OPENING
Aa Bata Aama (NR) This Nepalese drama stars Paul Shah as a man pondering a move out of the country for his career. Also with Pradeep Thawat and Bipana Thapa. (Opens Friday)
Arco (PG) This French Oscar nominee for Best Animated Feature manages to create a look for itself that is fundamentally unlike its counterparts from either Hollywood or Japan. This would be enough to recommend it, but it also has a decently crafted story about a near-future girl (voiced by Romy Fay) who receives a visit from a boy from 500 years in the future (voiced by Juliano Valdi) who loses the rainbow cloak that allows him to travel through time. Director Ugo Bienvenu gives the movie an appropriately rainbow-colored look while also including an environmental message that adults can appreciate. It has no chance of winning that Oscar, but it’s interesting on its own. Additional voices by Natalie Portman, Will Ferrell, Andy Samberg, America Ferrera, Flea, and Mark Ruffalo. (Opens Friday)
Back to the Past (NR) This Chinese science-fiction film stars Michael Kiu Wai Miu as a present-day man who travels back in time to the Qin Dynasty to overthrow the emperor (Raymond Lam). Also with Louis Koo, Jessica Hester Hsuan, Sonija Kwok, Tang Lai-Ming, and Andrew Tsun-Ting Chan. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
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. (Re-opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Fish, Fists, and Ambergris (NR) This Vietnamese action thriller stars Quang Tuãn and Ma Ran Đô as brothers who must recover a stolen relic from their village. Also with Nguyên Thảo, Doãn Quốc Đam, Trầm Minh Hoàng, Thanh Nam, and Đặng Trung Tuấn. (Opens Friday)
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. (Re-opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Iron Lung (R) Mark Fischbach a.k.a. Markiplier writes, directs, stars in, and independently releases this science-fiction horror film about a prisoner who must explore an ocean of blood on an alien planet. Also with Troy Baker, Elsie Lovelock, Caroline Kaplan, Elle LaMont, and Seán McLoughlin. (Opens Friday)
Islands (R) This psychological thriller stars Sam Riley as a washed-up tennis pro at an island resort who finds himself drawn to a tourist couple (Stacy Martin and Jack Farthing). Also with Dylan Torrell, Fatima Adoum, Bruna Cusí, Agnes Lindström Bolmgren, and Ramiro Blas. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Mardaani 3 (NR) Rani Mukerji reprises her role in this third installment of the Indian police thriller series. Also with Janki Bodiwala, Mallika Prasad, and MIkhail Yawalkar. (Opens Friday)
Melania (PG) Ooh, bad timing! Brett Ratner’s documentary follows Melania Trump in the days before the 2024 presidential election. (Opens Friday)
Moses the Black (NR) This Christian crime film stars Quavo as a modern-day Chicago gangster who’s inspired by the story of a real-life 4th-century Ethiopian saint. Also with Chukwudi Iwuji, Wiz Khalifa, Corey Hendrix, Cliff Chamberlain, Deontay Wilder, and Omar Epps. (Opens Friday)
Om Shanti Shanti Shantihi (NR) This Telugu-language drama stars Eesha Rebba as a woman whose husband becomes violent (Tharun Bhacker Dhaassyam) becomes violent when she tries to leave. Also with Brahmaji. (Opens Friday at Cinemark Tinseltown Grapevine)
A Private Life (R) Jodie Foster stars in this thriller as an American psychiatrist in Paris who becomes convinced that a deceased patient’s death was murder. Also with Daniel Auteuil, Mathieu Amalric, Virginie Efira, Vincent Lacoste, Luàna Bajrami, Sophie Guillemin, Aurore Clément, Park Ji-min, Irène Jacob, and Frederick Wiseman. (Opens Friday)
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. (Re-opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Shelter (R) Jason Statham stars in this thriller as a reclusive former soldier who must protect a young girl (Bodhi Rae Breathnach) when the British government sends killers to his remote Scottish island. Also with Naomi Ackie, Harriet Walter, Daniel Mays, and Bill Nighy. (Opens Friday)
Sound of Falling (NR) Mascha Schilinski’s film follows four generations of women experiencing trauma while living in the same house in Germany. Starring Susanne Wuest, Hanna Heckt, Lena Urzendowsky, Luise Heyer, Laeni Geiseler, Lea Drinda, and Florian Geißelmann. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Tafiti: Across the Desert (PG) This German animated film is about an African meerkat who needs a bush pig’s help to make a dangerous journey. Voices by Steve Hudson, Jeremiah Costello, Kathleen Renish, Mike McAlpine, and Mark Rossman. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Trimukha (NR) This Indian supernatural thriller is about a police detective (Sunny Leone) and a private eye (Yogesh Kalle) embarked on parallel criminal and paranormal investigations. Also with Aditya Srivastava, Akriti Agarwala, Rajendran, Ashu Reddy, Ravi Prakash, Jeeva, Surya Kumar Bhagvandas, and Praveen. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Worldbreaker (R) Luke Evans and Milla Jovovich star in this horror film as a couple who shelter on a remote island after a zombie apocalypse. Also with Billie Boullet, Mila Harris, Chris Finlayson, and Kevin Glynn. (Opens Friday)
NOW PLAYING
Anaconda (PG-13) B- if you haven’t seen the original, B if you have. Paul Rudd portrays a struggling Hollywood actor who tells his friends back in Buffalo that he has bought the rights to the legendarily bad 1997 movie and arranges for all of them to travel to the Amazon to film a remake. Director/co-writer Tom Gormican (The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent) has some fun at the expense of the original, and Jack Black as the remake’s director makes this into a better and funnier comedy than either The Minecraft Movie or any of the Jumanji sequels. The star of the Oscar-winning I’m Still Here, Selton Mello plays a riverboat captain and proves to have a winning sense of humor in English. Also with Thandiwe Newton, Steve Zahn, Daniela Melchior, Ione Skye, John Billingsley, Ice Cube, and an uncredited Jennifer Lopez.
Avatar: Fire and Ash (PG-13) Actually more interesting than the first two films, though that doesn’t make this good. Human being Spider (Jack Champion) gains the ability to breathe Pandora’s air, which only creates more problems because it makes him more attractive to the humans as a test subject. The best thing the series could do is kill off both Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Col. Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who both were wearing out their welcome even before this movie. While this film is beset by many of the same issues as its predecessors, it at least introduces us to a new Na’vi clan who ally themselves with the humans to get their hands on Earth weapons. They make more interesting villains than any this franchise has had before, and their presence lets us know that the Na’vi are not just innocent victims. A better writer than James Cameron might make this world interesting yet. Also with Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Oona Chaplin, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, Brendan Cowell, Giovanni Ribisi, Jemaine Clement, David Thewlis, and Kate Winslet.
Border 2 (NR) The sequel to the 1997 blockbuster tells the stories of different people at the front lines of the 1971 Indo-Pak War. Starring Sunny Deol, Varun Dhawan, Diljit Dosanjh, Ahan Shetty, Mona Singh, Sonam Bajwa, Medha Rana, Anya Singh, Akshaye Khanna, Sudesh Berry, and Suniel Shetty.
Clika (R) This drama stars Jay Dee as an aspiring musician who receives a break in his career. Also with Nana Ponceleon, Josh Benitez, James Burbage, Alison Chace, Bourke Floyd, Cory Aycock, and the late Peter Greene.
David (PG) Theoretically, this animated musical should appeal to Jews as well as Christians, but it’s too boilerplate to do that. The Biblical hero (voiced by Brandon Engman as a boy and Phil Wickham as a young man) starts out as a shepherd who’s anointed to be Israel’s next king, which earns him the enmity of King Saul (voiced by Adam Michael Gold). While Saul is depicted properly as a conflicted villain, the computer-generated animation is dull to look at, and the songs by Jonas Myrin are even less interesting to listen to. The movie makes David’s superhuman deeds seem all too ordinary, and the story ends before getting into the messy events of David’s adulthood. Additional voices by Mark Jacobson, Asim Chaudhry, Ashley Boettcher, Mark Whitten, Katie Bernstein, Mick Wingert, Brian Stivale, Lauren Daigle, and Kamran Nikhad.
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (PG-13) Did they throw this together at the last minute? It sure feels that way, and not in a good way. The sequel to the 2023 horror hit has Abby (PIper Rubio) enabling the animatronic animals to leave Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza and wreak havoc on the surrounding town, partly because both her dad (Josh Hutcherson) and his girlfriend (Elizabeth Lail) are too damaged to divulge key pieces of information. At one point there are three sets of the animals wandering about, and still Emma Tammi can’t make any of them scary. The actors give slapdash performances, which is only one reason why the story clanks even louder than the robots do. Also with Mckenna Grace, Wayne Knight, Han Soto, Teo Briones, Freddy Carter, Skeet Ulrich, and Matthew Lillard.
Greenland 2: Migration (PG-13) The apocalypse is a boring place to be in this sequel to the 2020 disaster movie. Gerard Butler and Morena Baccarin star as the parents and scientists who are forced from their underground bunker by an earthquake and set out for a possible safe zone in southern France. The action set pieces are nowhere near as compelling as they were in the original film, mostly because the Earth has already been destroyed. There is actually some decent acting by Baccarin when she finds out that her husband is terminally ill from radiation poisoning, but that isn’t enough to hang this disaster film on. Also with Roman Griffin Davis, Sophie Thompson, Amber Rose Revah, Gordon Alexander, Tommie Earl Jenkins, Trond Fausa Aurvåg, Peter Polycarpou, and William Abadie.
Hamnet (R) Beautifully crafted, occasionally crushing, and based on Maggie O’Farrell’s work of speculative fiction, Chloé Zhao’s film is about William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley) dealing with the death of their 11-year-old son Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe) from the bubonic plague. The film is quite different from O’Farrell’s novel; instead of adopting different characters’ viewpoints and jumping around in time, the movie proceeds in a linear fashion and sticks with Agnes as she raises the children in Stratford while Will goes off to London and catches on with a theater company. Much like Shakespeare in Love, this movie truly takes flight during a production of a Shakespeare play, when Agnes travels to London and sees her husband’s Hamlet as an expression of his grief over their lost son. Great performances by both leads bring this Hamlet to tragic life no matter how many Hamlets you’ve seen. Also with Joe Alwyn, Freya Hannan-Mills, David Wilmot, Bodhi Rae Breathnach, Olivia Lynes, Noah Jupe, and Emily Watson.
The Housemaid (R) Based on Freida McFadden’s best-selling novel, this thriller is a throwback to 1980s psychological thrillers like Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct, but from a female point of view. Sydney Sweeney portrays an ex-convict who takes a job as a live-in maid in a Long Island mansion, only to find her employer (Amanda Seyfried) behaving like such a psycho that it puts her in greater danger than she was in prison. The film ups the book’s violence considerably, which would be great if the acting were better. As it is, Seyfried blows away her co-stars as a wealthy housewife who’s simmering with rage and whose erratic behavior is cagier than it appears. She and Paul Feig’s direction make this about as good an adaptation of the novel as we could have expected. Also with Brandon Sklenar, Michele Morrone, Indiana Elle, Alexandra Seal, and Elizabeth Perkins.
Mana Shankara Varaprasad Garu (NR) Chiranjeevi stars in this Telugu-language thriller as a security officer who must protect his estranged family from a vindictive ex-cop. Also with Nayanthara, Catherine Tresa, Venkatesh Daggubati, Sharat Saxena, and VTV Ganesh.
Marty Supreme (R) Josh Safdie’s first solo effort as a director is better than Uncut Gems. Like that movie, it’s a sports-oriented film about a Jewish man who hustles because his life depends on it, but because this Jewish protagonist (Timothée Chalamet) has a great talent for table tennis, it dries out the movie and keeps it from becoming too heavy. Chalamet is electric and dangerous as a guy who is very far from being a nice Jewish boy, who knocks up his neighbor’s wife (Odessa A’zion) and beds a movie star (Gwyneth Paltrow) while trying to negotiate a sponsorship deal with her husband (Kevin O’Leary). Safdie creates set pieces that give us no time to catch our breath and displays creative approaches to music and the casting of the supporting roles. Still, it’s Chalamet’s performance that sells this, especially at the end, when he finds something other than his sport to focus on. Also with Fran Drescher, Sandra Bernhard, Tyler the Creator, Larry “Ratso” Sloman, Emory Cohen, Luke Manley, Géza Röhrig, Koto Kawaguchi, Pico Iyer, Fred Hechinger, Penn Jillette, Isaac Mizrahi, George Gervin, and Abel Ferrara.
Mercy (PG-13) This science-fiction thriller looks cool but fails on a deeper level. Chris Pratt stars as a homicide cop in a near-future L.A. who’s accused of murdering his wife (Annabelle Wallis) and has 90 minutes to prove his innocence. Director Timur Bekmambetov manages well with a thriller that plays out largely on a screen, and even though Pratt spends most of the film immobilized in a chair, he somehow manages to give a good performance as a relapsed alcoholic who reckons with being a deficient husband and father. The detective plot unfortunately has too many watery developments, and the movie hopelessly scrambles its critique of a police state that’s powered by AI and electronic surveillance. Like most of Bekmambetov’s films, this is all sizzle and far too little steak. Also with Rebecca Ferguson, Kali Reis, Kylie Rogers, Jeff Pierre, Chris Sullivan, Rafi Gavron, Kenneth Choi, and Ross Gosla.
No Other Choice (R) The best movie of 2025 is a gleefully wicked thriller about how capitalism makes killers of us all. Based on Donald E. Westlake’s novel The Ax, this South Korean film stars Lee Byung-hun as a manager fired from his longtime job as a paper manufacturer who takes extreme measures to find new employment, namely murdering all his fellow paper makers who are more qualified than himself. The density of detail is incredible, with all manner of seemingly unrelated subplots tying into the main plot in surprising ways. Strangely, the movie also works as a drama about marital infidelity and a film about alcoholism. Director Park Chan-wook’s scene transitions are neat and tidy as ever, and Lee leans all the way into the ridiculousness of the antihero’s plight. Between Park and his film-school buddy Bong Joon-ho, Korean filmmakers make better movies out of the current economy than anybody. Also with Son Ye-jin, Park Hee-soon, Lee Sung-min, Yeom Hye-ran, Cha Seung-won, Yoo Yeon-seok, Kim Woo-seung, Choi So-yul, and Kim Hyung-mook.
One Battle After Another (R) One of Paul Thomas Anderson’s more purely enjoyable movies stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a former anti-ICE revolutionary who has to save his teenage daughter (Chase Infiniti) from a supersoldier (Sean Penn) who has reason to think the girl is his own biological daughter and kill her to destroy evidence of his sexual preference for Black women. The story is loosely adapted from Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland and set in the present day, which brings out the antic, puckish side of Anderson’s filmmaking. The film has nerve-frying action sequences, including an inventive car chase in the California desert with the cars appearing and disappearing from view because of the hilly terrain. The film also gets great performances from the newcomer Infiniti, DiCaprio as a father who realizes he’s not doing so good as a parent because he’s drunk and stoned all the time, and Penn as a villain brimming with hatred for this girl he has never met. It’s not as tidy as I’d like, but it’s great anyway. Also with Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Alana Haim, Wood Harris, Shayna McHayle, Kevin Tighe, D.W. Moffett, and Tony Goldwyn.
Primate (R) From making movies about killer sharks (the 47 Meters Down films), director Johannes Roberts moves on to a killer chimp. Johnny Sequoyah stars as a college student who returns to her home in Hawaii where her deaf father (Oscar winner Troy Kotsur) is housing a monkey in hopes of training it to communicate with humans. Unfortunately, the chimp contracts rabies and starts preying on our heroine’s friends. Despite some holes in the plot and the theme, the movie is adequate enough for what it sets out to do. For a January release, this is just barely good enough. Also with Jess Alexander, Victoria Wyant, Gia Hunter, Benjamin Cheng, Charlie Mann, and Tienne Simon. (Opens Friday)
Return to Silent Hill (R) Completely incoherent. This movie is supposed to be both a sequel to the 2006 horror movie and an adaptation of the video game Silent Hill 2, but it pulls elements from so many other parts of the video game series’ lore that the plot comes out incomprehensible. Jeremy Irvine portrays an alcoholic who receives a note from his ex (Hannah Emily Anderson) requesting that he come and meet her in her hometown, which is now a ghost town thanks to a pandemic. The monsters from the game engender a WTF feeling instead of frightening you, and the ghost town is rendered in crappy CGI. Director Christophe Gans also helmed the first movie, and he seems unaware of the advances in special effects from the last 20 years. Also with Evie Templeton, Pearse Egan, Eve Macklin, Martine Richards, Nicola Alexis, and Emily Carding.
Sinners (R) Ryan Coogler’s foray into Jordan Peele territory is wild and wildly original, even when it doesn’t make sense. Michael B. Jordan plays identical twins who return from Chicago to their Mississippi hometown in the 1930s to open a blues joint with their cousin (Miles Caton) who happens to be an otherworldly musician. Jordan gives two bracing performances as brothers with different jobs and temperaments, the Mississippi town is more layered than we usually see in Hollywood movies, and there’s a great sequence with the blues musician delivering a song so powerful that it opens a rift in time and space as well as attracting vampires. Coogler winds up with a few too many ideas in his intellectual stew, but it frames Delta blues in a wholly unexpected way and emerges as a worthy vampire movie. What other movie can say that? Also with Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosaku, Li Jun Li, Jack O’Connell, Lola Kirke, Jayme Lawson, Saul Williams, Andrene Ward-Hammond, Peter Dreimanis, Omar Miller, Yao, Delroy Lindo, and Buddy Guy.
Song Sung Blue (PG-13) Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson portray Mike and Claire Sardina, the real-life married couple who endured personal tragedies to become a celebrated Neil Diamond tribute band in Milwaukee in the 1990s. Unfortunately, writer-director Craig Brewer reduces their story to inspirational pablum, though he does pick up what makes ordinary people take up careers as cover band musicians and celebrity impersonators. Jackman and Hudson perform Diamond’s songs to a listenable level but no more, and Jackman does well as a reformed alcoholic who’s reluctant to perform “Sweet Caroline” because the song is overexposed. Even if you are a Diamond fan, this thing never quite catches dramatic fire. Also with Ella Anderson, King Princess, Fisher Stevens, Mustafa Shakir, John Beckwith, Shyaporn Theerakulstit, Jim Belushi, and Michael Imperioli.
The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants (PG) The series has gone stagnant creatively. Our square yellow hero (voiced by Tom Kenny) journeys to the ocean’s depths to encounter the Flying Dutchman (voiced by Mark Hamill) and become a true swashbuckler, unaware that the pirate is using him for his own purposes. The charm and childlike joy of the TV series is nowhere in evidence in this big-screen adventure that takes little advantage of the larger canvas that its animators have to work with. After three SpongeBob movies, I finally feel safe in saying that SpongeBob should stick to TV. Additional voices by Bill Fagerbakke, Rodger Bumpass, Clancy Brown, Carolyn Lawrence, Arturo Castro, George Lopez, Sherry Cola, Ice Spice, and Regina Hall.
The Testament of Ann Lee (R) The greatest Christian musical ever made, and possibly the strangest movie of 2025. Mona Fastvold’s film tells the real-life story of Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried), who founded the Shaker sect of Christianity in the 18th century. Rejecting the Broadway model that most musical movies are based on, this one depicts the Shakers’ use of ecstatic song and dance to pay tribute to God, with composer Daniel Blumberg making the traditional Shaker hymns sound strange instead of ancient or modern. Seyfried gives the performance of her career as a galvanizing presence whether Ann is using her kindness and understanding draws new followers to the faith or deploying her outrage to disrupt Anglican rituals and slave auctions. It’s hard to imagine any actor playing this role better. Also with Lewis Pullman, Christopher Abbott, Thomasin McKenzie, Stacy Martin, Viola Prettejohn, Scott Handy, David Cale, Jamie Bogyo, Shannon Woodward, and Tim Blake Nelson.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (PG-13) The best movie in the series. Following his parents’ deaths, Spike (Alfie Williams) falls into the hands of a murderous religious cult leader (Jack O’Connell) while Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) tries to stop and perhaps even cure the zombie plague. The two halves of the film come together neatly, which results in a terrific bit when the doctor convinces the cult members that he’s a god by blasting Iron Maiden’s “The Number of the Beast” and putting on a pyrotechnic show. This unfortunately reduces Spike to a bystander for much of the movie, but O’Connell (channeling the late Sir Jimmy Savile) makes a fairly terrifying villain and Fiennes does some of his best work as a Duran Duran fan who has maintained his humanity amid the devastation. New director Nia DaCosta builds character and atmosphere without sacrificing the zombie thrills that we come for. Also with Chi Lewis-Parry, Erin Kellyman, Emma Laird, Maura Bird, Connor Newall, Ghazi al-Ruffai, Robert Rhodes, Sam Locke, Mirren Mack, and Louis Ashbourne Serkis.
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
All That’s Left of You (NR) Cherien Dabis writes, directs, and stars in this Jordanian film as a mother recalling her teenage son (Adam Bakri) being swept up in an anti-Israel protest. Also with Saleh Bakri, Maria Zreik, Hayat Abu Samra, Ramzi Maqdisi, Muhammed Abed Elrahman, and Mohammad Bakri.
Atropia (R) Alia Shawkat stars in this comedy as a Hollywood actress portraying an Arab Muslim on a U.S. military training base’s simulation of a Middle Eastern town. Also with Callum Turner, Jane Levy, Chloe East, Tim Blake Nelson, Tim Heidecker, Chloë Sevigny, and Channing Tatum.
The Chronology of Water (R) Kristen Stewart’s directing debut is based on Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir about recovering from an abusive childhood and discovering her bisexuality and preference for BDSM sex. Starring Imogen Poots, Tom Sturridge, Thora Birch, Charlie Carrick, Susannah Flood, Kim Gordon, and Jim Belushi.
Rosemead (NR) Lucy Liu stars in this drama as a Chinese immigrant in upstate New York who takes extreme measures to protect her teenage son (Lawrence Shou). Also with Orion Lee, Jennifer Lim, Madison Hu, Eleven Lee, James Chen, and Susan Pourfar.
The Voice of Hind Rajab (NR) Kaouther Ben Hania’s documentary dramatizes the killing of a 5-year-old girl in Gaza by Israeli armed forces by using her real-life distress calls against staged re-enactments of the emergency workers in Ramallah who answered her. Starring Motaz Malhees, Saja Kilani, Clara Khoury, and Amer Hlehel.
