OPENING
Akhanda 2: Thaandavam (NR) The sequel to the 2021 hit stars Nandamuri Balakrishna as the warrior who battles to restore peace to the natural world. Also with Samyuktha, Aadhi Pinisetty, Harshaali Malhotra, Kabir Duhan Singh, Saswata Chatterjee, and Ronson Vincent. (Opens Friday)
Bachelor Santa (NR) This Christmas film stars Ella Cannon as a housewife who needs help from Santa Claus (Jon W. Sparks) to win a baking contest. Also with Jason Tobias, Grace Patterson, Ellie Gullo, and Andreas Riter. (Opens Friday at Look Cinemas Bedford)
Dhurandhar (NR) Ranveer Singh stars in this crime thriller as a secret agent who infiltrates India’s underworld. Also with Sanjay Dutt, Akshaye Khanna, R. Madhavan, Arjun Rampal, and Krystle D’Souza. (Opens Friday)
Fackham Hall (R) This parody of Downton Abbey stars Damian Lewis and Katherine Waterston as an English lord and lady hosting a wedding at their manor. Also with Thomasin McKenzie, Tom Felton, Emma Laird, Ben Radcliffe, Tom Goodman-Hill, Lily Knight, and Anna Maxwell Martin. (Opens Friday)
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (PG-13) The sequel to the 2023 horror film stars Josh Hutcherson as a man who must battle the animatronic robots again. Also with Elizabeth Lail, Piper Rubio, Wayne Knight, Han Soto, Teo Briones, Mckenna Grace, Skeet Ulrich, and Matthew Lillard. (Opens Friday)
Frontier Crucible (R) Armie Hammer stars in this Western as a soldier trying to keep a group of travelers alive in the Arizona desert in the 1870s. Also with Thomas Jane, Mary Stickley, Myles Clohessy, Zane Holtz, Joshua Odjick, and William H. Macy. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Hijacked (NR) This Vietnamese thriller is about a group of hijackers who take a commercial flight hostage. Starring Duy Bao Dinh Dao, Ma Ran Do, Thai Hoa, Vo Dien Gia Huy, and Kaity Nguyen. (Opens Friday)
Hunting Season (R) This thriller stars Mel Gibson as a reclusive survivalist who rescues a woman (Shelley Honig) from a group of criminals. Also with Jordi Mollà, A.J. Buckley, Sofia Hublitz, Rob Moran, Rocky Myers, and James DuMont. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution (R) The prelude to Season 3 of the anime series is about a demon hunter (voiced by Yūichi Nakamura) who fights to protect the citizens of Tokyo from an evil that strikes on Halloween. Additional voices by Kōji Yusa, Jun’ichi Suwabe, Jun’ya Enoki, Daisuke Namikawa, and Megumi Ogata. (Opens Friday)
Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair (R) Quentin Tarantino said he broke the original saga into two films because a 4½-hour revenge thriller was too self-indulgent. You can judge whether he was right for yourself. Uma Thurman gives the performance of her career as the blood-spattered bride who aims to kill all the crime bosses (Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox, Daryl Hannah, David Carradine, and the late Michael Madsen) who wronged her. Fight choreographer Yuen Wo-Ping (The Matrix, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and the performers make every fight sequence here into a highlight, and nothing tops the Bride’s fight in the Japanese nightclub against the Crazy 88. The latter sequence is shown entirely in color, which is among a few minor changes from the original films. Also with Sonny Chiba, Chiaki Kuriyama, Gordon Liu, Julie Dreyfus, Michael Parks, James Parks, Michael Bowen, Jonathan Loughran, Jun Kunimura, Sid Haig, and Perla Haney-Jardine. (Opens Friday)
100 Nights of Hero (R) Why doesn’t this work better? Adapted from Isabel Greenberg’s graphic novel, this fairy-tale deconstruction stars Maika Monroe as an aristocrat who’s left alone at her castle with a handsome man (Nicholas Galitzine) who has wagered her husband (Amir El-Masry) that he can take her virginity. However, she’s more attracted to her maid (Emma Corrin) who knows how to tell a good story that puts him off and entertains her. The Italian Renaissance look of the costumes and the interiors is quite striking, yet first-time writer-director Julia Jackman can’t generate any pace. The maid’s subversive stories don’t comment meaningfully on the larger tale, and the attempts at humor fall flat. As good-looking as these actors are, the sexual tension remains theoretical at best. This is a pageant, not a movie. Also with Charli XCX, Richard E. Grant, Safia Oakley-Green, Olivia D’Lima, Varada Sethu, Jeff Mirza, and Felicity Jones. (Opens Friday)
Pennu Case (NR) This Malayalam-language comedy stars Nikhila Vimal as a con artist who scams couples who are about to get married. Also with Hakkim Shajahan, Aju Varghese, Ramesh Pisharody, Sanju Shanichen, Kiran Peetharamban, and Irshad. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Rebuilding (PG) Josh O’Connor stars in this drama as an American rancher who temporarily stays in a FEMA camp after losing his ranch to a wildfire. Also with Meghann Fahy, Lily LaTorre, Callie Reis, and Amy Madigan. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
NOW PLAYING
Andhra King Taluka (NR) This Indian comedy stars Ram Pothineni as a man whose life is devoted to his fandom for a movie star (Upendra). Also with Bhagyashri Borse, Rao Ramesh, Murali Sharma, Rajeev Kanakata, and VTV Ganesh.
Bugonia (R) Emma Stone crushes it yet again in this remake of the Korean movie Save the Green Planet! She portrays a pharmaceutical CEO kidnapped by a conspiracy theorist (Jesse Plemons) who’s convinced that she’s actually a space alien disguised as a human. Despite director Yorgos Lanthimos’ well-earned reputation for weirdness, this offers the old-fashioned pleasures of a kidnapping thriller for a good long while, as the captive proves for weaknesses in her angry and unstable captor. Plemons is really good as a guy who is not just another nutcase and is struggling to keep it together, but he’s still swamped by Stone as a woman who’s willing to say anything that she thinks her captor might want to hear and eventually seizes control of the situation in unforgettable fashion. Also with Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias, and Alicia Silverstone.
Chainsaw Man — The Movie: Reze Arc (R) Yet another big-screen anime adaptation that gives nothing to the newcomers who wander in. The half-human who can turn into a chainsaw demon (voiced by Kikunosuke Toya in the original Japanese-language version and Ryan Colt Levy in the English-dubbed version) falls in love with a cafe waitress (voiced by Reina Ueda and Alexis Tipton) before realizing that she isn’t what she seems. There is some visual creativity in the villain traveling on the shock waves of bombs that she makes herself, but the whole affair is just loud noises and whips of color that you can get from hundreds of other anime adventures. Additional voices by Tomori Kusunoki, Suzie Yeung, Shôgo Sakata, Reagan Murdock, Farouz Ai, Sarah Wiedenheft, Natsuki Hanae, Derick Snow, Yuya Uchida, Josh Bangle, Eri Kitamura, and Reshel Mae.
Eternity (PG-13) Diverting. An octogenarian couple (Barry Primus and Betty Buckley) pass on in the same week and are reincarnated as their younger selves (Miles Teller and Elizabeth Olsen) in the next world, only for her to discover that her first husband (Callum Turner) has spent the last 67 years waiting for her. Irish filmmaker David Freyne (The Cured) scores a bunch of good laughs depicting the afterlife as a mid-grade convention center and hotel where people have one week to decide where they want to spend the rest of eternity, and he almost pulls this off because Teller and especially Olsen play the reality of the conceit for all it’s worth. Unfortunately, the movie unravels in its last third when the wife has to make her choice. It’s clearly the work of a talented filmmaker who will go on to make something better. Also with Da’Vine Joy Randolph, John Early, Danny Mac, Christie Burke, and Olga Merediz.
Gustaak Ishq (NR) Vijay Varma stars in this Indian romance as an aspiring writer who’s mentored by a great poet (Naseeruddin Shah). Also with Fatima Sana Shaikh, Sharib Hashmi, and Rohan Verma.
Now You See Me: Now You Don’t (PG-13) Entertaining if you don’t think about it too much. The magicians from the original (Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, and Woody Harrelson) come out of retirement and reunite to mentor three younger illusionists (Ariana Greenblatt, Dominic Sessa, and Justice Smith) who are targeting a South African diamond mogul and money launderer (Rosamund Pike). The younger cast are personable enough to inject some new energy into the series, and director Ruben Fleischer keeps things moving so that you don’t notice the holes in the plot. If they want to hand off this series to the younger generation, that would be just fine. Also with Lizzy Caplan, Andrew Santino, Thabang Molaba, Morgan Freeman, and an uncredited Mark Ruffalo.
Nuremberg (PG-13) This logy and fitfully interesting historical drama is based on the story of Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek), the U.S. Army psychiatrist who interviewed Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe) in prison prior to his 1946 trial for war crimes. Crowe hits the right notes as a charming villain who thinks he can talk his way out of his predicament, and there’s some interesting stuff on the logistics of conducting an unprecedented legal proceeding. Even so, Malek doesn’t capture the tragic dimension of a shrink who thinks he can diagnose evil, and the stacked supporting cast doesn’t add as much as it should. Also with Michael Shannon, Colin Hanks, Leo Woodall, Wrenn Schmidt, Lotte Verbeek, Andreas Pletschmann, Mark O’Brien, John Slattery, and Richard E. Grant.
Predator: Badlands (PG-13) Not as strong as Dan Trachtenberg’s last two movies in the Predator series, but the first one that’s available in multiplexes is worth seeing on the big screen. The movie is told from the Predator’s point of view, as an outcast from his clan (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) travels to an incredibly dangerous planet and teams up with a dismembered droid (Elle Fanning) to hunt a legendary beast that hasn’t been killed. The movie gives us all manner of fanciful animal and plant life without all the fanfare of the Avatar or Fantastic Beasts movies, and Fanning is gleefully annoying as the sidekick who knows more about the planet than the Predator does. Maybe the film could use some more world-building and character work, but Trachtenberg has done yeoman work to revive a franchise that had been effectively dead since the 1990s. Also with Michael Homik, Reuben de Jong, and Cameron Brown.
Regretting You (PG-13) Grapevine’s own Mckenna Grace is the only reason to watch this weeper based on Colleen Hoover’s novel. She portrays a high-school theater kid in North Carolina whose father (Scott Eastwood) and mother’s sister (Willa Fitzgerald) are killed in the same car accident, and her mother (Allison Williams) tries to keep the knowledge from her that the two were having an affair. The dramatic messiness of this situation gets sanded over at every turn by director Josh Boone and by the decorating-magazine interiors that it all plays out in. The only thing that keeps this from inducing sleep is the spiky turn by Grace as a girl who’s looking at colleges while finding first love with a movie nerd (Mason Thames) in her class. Her performance does North Texas proud. Also with Dave Franco, Sam Morelos, Ethan Costanilla, and Clancy Brown. (Opens Friday)
Rental Family (PG) Brendan Fraser’s performance does a great deal to keep this Japanese drama from collapsing. He stars as an American actor in Tokyo who gets on with a theatrical agency that sends him out into the real world to impersonate people in real life for the benefit of unsuspecting people, so he poses as the father of a mixed-race schoolgirl (Shannon Gorman) and a film journalist interviewing a legendary actor (Akira Emoto) who’s suffering from dementia. Director/co-writer Hikari manages to keep the pathos from becoming too overbearing and inserts some bits like a toothpaste commercial that take advantage of Fraser’s comedy skills. This is uncannily like Lost in Translation, except the main character has been immersed in Japanese culture. Also with Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto, Shohei Uno, Bun Kimura, Misato Morita, Shino Shinozaki, and Helen Sadler.
The Running Man (R) Better than One Battle After Another? I don’t know, but this science-fiction thriller adapted from Stephen King’s novel is certainly funnier. Glen Powell portrays a blacklisted worker who’s persuaded to compete on a game show where he’ll receive a huge cash prize if he can survive being hunted to the death by everyone in America. Director Edgar Wright (Baby Driver) has a taste for mischief and cleverness that acts as a leavening agent for this movie, but he can’t quite square its “fight the power” message with offering up creative violence for mass entertainment just the way the game show does. Then again, the humor, story, and characters in this make it a great time, and Powell does a nuanced turn as someone who becomes radicalized by the people he meets. Also with Josh Brolin, Colman Domingo, Michael Cera, Jayme Lawson, Lee Pace, Sean Hayes, Emilia Jones, Katy O’Brian, Karl Glusman, Martin Herlihy, and William H. Macy.
Sarah’s Oil (PG) This Christian drama at least doesn’t try to whitewash the racial violence in Oklahoma in the early 1900s. It tells the true story of Sarah Rector (Naya Desir-Johnson), an 11-year-old Black girl who inherited a plot of land in the Sooner State and found it was rich in oil because first God and then the geologists told her it was. The movie does go over white men’s efforts to take her land by legal means and by force, and it doesn’t sugarcoat the role of the Texas wildcatter (Zachary Levi) who gets roped into a legal attempt to steal the land. Unfortunately, the acting by Desir-Johnson and Levi are not nearly up to the standard needed to lift this movie above the dross of forgettable religious dramas. Also with Sonequa Martin-Green, Mel Rodriguez, Kenric Green, Bridget Regan, Jonathan Lipnicki, and Garret Dillahunt.
Sentimental Value (R) Joachim Trier stakes a pretty fair claim to being Norway’s greatest ever film director with this family show-business drama. Renate Reinsve portrays a theater and TV actress who turns down an offer from her world-famous filmmaker father (Stellan Skarsgård) to act the lead in his new movie, then watches him hand the part to an A-list Hollywood star (Elle Fanning). Reinsve, who has a track record of playing messy women in Trier’s movies, creates a great sense of presence of this deeply troubled creative person, and she’s matched by the rest of the cast, particularly Skarsgård as a self-centered artist who seems only able to relate to his kids when he’s directing them on a set. Trier’s stylistic flourishes are out of place here, as the film relies on the old-fashioned virtues of acting and writing, and pays moving tribute to the power of art to heal a family’s wounds. Also with Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Anders Danielsen Lie, Lena Endre, Jesper Christensen, Andreas Stoltenburg Granerud, Øyvind Hesjedahl Loven, Lars Väringer, and Cory Michael Smith.
Sisu: Road to Revenge (R) Instead of Nazis, the badass Finnish commando (Jorma Tommila) fights Soviets in this sequel to the 2023 action-thriller after the Soviet officer (Stephen Lang) who killed his family is sent after him to prevent him from taking revenge. Our hero dismantles his log cabin and doghouse in Soviet-controlled Karelia, so he spends the entire movie driving a heavy truck loaded with wooden logs and carrying a Bedlington terrier in the passenger seat. From there he even manages to take down two dive bombers. The film has nothing on its mind other than having our hero shoot and drive his way through enough Red Army soldiers to invade the Eastern bloc. As long as you don’t pay too much for your ticket, this is suitable entertainment. Also with Richard Brake.
Tere Ishk Mein (NR) This Indian romance stars Dhanush, Kriti Sanon, Prakash Raj, Maahir Mohiuddin, Sushil Dahiya, and Redin Kingsley.
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (R) Daniel Craig’s third outing as Benoit Blanc finds a fascinating religious angle. The great detective investigates the murder of a fire-breathing Catholic monsignor (Josh Brolin) that appears to be physically impossible, and in clearing the name of the priest who’s the main suspect (Josh O’Connor), he gains a newfound appreciation for religious faith and what it can do. O’Connor is unfortunately not up to portraying a man whose violent past may not be in the past, but writer-director Rian Johnson devotes a great deal to his daily struggle to do good and keep his Christian faith. We can overlook the somewhat labored ending in light of the cast of supporting characters that Johnson dreams up and the tasty satire of right-wing social-media influencers. Also with Glenn Close, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Mila Kunis, Thomas Haden Church, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack, Annie Hamilton, Noah Segan, and Jeffrey Wright.
Wicked: For Good (PG) Not so good as a stand-alone movie, but aces as a conclusion to the two-part saga. Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) becomes a fugitive from Oz’ flying monkeys while Glinda (Ariana Grande) finds her popularity being used to prop up the corrupt regime. The whole movie is a case study in good intentions gone awry, as various characters’ attempts to prove themselves backfire disastrously. This back half spotlights Grande as much as the first half did for Erivo, and the pop singer comes through whether she’s betraying her best friend or wresting control of Oz from its rulers. All the show’s best songs were in the first film, and the ones newly written for this movie aren’t up to scratch, but the story of the popular girl learning how to be good is deeply moving. Musical fans now have their own multi-part fantasy series to cherish. Also with Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, Jonathan Bailey, Marissa Bode, Ethan Slater, Bowen Yang, and Bronwyn James. Voices by Peter Dinklage and Colman Domingo.
Zootopia 2 (PG) Not as good as the first one, I’m afraid. Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin and Jason Bateman) have to deal with a new case involving the family of snakes who founded the city and were screwed out of their inheritance by the mammals. Some of the jokes do land like they should, but the metaphors are not as resonant, and the new supporting characters aren’t as well drawn as they were in the original. The fraying partnership between our two cops doesn’t throw up anything new, either. There is a funny subplot with a TV actor stallion (voiced by Patrick Warburton) becoming Zootopia’s new mayor, but it’s not enough to recommend the film. Additional voices by Ke Huy Quan, Fortune Feimster, Andy Samberg, David Strathairn, Quinta Brunson, Danny Trejo, Nate Torrence, Don Lake, Bonnie Hunt, CM Punk, Stephanie Beatriz, Alan Tudyk, Macaulay Culkin, Brenda Song, Tiny Lister Jr., John Leguizamo, Tommy Chong, Auli’i Cravalho, Tig Notaro, Ed Sheeran, Cecily Strong, June Squibb, Michael J. Fox, Josh Gad, Idris Elba, and Jenny Slate.
Dallas Exclusives
Reverence (R) This thriller stars Adam Hampton as a traumatized veteran whose teenage daughter disappears. Also with Ryan Francis, Connie Franklin, Whit Kunschik, Gattlin Griffith, Mary Buss, and Kenny Pitts.
