their late parents’ basement. Also with Billie Lourd, Anthony Carrigan, Chris Candy, Camille James, and Jinny Chu. (Opens Friday at Alamo Drafthouse Denton)
Afterburn (R) Dave Bautista stars in this thriller as a treasure hunter who seeks to loot Europe’s art museums after an apocalyptic event. Also with Olga Kurylenko, Daniel Bernhardt, Eden Epstein, George Somner, and Samuel L. Jackson. (Opens Friday)
Beauty (NR) This Indian film stars Ankith Koyya, Nilakhi Patra, V.K. Naresh, Vasuki Anand, and Muralidhar Goud. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Brownsville Bred (PG-13) Elaine del Valle’s autobiographical drama stars Nathalia Lares as her younger self coming of age in Texas. Also with Karina Ortiz, April Hernandez Castillo, Javier Muñoz, Jon Freda, Jonathan James Rodriguez, and Lyla Rose Castillo. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Doin’ It (NR) Lilly Singh stars in this comedy as a teacher who has never had sex and is assigned to teach sex education. Also with Stephanie Beatriz, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Cas Anvar, Jessica Clement, and Mary Holland. (Opens Friday)
Dot Conner: Webtective (PG) This kids’ movie stars Gili Gould as an internet sleuth who’s sent on a hunt for clues. Also with Janet Decker, Lauryn McCardell, Ethan Pogue, Jae Huff, and Tina Gallo. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Face Off 8: Embrace of Light (NR) This Vietnamese drama stars Yuno Bigboi as a young man who defies his father’s wishes to pursue his dream of becoming a dancer. Also with Kim Phuong, Ho Dong Quan, Nsut Tuyet Thu, Anh Tu, and Long Dep Trai. (Opens Friday)
The History of Sound (R) Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor star in this historical drama as a gay couple traveling rural America during World War I and recording folk music. Also with Chris Cooper, Emily Bergl, Raphael Sbarge, Molly Price, and Emma Canning. (Opens Friday)
In Whose Name? (R) Nico Ballesteros’ documentary follows Kanye West through his years of mental struggles. (Opens Friday)
Jolly LLB 3 (NR) Akshay Kumar and Huma Qureshi reprise their roles in this third installment of the Indian comedy series about lawyers. Also with Arshad Warsi, Saurabh Shukla, Amrita Rao, Seema Biswas, and Gajraj Rao. (Opens Friday)
London Calling (R) Josh Duhamel stars in this thriller as a hitman who flees the U.K. after a job gone wrong. Also with Jeremy Ray Taylor, Rick Hoffman, Arnold Vosloo, Neil Sandilands, Brandon Auret, and Aidan Gillen. (Opens Friday)
Megadoc (NR) Mike Figgis’ documentary looks behind the scenes of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis. Also with Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Giancarlo Esposito, Chloe Fineman, Laurence Fishburne, Dustin Hoffman, and George Lucas. (Opens Friday)
An Officer and a Spy (NR) Roman Polanski’s historical drama stars Louis Garrel as Alfred Dreyfus, the real-life French Jewish military officer wrongly convicted of treason. Also with Jean Dujardin, Pierre Poirot, Stefan Godin, Wladimir Yordanoff, Mathieu Amalric, Denis Podalydès, Laurent Stocker, Bruno Raffaelli, Melvil Poupaud, Vincent Perez, Luca Barbareschi, and Emmanuelle Seigner. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Prisoner of War (R) Scott Adkins stars as a British POW during World War II who’s forced to fight by his Japanese captors. Also with Peter Shinkoda, Donald Cerrone, Michael Copon, Gary Cairns, Gabbi Garcia, and Masanori Mimoto. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Queen of Manhattan (NR) Vivian Lamolli stars in this biography of 1980s porn star Vanessa del Rio. Also with Esai Morales, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Shane West, David Proval, Rainey Qualley, Tori Black, Joshua Malina, and Dita Von Teese. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
The Senior (PG) Michael Chiklis stars in this film based on the life story of Michael Flynt, who returned to playing college football decades after being kicked off his team. Also with Mary Stuart Masterson, James Badge Dale, Brandon Flynn, Corey Knight, Chris Becerra, Shawn Patrick Clifford, and Rob Corddry. (Opens Friday)
731 (NR) This Chinese historical drama stars Jiang Wu as a man caught up in Japanese medical experiments on prisoners of war during World War II. Also with Wang Zhiwen, Li Naiwen, Sun Qian, Feng Wenjuan, Lin Ziye, Zhang Qi, and Irene Wan. (Opens Friday)
Steve (R) Cillian Murphy stars in this drama as the headmaster of a reform school fighting for his institution’s survival. Also with Tracey Ullman, Jay Lycurgo, Roger Allam, Little Simz, Joshua Barry, and Emily Watson. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Vash: Level 2 (NR) Hitu Kanodia reprises her role in this sequel to the 2023 Indian horror film as she once again does battle with the demon who once possessed her. Also with Janki Bodiwala, Hiten Kumar, Monal Gajjar, and Vishwa Rawal. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Veera Chandrahasa (NR) Shithil Shetty stars in this Kannada-language film about an orphan who is targeted for murder by a royal family who fears a prophecy about him. Also with Nagashree G.S., Prasanna Shetigar Mandarti, Uday Kadabaal, Ravindra Devadiga, and Shiva Rajkumar. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Waltzing With Brando (NR) This dramedy stars Billy Zane as Marlon Brando, who hires an engineer (Jon Heder) to build an ecological retreat in Tahiti in 1969. Also with Camille Razat, Alaina Huffman, George Psarras, and Rob Corddry. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Xeno (PG-13) This science-fiction film stars Lulu Wilson as a teenager who befriends an alien who crash-lands near her house. Also with Wrenn Schmidt, Paul Schneider, Josh Cooke, Mike Wolfe, and Omari Hardwick. (Opens Friday)
NOW PLAYING
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.
The Baltimorons (R) Modestly charming comedy stars Michael Strassner as a suicidal Baltimore man who accidentally on purpose breaks his tooth to avoid spending Christmas with his girlfriend’s family. Instead, he spends it with a dentist (Liz Larsen) who is recovering from a brutal divorce. The Baltimore-based lead actors acquit themselves well here and writer-director Jay Duplass does a fair job of making all this go down easily. If there had been a bit more substance to the script, this might have been a genuine treasure. Also with Olivia Luccardi, Brian Mendes, Rob Phoenix, Jessie Cohen, and Drew Limon.
Caught Stealing (R) Darren Aronofsky without the horror-movie trappings, which turns out to be less interesting. Adapted from Charlie Huston’s novel, this crime thriller set in 1998 stars Austin Butler as a wrecked baseball phenom-turned-New York bartender who becomes caught up in his next-door neighbor’s criminal activities. The characters’ stupidity and machismo result in a much higher body count than there should be, and Aronofsky does it neatly enough, but the results feel flimsy. The only thing keeping the movie from forgettability is Butler’s performance as a drunk who hasn’t faced the defining trauma of his life. He holds down the center of this movie despite all the star power around him. Also with Regina King, Zoë Kravitz, Vincent D’Onofrio, Liev Schreiber, Matt Smith, Bad Bunny, Action Bronson, Nikita Kukushkin, Yuri Kolokolnikov, Griffin Dunne, D’Pharoah Woon-a-Tai, Carol Kane, and an uncredited Laura Dern.
The Conjuring: Last Rites (R) Ed and Lorraine Warren finally retire, and it’s at least two movies too late. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga take their last turn as the paranormal investigating couple, looking into a haunted mirror in Pennsylvania. Or at least that’s what’s supposed to happen, but our investigators take forever to actually get to the site. The movie wastes so much time on their backstory, as well as their adult daughter (Mia Tomlinson) getting married and having her own psychic visions. That doesn’t work, and neither does the scary stuff. Also with Orion Smith, Madison Lawlor, Ben Hardy, Steve Coulter, Beau Gadsdon, Kila Lord Cassidy, Elliot Cowan, Rebecca Calder, Peter Wight, Madison Wolfe, Frances O’Connor, Mackenzie Foy, Lili Taylor, and an uncredited James Wan.
Demon Slayer — Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Infinity Castle (R) The latest installment of the anime saga has a new look and the same issues. The demon Muzan Kibutsuji (voiced by Toshihiko Seki and Greg Chun) lures the demon slayers into his castle, an impressive looking, Christopher Nolan-influenced fortress where floors and walls are constantly shifting and the crevices between dimensions peek through. This would be a great backdrop for a thriller with horror elements, but as with too many of these adventures, the fight sequences are interrupted by gauzy and overly lengthy flashbacks. Anime fans will be used to this, but this squanders a chance to rope in newcomers to the epic. Additional voices by Natsuki Hanae, Zach Aguilar, Akari Kitō, Abby Trott, Hiro Shimono, Aleks Le, Yoshitugu Matsuoka, Bryce Papenbrook, Reina Ueda, Brianna Knickerbocker, Yuichi Nakamura, and Channing Tatum.
Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale (PG) Just as with the other movies in this series, this one tries to squeeze a whole season’s worth of drama into feature length, and the result feels rushed. Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) becomes a social pariah after her divorce becomes public, so her sister (Laura Carmichael) decides to rehabilitate her reputation by throwing a party with guest of honor Noel Coward (Arty Froushan). That would have been enough for a movie, but these filmmakers can’t leave that alone, so we get Daisy (Sophie McShera) taking over the kitchen and an American con artist (Alessandro Nivola) bilking the family out of its money and Lord Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) being reluctant to hand over control of the estate. Instead of the series pulling out the stops, it just feels like so much padding. More dramatic fireworks would have been better. Also with Jim Carter, Penelope Wilton, Dominic West, Elizabeth McGovern, Joely Richardson, Phyllis Logan, Allen Leech, Michael Fox, Robert James-Collier, Brendan Coyle, Kevin Doyle, Simon Russell Beale, Joanne Froggatt, Harry Hadden-Paton, and Paul Giamatti.
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.
Hamilton (PG) A spike of adrenalin to the heart. Thomas Kail’s concert film of the Broadway musical came out on streaming during the pandemic, and now it’s on big screens. Lin-Manuel Miranda stars as Alexander Hamilton, and his galvanizing performance as the rapping Founding Father is as enjoyable as the endless inventiveness of his songs, which finally brought hip-hop to Broadway. The energy somehow does not flag over the film’s 160 minutes, and the play reframes the story of our nation’s birth for a new era. Also with Leslie Odom Jr., Phillipa Soo, Daveed Diggs, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Christopher Jackson, Anthony Ramos, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Ariana DeBose, Okieriete Onaodowan, and Jonathan Groff.
Light of the World (PG) This animated film tells the story of Jesus (voiced by Ian Hanlin) from the viewpoint of John (voiced by Benjamin Jacobson). Additional voices by David Kaye, Jesse Inocalla, Sam Darkoh, Ceara Morgana, Dylan Leonard, Mark Oliver, and Vincent Tong.
Little Hearts (NR) This Malayalam-language romantic comedy stars Shane Nigam as a man trying to handle romance while managing his family’s cardamom plantation. Also with Baburaj, Mahima Nambiar, Shine Tom Chacko, Jaffer Idukki, and Aima Rosmy Sebastian.
The Long Walk (R) Stephen King’s ageless wonder of a novel becomes a powerfully tragic film. Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson play two young men in a dystopian future America who enter a contest where 50 males walk along a predetermined highway route and are executed when they can walk no more, with the last kid walking receiving a fortune. The most Hunger Games-ian of King’s books is adapted by Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence, who follows the author’s relentless focus on what a forced march like this does to the human body. Amid a landscape of cruelty inflicted on young men, the friendship that forms between the two main characters (who still know that one of them is destined to wind up dead) shines like a beacon of humanity. Their performances turn this into nothing less than this generation’s The Shawshank Redemption. Also with Judy Greer, Ben Wang, Charlie Plummer, Tut Nyuot, Garrett Wareing, Joshua Odjick, Jordan Gonzalez, Roman Griffin Davis, Josh Hamilton, and Mark Hamill.
Mirai (NR) Teja Sajja stars in this Telugu-language film as a warrior safeguarding a holy relic that can turn anyone into a superhero. Also with Manoj Kumar Manchu, Ritika Nayak, Shriya Saran, Jayaram, Tanja Keller, and Jagapathi Babu.
The Roses (R) Everyone is just horrible in this warmed over remake of The War of the Roses. Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman star as a British couple living in America whose marriage comes apart when she becomes an internationally famous chef while he becomes an architect whom no one will hire. The British stars are alert enough to suggest that they don’t really want to be at each other’s throats, and there’s a fascinating subplot with their American friends (Andy Samberg and Kate McKinnon) who are rampantly cheating on each other and seriously messed up in the head. Still, the British politesse in this story only seems to dampen things down instead of making everything funnier. The movie raises laughs in fits and starts, but never truly finds a groove. Also with Ncuti Gatwa, Sunita Mani, Zoë Chao, Jamie Demetriou, and Allison Janney.
Spinal Tap II: The End Continues (R) Eesh. The all-time great 1984 comedy receives this sequel that mostly shows that the band should have stayed broken up. Documentarian Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner) comes back to see the members of Spinal Tap (Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer) play a farewell concert in New Orleans, with Elton John and Paul McCartney dropping in to jam with the band. Chris Addison manages to outshine the old-timers as a tone-deaf A&R guy who seriously suggests that one of the band members die during the concert to ensure its future, but the core four’s comic invention isn’t enough to sustain the bits anymore, and neither the celebrity cameos nor the ones from the original film’s surviving cast members can make up for it. Also with June Chadwick, Fran Drescher, John Michael Higgins, Paul Shaffer, Valerie Franco, Kerry Godliman, Don Lake, Jason “Wee Man” Acuna, Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Lars Ulrich, Chad Smith, and Questlove.
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.
Triumph of the Heart (NR) Marcin Kwasny stars in this Polish film about St. Maximilian Kolbe, the priest and radio operator who martyred himself in a Nazi concentration camp. Also with Rowan Polonski, Christopher Sherwood, Sharon Oliphant, Noah Archibald, Jan Bogdaniuk, Lauren Cimorelli, and Anthony D’Ambrosio.
Twinless (R) James Sweeney directs, writes, and co-stars in this drama as a man who meets a new friend (Dylan O’Brien) in a support group for people who have lost identical twins. He’s harboring the dark secret that he never had a brother of any kind, but invented one because he had been dating his friend’s gay twin when he died. He then grows resentful when his straight friend starts seeing a woman who works with him (Aisling Franciosi). Sweeney does have an eye for striking visuals and O’Brien does well switching between the gay twin and the straight one, but the filmmaker doesn’t seem to know where to go with this story. Sweeney is a talent who might be a major one, but he needs to work his plots out more fully. Also with Tasha Smith, François Arnaud, Chris Perfetti, and Katie Findlay.
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
The Man in My Basement (R) Adapted from Walter Mosley’s novel, this thriller stars Corey Hawkins as a cash-strapped homeowner who accepts an offer from a stranger (Willem Dafoe) to rent his basement. Also with Jonathan Ajayi, Anna Diop, Brian Bovell, Mark Arnold, and Tamara Lawrence.
Tin Soldier (NR) Scott Eastwood stars in this thriller as an ex-soldier who infiltrates a religious cult that is targeting other ex-soldiers. Also with Jamie Foxx, Nora Arnezeder, John Leguizamo, Rita Ora, Shamier Anderson, Joey Bicicchi, and Robert De Niro.
Traumatika (NR) This horror film stars Ranen Navat as a girl who sees her mother (Rebekah Kennedy) become possessed by a demon. Also with Emily Goss, AJ Bowen, Sean O’Bryan, Susan Gayle Watts, and Sean Whalen.
