Film Shorts

American Ultra (R) Jesse Eisenberg stars in this action-comedy as a stoner convenience store clerk who’s actually a preprogrammed CIA sleeper agent. Also with Kristen Stewart, Topher Grace, Connie Britton, Walton Goggins, Nash Edgerton, John Leguizamo, and Bill Pullman. (Opens Friday)

Being Evel (NR) Daniel Junge’s documentary profile of motorcycle stuntman Evel Knievel. (Opens Friday in Dallas)

The Diary of a Teenage Girl (R) Based on Phoebe Gloeckner’s autobiographical illustrated novel, this film stars Bel Powley as a 15-year-old girl who has an affair with her mother’s boyfriend (Alexander Skarsgård). Also with Kristen Wiig, Abby Wait, Margarita Levieva, Miranda Bailey, Madeleine Waters, Austin Lyon, and Chris Meloni. (Opens Friday in Dallas)

Hitman: Agent 47 (R) Rupert Friend stars in this video-game adaptation as a genetically engineered killer who turns on the corporation that created him. Also with Hannah Ware, Zachary Quinto, Thomas Kretschmann, Rolf Kanies, Sebastian Hülk, Ciarán Hinds, and Jürgen Prochnow. (Opens Friday)

She’s Funny That Way (R) Peter Bogdanovich’s latest film is about a playwright (Owen Wilson) who gets ensnarled in a farce with his wife (Kathryn Hahn), her ex (Rhys Ifans), and his new lead actress (Imogen Poots). Also with Jennifer Aniston, Will Forte, Lucy Punch, Joanna Lumley, Richard Lewis, Debi Mazar, Illeana Douglas, Tovah Feldshuh, Austin Pendleton, Jennifer Esposito, Michael Shannon, Quentin Tarantino, Tatum O’Neal, and Cybill Shepherd. (Opens Friday in Dallas)

Sinister 2 (R) James Ransone reprises his role as the menacing sheriff’s deputy in this prequel about a house whose inhabitants are marked for death. Also with Shannyn Sossamon, Robert Daniel Sloan, Dartanian Sloan, Juliet Rylance, and Ethan Hawke. (Opens Friday)

10,000 Saints (R) Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini (American Splendor) adapt Eleanor Henderson’s novel about a Vermont teenager (Asa Butterfield) who moves in with his father (Ethan Hawke) in New York City in the 1980s. Also with Hailee Steinfeld, Emile Hirsch, Julianne Nicholson, and Emily Mortimer. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)

The Young and Prodigious T.S. Privet (PG) A rare English-language film by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amélie), this stars Kyle Catlett as a 10-year-old aspiring cartographer in Montana who hops a freight train across America. Also with Helena Bonham Carter, Judy Davis, Callum Keith Rennie, Niamh Wilson, and Dominique Pinon. (Opens Friday in Dallas)

Ant-Man (PG-13) The weakest Marvel movie since The Incredible Hulk. The film stars Michael Douglas as a scientist who secretly invents a suit that shrinks its wearer to insect size while keeping his or her strength, and Paul Rudd as a cat burglar he recruits to help him keep his former protégé (Corey Stoll) from weaponizing the technology. The movie isn’t funny, and Rudd’s performance is atypically off; he seems too nice to be a criminal. The villain is uninteresting, the shrinking is done without any sense of wonder, and the subplot involving the burglar’s young daughter (Abby Ryder Fortson) is sloppy sentimentalism. There are moments of visual wit here, but the storytelling and characterization aren’t up to the standards that Marvel has set for its comic book movies. Also with Evangeline Lilly, Bobby Cannavale, Anthony Mackie, Judy Greer, Michael Peña, T.I., David Dastmalchian, Martin Donovan, Hayley Attwell, John Slattery, and uncredited cameos by Sebastian Stan and Chris Evans.

Assassination (NR) Very confusing. This thriller set in 1933 is about a group of Korean freedom fighters in exile trying to kill the head of the occupying Japanese military (Sim Cheol-jong) in Shanghai. The film is a dizzying whirl of double crosses and betrayals, and that’s even without accounting for the three male leads who look alike and have similar hairstyles and the identical twins separated at birth. Gianna Jun gives an impressive performance as the twins, doing her own stunts and looking badass as a sniper heading up the mission. Director Choi Dong-hoon (Thieves) also assembles two superb action sequences, including one midway through when the assassination plot goes spectacularly wrong. Still, non-Koreans may find this hard to follow. Also with Ha Jung-woo, Lee Jeong-jae, Oh Dal-su, Jo Jin-woong, Choi Deok-moon, Park Byeong-eun, and Lee Kyeong-yeong.

Fantastic Four (PG-13) The floor has been lowered for Marvel Comics adaptations, and by lowered, I mean dropped about 20 stories. Jamie Bell, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara, and Miles Teller play four young scientists who travel to another dimension and return with superpowers. The character development and the sense of wonder that accompanies the powers are missing here, and it takes forever just to get going. Director Josh Trank (Chronicle) blamed the studio for the mess this is; for certain someone screwed it up. Somehow, after the two previous failed adaptations, they got this wrong again. Also with Toby Kebbell, Reg E. Cathey, Tim Blake Nelson, and Dan Castellaneta.

The Gift (R) The Australian actor Joel Edgerton makes an impressive debut as a writer-director in this Hollywood thriller. At first it seems like the story of a well-to-do Los Angeleno (Jason Bateman) and his wife (Rebecca Hall) being stalked by his former high-school classmate (played by Edgerton himself) after returning to SoCal, but then the filmmaker pulls a nicely executed bait-and-switch on us and reverses our sympathies. It’s hard to discuss this further without giving too much away, but Bateman and Hall are close to their best here. This feels like one of those French chillers that packs a nasty sting at the very end. Also with Allison Tolman, David Denman, Busy Philipps, Katie Aselton, Susan May Pratt, Beau Knapp, Wendell Pierce, and Nash Edgerton.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (PG-13) It looks fantastic, but what is it for? Guy Ritchie’s movie version of the spoofy 1960s British spy TV show stars Henry Cavill as a suave CIA agent who teams up with a KGB rival (Armie Hammer) and a Nazi scientist’s daughter (Alicia Vikander) to prevent a group of former Nazis from building a nuclear weapon. The cast, the Roman setting, the Kodachrome colors, and Joanna Johnston’s costumes all look absolutely groovy, but the movie is neither funny enough as a comedy nor does it work as a spy thriller. Ritchie’s sense of action is off, and only rarely does he achieve the insouciant, carefree vibe that he’s aiming for. Also with Elizabeth Debicki, Luca Calvani, Sylvester Groth, Christian Berkel, Jared Harris, and Hugh Grant.

Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation (PG-13) In its fifth installment, the spy series is as implausible and as gripping as ever. Tom Cruise returns as superagent Ethan Hunt, who discovers the existence of a rival spy agency just as IMF is being dismantled. Director Christopher McQuarrie (Jack Reacher) is the latest to take over the series, and he engineers terrific action sequences involving a backstage assassination plot at an opera performance and a motorcycle chase down the highways of Morocco. As a British agent who has an in with the rival agency, Swedish actress Rebecca Ferguson is a blazing addition to the series as well. It’s a fine piece of summer escapism. Also with Jeremy Renner, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Sean Harris, Tom Hollander, Jens Hultén, Simon McBurney, and Alec Baldwin.

Ricki and the Flash (PG-13) Jonathan Demme and Diablo Cody collaborate on this cozy domestic drama, and it’s not the nicest fit for either of them, but it’s far more interesting than most other films in this vein. Meryl Streep stars as the lead singer of a SoCal rock band who returns to the family she walked out on in Indianapolis when her daughter (played by Streep’s real-life daughter, Mamie Gummer) implodes during a personal crisis. Cody’s dialogue is best when the razor blades come out, but the movie loses its balance in the second half and the ending comes too easily. The best reason to see this is Streep’s singing, as she sounds like a rocker who has been at the same bar for 20 years, knocking back beers between sets. Her living-room performance of “Cold One” is spellbinding. Also with Kevin Kline, Rick Springfield, Sebastian Stan, Nick Westrate, Bill Irwin, and Audra McDonald.

Shaun the Sheep Movie (PG) This is not a Nick Park movie, but his fans should rejoice anyway. Mark Burton and Richard Starzak adapt their own animated TV series (itself spun off from Park’s A Close Shave) to make this big-screen adventure with only gibberish for dialogue. It’s about a markedly intelligent sheep who leads his fellow sheep and a dogged watchdog in a quest outside their farm to save the farmer, who is suffering from memory loss due to a head injury. From this setup, Burton and Starzak spin a number of literate gags, including references to everything from Banksy to The Silence of the Lambs. Perhaps this lacks the final ounce of ingenuity and feeling that Park’s movies have, but it’s still one of this year’s best movies for kids.

Southpaw (R) Jake Gyllenhaal is fantastic, but this boxing drama is far less than that. He plays Billy Hope, an orphaned kid-turned-boxing champion who loses everything after his uncontrolled temper results in his wife (Rachel McAdams) being killed. Director Antoine Fuqua’s simplistic sense of drama is about as subtle as a right cross to the jaw, and about as much fun. Screenwriter Kurt Sutter gives us cliché after cliché, from the wise old trainer (Forest Whitaker) in a dingy gym to the cute kid (Oona Laurence) who needs to be saved to the redemptive title fight against the mouthy rival boxer (Miguel Gomez) who started it all. Gyllenhaal proves his range by playing this boiling rage case, but both he and we deserved a better vehicle than this movie that could have been made in 1935. Also with 50 Cent, Skylan Brooks, Victor Ortiz, Beau Knapp, Rita Ora, and Naomie Harris.

Straight Outta Compton (R) Musical thrills and good timing carry this rickety biopic over its many rough patches. F. Gary Gray’s bio details how Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins), Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell), and Ice Cube (played by the rapper’s son, O’Shea Jackson Jr.) came together to form N.W.A. in the 1980s. The movie glosses over the group’s casual misogyny and homophobia, and the latter half sags as the music stops and the rappers’ life stories get turned into soap opera. Still, the young cast perform thrilling cover versions of N.W.A.’s greatest hits, and the recent wave of police shootings of unarmed black men have put the country in just the mood to hear “Fuck Tha Police” right now. Also with Neil Brown Jr., Aldis Hodge, Marlon Yates Jr., R. Marcos Taylor, Keith Stanfield, and Paul Giamatti.

Trainwreck (R) Maybe this isn’t the unfiltered Amy Schumer, but it is terribly funny. The comedian writes and stars in this comedy as a hard-partying, bed-hopping New York journalist who ponders settling down when she falls for a sports surgeon (Bill Hader) whom she’s assigned to profile. The movie stumbles badly in the second half when it tries to turn serious, even though the star gives it everything with the dramatics. Still, the Schumer sense of humor comes through. There are not one but three hilariously awkward sex scenes, plus unexpected comic support from John Cena as a boyfriend with unacknowledged homoerotic tendencies and LeBron James as a gossipy, Downton Abbey-obsessed version of himself. Schumer has never headlined a movie before; I’m intrigued to see the next one. Also with Tilda Swinton, Brie Larson, Colin Quinn, Ezra Miller, Randall Park, Vanessa Bayer, Mike Birbiglia, Dave Attell, Method Man, Daniel Radcliffe, and Marisa Tomei.

Vacation (R) Turn the car around. This continuation of the National Lampoon’s Vacation movies concerns the Griswolds’ grown son Rusty (Ed Helms), who takes his own family on a road trip from Indianapolis to Walley World. The film repeatedly makes Rusty look like an idiot and a petty tyrant, and Helms isn’t a savvy enough actor to realize it. The Griswold clan seems to actively detest one another, and the hijinks they get into are wearisomely predictable. Despite an impressive roster of comic talent, the only actor who emerges with any credit is Chris Hemsworth as an archconservative, hypermasculine TV weatherman from Plano, imbuing a potentially hateable part with a buoyant charm. Also with Christina Applegate, Skyler Gisondo, Steele Stebbins, Leslie Mann, Charlie Day, Ron Livingston, Michael Peña, Norman Reedus, Keegan-Michael Key, Regina Hall, Colin Hanks, Tim Heidecker, Kaitlin Olson, Beverly D’Angelo, and Chevy Chase.