Opening
April and the Extraordinary World (PG) This English-dubbed animated steampunk movie from France is about a little girl (voiced by Angela Galuppo) who goes searching for her parents after they become the latest in a wave of disappeared scientists. Additional voices by Tony Hale, Paul Giamatti, J.K. Simmons, and Susan Sarandon. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Finding Mr. Right 2 (NR) Tang Wei and Wu Xiubo return for this sequel to the 2013 Chinese romance that was also entitled Beijing Meets Seattle. Also with Kara Hui, Liu Zhihong, Paul Chun, Wang Zhiwen, and Ben Wilkinson. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Grandma’s House (NR) Coco Jones stars in this dramedy as a single woman who discovers her sense of purpose when she moves back in with her grandmother (Loretta Devine). Also with Paige Hurd, Wendy Raquel Robinson, Jazsmin Lewis, Flex Alexander, and Jordan Calloway. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Keanu (R) Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele team up for their first film as middle-class African-Americans who pose as drug dealers to recover their stolen kitten. Also with Nia Long, Will Forte, Luis Guzmán, Rob Huebel, and Method Man. (Opens Friday)
Louder Than Bombs (R) Jesse Eisenberg stars in this film by Joachim Trier (Oslo, August 31st) as a young man grappling with the legacy left behind by his war photographer mother (Isabelle Huppert). Also with Gabriel Byrne, Amy Ryan, Devin Druid, Ruby Jerins, and David Strathairn. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Mother’s Day (PG-13) Yet another star-studded, holiday-themed omnibus movie from Garry Marshall, starring Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston, Kate Hudson, Jennifer Garner, Jason Sudeikis, Britt Robertson, Sarah Chalke, Timothy Olyphant, Aasif Mandvi, Jon Lovitz, and Hector Elizondo. (Opens Friday)
Pali Road (NR) Michelle Chen stars as a woman who wakes up from a car accident to discover that she’s living another life entirely. Also with Jackson Rathbone, Sung Kang, Henry Ian Cusick, Tzi Ma, Elizabeth Sung, and Lauren Sweetser. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Papa Hemingway in Cuba (R) Giovanni Ribisi stars in the real-life story of a Miami journalist who travels to Cuba to meet Ernest Hemingway (Adrian Sparks) during the revolution. Also with Joely Richardson, Minka Kelly, James Remar, Shaun Toub, Anthony Molinary, and Mariel Hemingway. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Ratchet & Clank (PG) The video-game series that introduced whimsical humor to the medium becomes only a mildly engaging animated movie about a space creature and a defective sentient robot (voiced by James Arnold Taylor and David Kaye) who team up to stop a supervillain (voiced by Paul Giamatti) from destroying the galaxy. The filmmakers can’t seem to make the game’s humor translate — a gun that turns enemies into sheep is a lot less fun in a movie than it is in a game where you can use it. Basically, this is a 94-minute commercial for the game’s latest version that just came out. You’re better off staying home and playing that game. Additional voices by John Goodman, Rosario Dawson, Bella Thorne, Jim Ward, Armin Shimerman, and Sylvester Stallone. (Opens Friday)
Tale of Tales (NR) The first English-language film by Matteo Garrone (Gomorrah) adapts a series of 17th-century Italian fairy tales. Starring Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel, Toby Jones, Shirley Henderson, Jessie Cave, Stacy Martin, Alba Rohrwacher, Massimo Ceccherini, and John C. Reilly. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Now Playing
Allegiant — Part 1 (PG-13) These movies are getting worse. Shailene Woodley stars in the postapocalyptic YA saga’s third installment, as Tris Prior leads a small party of her friends out of Chicago and into a colony outside the city whose director (Jeff Daniels) has been running the place as a giant social experiment. Everybody, including Tris herself, is really bad at their jobs — security guards fail to hold people, computer systems get hacked, and people place trust in others who are clearly out for themselves. Miles Teller’s naked self-interest shines out amid the wreckage, but this is beyond his or anyone else’s power to save. Also with Theo James, Ansel Elgort, Naomi Watts, Zoë Kravitz, Keiynan Lonsdale, Daniel Dae Kim, Maggie Q, Bill Skarsgård, Jonny Weston, Ray Stevenson, Mekhi Phifer, Xander Berkeley, Rebecca Pidgeon, Janet McTeer, Ashley Judd, and Octavia Spencer.
Barbershop: The Next Cut (PG-13) Admirable, but not as effective as it could have been. Ice Cube returns for this third installment as Calvin the Chicago barber who uses his shop to take a stand against his city’s worsening gun violence. The whole series has been about unhurried pacing and including multiple points of view, but on this subject, it needed more focus and precision. Too much of this is taken up with Calvin trying to keep his teenage son (Diallo Thompson) out of a gang and one of his new barbers (Common) trying to improve relations with his wife (Eve). Even the banter isn’t as spicy as it used to be. The trick this movie’s trying is hard to pull off, and it can’t do it. Also with Cedric the Entertainer, Regina Hall, Anthony Anderson, Utkarsh Ambudkar, J.B. Smoove, Lamorne Morris, Deon Cole, Margot Bingham, Troy Garity, Tyga, Sean Patrick Thomas, and Nicki Minaj.
Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice (PG-13) Not terrible, just terribly dull. Ben Affleck steps into the Batman outfit, as the Gotham vigilante comes to see Superman (Henry Cavill) as a threat to the human race. Director Zack Snyder stages a couple of fight sequences well, but neither the overarching story nor the various subplots make any sense at all, and Snyder’s not the filmmaker to handle the introduction of real-world consequences into a superhero movie. Jesse Eisenberg’s overacting as Lex Luthor grows oppressive with screen time and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) gets a pallid introduction after so many failed attempts to bring her to the screen. This movie’s mostly grim, self-important, and too long. Also with Amy Adams, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Scoot McNairy, Tao Okamoto, Kevin Costner, Michael Shannon, and Holly Hunter.
Born to Be Blue (R) Ethan Hawke stars in this bizarre biography of Chet Baker, as the heroin-addicted jazz trumpeter comes back from a savage beating that leaves him unable to play. Weirdly, there’s also a layer of metafiction as some of the scenes are staged as Baker portraying himself in a movie about his own life, with one actress (Carmen Ejogo) portraying all his wives and girlfriends. What writer-director Robert Budreau puts this in for is unclear. David Braid plays Baker’s solos on the soundtrack and does a reasonable impression of the great jazzman, but this movie meanders too much to say anything meaningful about its subject. Also with Callum Keith Rennie, Tony Nappo, Stephen McHattie, Janet-Laine Green, Dan Lett, Kevin Hanchard, and Kedar Brown.
The Boss (R) The ad-libbing of Melissa McCarthy and the other cast members bails out this comedy, but just barely. She portrays a disgraced, imprisoned finance guru who tries to rebuild her career with the help of her former assistant (Kristen Bell). McCarthy’s real-life husband Ben Falcone (who also shows up here as a lawyer) isn’t showing improvement as a director, as characters and plotlines disappear for long stretches and he never figures out the proper attitude toward his sociopathic antiheroine — she probably should have stayed as the improv character that McCarthy created. Fortunately, the one-liners from McCarthy, Bell, Tyler Labine as the assistant’s helpful boyfriend, and Annie Mumolo as a Type A housewife hit often enough to keep the thing watchable. Also with Peter Dinklage, Ella Anderson, Kristen Schaal, Margo Martindale, Cecily Strong, and Kathy Bates.
Compadres (NR) This Mexican action-comedy stars Omar Chaparro as a cop who teams up with an American computer hacker (Joey Morgan) to gain revenge on a crime lord (Erick Elias). Also with Aislinn Derbez, Héctor Jímenez, Camila Sodi, Alejandra Guilmant, Kevin Pollak, and Eric Roberts. (Opens Friday)
Criminal (R) I’m not even sure what kind of movie this was supposed to be. Woefully miscast as a violent psychopath, Kevin Costner portrays a death row inmate who’s implanted with the memories of a murdered CIA agent (Ryan Reynolds) in an attempt to recover the location of a source with intel on a Spanish anarchist (Jordi Mollà). This bad-looking film vacillates between science-fiction, spy thriller, and a twisted romance between the antihero and the dead agent’s wife (Gal Gadot), and none of it comes close to working. Gary Oldman also overacts as badly as possible in the role of a CIA handler. This is a disaster zone. Also with Tommy Lee Jones, Alice Eve, Antje Traue, Michael Pitt, Amaury Nolasco, and Colin Salmon.
Deadpool (R) The humor in this hyperself-aware superhero movie is incredibly obvious, but it’s still explosively funny. Ryan Reynolds stars as an ex-soldier and low-rent mercenary whose attempts to find a cure for his terminal cancer leave him a horribly scarred but borderline unkillable vigilante. You may find all the meta jokes too much as the movie riffs on Reynolds’ acting career and the X-Men series that this is a tangential part of. Still, the star’s physicality and snotty sense of humor make him perfect as a compulsive wisecracker, and the movie doesn’t lose sight of Deadpool’s desire to fix his looks and reunite with his fiancée (Morena Baccarin). The fight sequences are also either properly brutal or hilariously slapstick, as when Deadpool tries to fight Colossus (voiced by Stefan Kapicic) and just hurts himself hitting the metal giant. The filthy laughs in this superhero movie are energizing. Also with Ed Skrein, T.J. Miller, Gina Carano, Brianna Hildebrand, Karan Soni, and Leslie Uggams.
Elvis & Nixon (R) This dramatization of the real-life 1970 meeting between Richard Nixon (Kevin Spacey) and Elvis Presley (Michael Shannon) would have been better on stage. Elvis goes to the White House to ask for a federal badge to combat the scourge of communists, hippies, drug addicts, Black Panthers, and the Beatles. Spacey, always a fine impressionist, has Nixon’s mannerisms down, and Shannon gets the nicest moments in the script, like when Elvis remembers his dead twin brother as he awaits the meeting. Still, director Liza Johnson can’t find any larger meaning in this encounter, and Alex Pettyfer has way too much screen time as a boring member of Elvis’ entourage who needs to return to his family. Had these two actors done this live in a theater, this might have seemed more than the inconsequential bit that it is. Also with Johnny Knoxville, Colin Hanks, Evan Peters, Sky Ferreira, Tracy Letts, Ashley Benson, and Tate Donovan.
Everybody Wants Some!! (R) Really gosh-darned charming. Richard Linklater’s latest film stars Blake Jenner as a Texas college freshman and baseball player in 1980 who adjusts to the rhythms of collegiate life in the weekend before classes start. Jenner is softly appealing as a freshman who’s hardly callow, and he pairs well with Zoey Deutch as a theater student who catches his eye. As you’d expect, Linklater does well with the male bonding among the baseball team members. The movie is brimming with life under its easygoing exterior, and Linklater still knows how to evoke the young person’s quest to find his or her own purpose in the world and connect with another human being. This makes him a national treasure. Also with Ryan Guzman, Juston Street, Tyler Hoechlin, J. Quinton Johnson, Glen Powell, Temple Baker, Will Brittain, Austin Amelio, Tanner Kalina, and Wyatt Russell.
Eye in the Sky (R) The best movie about drone warfare so far is still rather frustrating. Helen Mirren plays a British Army colonel pursuing a ring of terrorists in Kenya and a U.S. Air Force drone pilot (Aaron Paul) who are faced with a decision whether or not to fire a missile that will take out a bunch of suicide bombers but also kill a little girl. Director Gavin Hood (Ender’s Game) somehow squeezes drama out of a string of scenes taking place in windowless rooms across the globe, but the consequences are too distant. If everybody in the story is powerless to create a better outcome, where’s the tragedy? You feel the emotional impact of this movie in your head, not your heart. Also with Barkhad Abdi, Jeremy Northam, Monica Dolan, Iain Glen, Laila Robins, Phoebe Fox, Babou Ceesay, Richard McCabe, Kim Engelbrecht, and the late Alan Rickman.
Fan (NR) This Indian thriller stars Shah Rukh Khan as both a Bollywood movie star and the crazed fan who stalks him through Eastern Europe. Also with Deepika Amin, Yogendra Tiku, Waluscha de Sousa, and Indraneel Bhattacharya.
God’s Not Dead 2 (PG) The belief that Christianity is under a cruel and calculated assault on its values is the through-line in God’s Not Dead 2, the first sequel to the 2014 faith-based hit. Melissa Joan Hart plays an Arkansas high school teacher on trial for telling her student (Hayley Orrantia) about Jesus outside of class, then quoting scripture as an historical source when Brooke asks her about Jesus’ teachings of non-violence during an in-class discussion. Ray Wise, as the ACLU lawyer prosecuting the case walketh about as a purring lion, seeking which scenery he may devour. He’s a metaphor for the Devil as envisioned by a Focus on the Family focus group, and while a couple non-believing characters are given a fair shake, the message is still pretty exclusionary: Christians are right, and it’s wrong to suggest otherwise. Oh, Pat Boone and Fred Thompson get wheeled out for this dreck, too, and it’s embarrassing af. Hopefully, some Christians will point out to their more strident, paranoid brethren that movies like this aren’t doing them any favors. Also with Jesse Metcalfe, Ernie Hudson, Trish LaFarche, and Robin Givens. — Steve Steward
Hardcore Henry (R) An intriguing failed experiment. Ilya Naishuller shoots this entire action-thriller from the hero’s point of view, so you can see first-hand the exploits of this mute cyborg soldier try to recover his kidnapped wife (Haley Bennett) from the clutches of a Russian mob boss (Danila Kozlovsky) who, for some reason, has telekinetic powers. Stuff like that goes unexplained because Naishuller thinks the gimmick will paper over the cracks. The gambit does lend some spice to the chase scenes, but the final result has surprisingly little impact. Sharlto Copley co-stars as a Cole Porter-loving sidekick who manages to survive being shot in the head, stabbed in the neck, set on fire, and blown up. Also Andrei Dementiev and Tim Roth.
A Hologram for the King (R) A tourism ad for a repressive dictatorship. Tom Hanks plays a broke American businessman who tries to restart his career selling video technology to the king of Saudi Arabia. Director Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) eschews the existential humor of Dave Eggers’ novel in favor of comedy about figuring out the rules in a kingdom where nothing works like it should, as well as a redemptive romance with a beautiful Saudi doctor (Sarita Choudhury). This is pleasant as far as it goes, but the movie ignores the real hardships of life in the KSA for those with no money. The hero’s supposed to be seeking refuge from American capitalism, but I’m pretty sure the answer to its ills isn’t in a petroleum state that beheads political dissidents. Also with Alexander Black, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Tracey Fairaway, Tom Skerritt, and Ben Whishaw.
The Huntsman: Winter’s War (PG-13) Kristen Stewart skipped this sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman, which makes her smarter than the A-list actresses who got caught up in this fiasco. Chris Hemsworth returns as a hunter trying to reunite with his lost love (Jessica Chastain) while serving an ice queen (Emily Blunt) trying to reclaim a kingdom for her sister (Charlize Theron). A new director comes in, but the original’s formula of cool visuals married to idiotic, sluggish storytelling remains. These three actresses collaborating should be an epic event, but instead they barely seem to be in the same movie, leaving Hemsworth to come away with what crumbs of funny business there are. Also with Nick Frost, Rob Brydon, Sheridan Smith, Alexandra Roach, Ralph Ineson, Sophie Cookson, and Sam Claflin.
The Jungle Book (PG) This live-action film of Rudyard Kipling’s stories looks nice, but it doesn’t uncover anything new. Neel Sethi plays the boy raised by wolves in the Indian jungle when a man-hating tiger (voiced by Idris Elba) vows to kill him. This Disney movie incorporates two of the numbers from the 1967 animated musical version, but director Jon Favreau doesn’t have a flair for the genre, and his film relentlessly cutesifies the animals much like the older incarnation did. The movie does have a superb voice cast, especially a fairly terrifying Elba as the snarling villain. I suspect that in 50 years, though, this will look as dated as the 1967 Jungle Book does now. Additional voices by Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Scarlett Johansson, Lupita Nyong’o, Christopher Walken, Giancarlo Esposito, Sam Raimi, and the late Garry Shandling.
Miles Ahead (R) Underneath the insane fabrications, this Miles Davis biopic is just another overindulgent vehicle directed by its star. Don Cheadle is the filmmaker and lead actor, portraying the great jazz trumpeter during his late 1970s period of seclusion trying to fend off the attentions of a fictitious Rolling Stone reporter (Ewan McGregor). Cheadle invents a car chase and shootout with a music promoter that doesn’t remotely resemble anything in Davis’ life, but none of it sheds any light on the man’s artistry or his drive to reinvent himself. Davis’ music is heard on the soundtrack, and his impeccable control whether he’s playing cool jazz or hard bop says more than this movie ever could. Also with Michael Stuhlbarg, Emayatzy Corinealdi, Keith Stanfield, Joshua Jessen, and Theron Brown.
Miracles from Heaven (PG-13) From the title, you already know whether you’re going to find this movie an affirmation of your Christian faith or a slog through pablum. Jennifer Garner plays the real-life Burleson housewife who loses her faith in God and then gets it back when her middle daughter (Kylie Rogers) contracts a mysterious and excruciatingly painful life-threatening illness. Director Patricia Riggen has shown a less-than-delicate touch in movies about secular subjects, and her approach to this religious story proves no different. She has her lead actress weep endlessly in close-up, and Garner’s too well-mannered for a woman raging at God. The movie ends with her speaking about how we lose sight of God’s miracles in our banal lives. This film is part of the banality. Also with Martin Henderson, Brighton Sharbino, Courtney Fansler, John Carroll Lynch, Eugenio Derbez, and Queen Latifah.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (PG-13) It took 14 years for this sequel to hit the screen, which is less remarkable than the fact that the edgeless original was a big hit in the first place. Nia Vardalos reprises her role, her frumpy single gal now a mother dealing with separation anxiety as her teenage daughter (Elena Kampouris) considers going away for college, along with about a zillion other plotlines and characters that aren’t given enough attention. Vardalos’ jokes about how Greek people are hearty and have huge families were old hat back in 2002, and now they’re even more so. This a big hunk of pastitsio that’s been sitting around for too long. Also with John Corbett, Michael Constantine, Lainie Kazan, Gia Carides, Joey Fatone, Louis Mandylor, Ian Gomez, Andrea Martin, Rob Riggle, Mark Margolis, Rita Wilson, and John Stamos.
Nina (NR) The controversy over this Nina Simone biopic has been over the use of prosthetics and skin-darkening makeup on lead actress Zoe Saldana, but that’s hardly the only issue here. The 37-year-old Saldana is playing Simone in her 60s as she lives in exile in southern France. Writer-director Cynthia Mort seems not to have the faintest idea who her main character is, ignoring Simone’s political activism, her musical influence, and the extent to which the singer cultivated her imperious façade as a way of dealing with the music world’s racism. Instead it concentrates on her relationship with her business manager (David Oyelowo, who surely has better things to do than play the worshipful fan). Saldana does her own singing, and she never approaches Simone’s intensity and magnetism except possibly in “Wild Is the Wind.” You may wonder how they messed up such a great subject. The answer is: Lots of ways. Also with Ronald Guttman, Mike Epps, Ella Thomas, Ella Joyce, and Keith David.
10 Cloverfield Lane (PG-13) This quasi-sequel to Cloverfield stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead as a car accident victim who comes to in an underground bunker with two strangers (John Goodman and John Gallagher Jr.) after an apocalyptic event. First-time director Dan Trachtenberg ditches the found-footage look of the first movie and does this up as tautly as a Roman Polanski psychological thriller with a few characters trapped in an enclosed space. He turns Goodman loose, and the actor responds with a terrifying performance as the angry, unstable paranoid case who built the bunker. He’s counterweighed by Winstead’s turn as a woman who keeps getting into abusive situations and now must get herself out of one. Also with Suzanne Cryer and Bradley Cooper.
Zootopia (PG) A Disney animated movie about a cuddly bunny rabbit that’s so relevant to our current political situation, it’ll give you chills. In a world where predators and prey co-exist peacefully in an urban environment, Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) is the first rabbit on the big city’s police force, an affirmative-action hire who tries to distinguish herself by teaming up with a fox con artist (voiced by Jason Bateman) to crack a string of animal disappearances. This is no canned morality tale, but a layered look at how prejudice seeps into everyone’s thinking, including Judy’s. Amid some delightful gags (including a DMV staffed by sloths that must have been fun to animate) and atmosphere that evokes film noir thrillers, there’s a powerfully slippery parable about discrimination and the politics of fear. Additional voices by Idris Elba, Jenny Slate, Nate Torrence, Bonnie Hunt, Don Lake, Alan Tudyk, Tommy Chong, Kristen Bell, Shakira, Octavia Spencer, and J.K. Simmons.
Dallas Exclusives
Embrace of the Serpent (NR) Nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, this Colombian drama is about an Amazon River shaman (Antonio Bolívar) who works with two European scientists (Jan Bijvoet and Brionne Davis) to search for a sacred healing plant. Also with Nilbio Torres, Yauenkü Migue, Nicolás Cancino, and Luigi Sciamanna.
The First Monday in May (PG-13) Andrew Rossi (Page One: Inside the New York Times) directs this documentary about the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibit on Chinese-inspired Western fashions. Starring Andrew Bolton, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Anna Wintour, Karl Lagerfeld, John Galliano, Rihanna, Baz Luhrmann, and Wong Kar-Wai.
