OPENING
Buddies in India (NR) Wang Baoqiang co-stars in his own action-comedy as a Chinese man who accompanies his best friend (Bai Ke) on a trip to India to locate his father’s last will and testament. Also with Liu Yan, Yue Yunpeng, and Vikramjeet Virk. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Dekalog (NR) Krzysztof Kielowski’s 1989 10-part TV miniseries of stories based on the Ten Commandments. (Opens Wednesday in Dallas)
A Dog’s Purpose (PG) Adapted from W. Bruce Cameron’s novel, this unexpectedly controversial film by Lasse Hallström (The Cider House Rules) is about a dog (voiced by Josh Gad) who is reincarnated through several lives and owners. Starring Britt Robertson, K.J. Apa, John Ortiz, Luke Kirby, Logan Miller, Juliet Rylance, Peggy Lipton, and Dennis Quaid. (Opens Friday)
Get the Girl (R) Justin Dobies stars in this action-comedy as a young man whose attempt to stage a fake kidnapping to impress a girl goes wrong. Also with Elizabeth Whitson, Noah Segan, Adi Shankar, Daniel Quinn, and Scout Taylor-Compton. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Gold (R) Matthew McConaughey stars in this drama as a low-rent mining speculator who manages to corner the Indonesian gold market in the 1980s. Also with Édgar Ramírez, Bryce Dallas Howard, Toby Kebbell, Rachael I Taylor, Corey Stoll, Macon Blair, Bill Camp, Craig T. Nelson, Bruce Greenwood, and Stacy Keach. (Opens Friday)
Hacksaw Ridge (R) This movie could have been great at 100 minutes. Too bad it runs 131. Mel Gibson’s biopic stars Andrew Garfield as Desmond Doss, a World War II soldier whose Christian beliefs made him a devoted pacifist but also spurred him to rescue 75 wounded American soldiers in one night on Okinawa. The depiction of Desmond’s early life in Virginia is as unsubtle as you’d expect from this director, and the subplot with Desmond meeting his future wife (Teresa Palmer) is so cutesy that it’s cringe-inducing. Gibson’s touch is so heavy-handed that war might be the only subject suited to him, and his rendition of the battle scenes and Desmond’s heroism is worthy of its subject. The film was shot in Australia, Gibson’s career troubles closing off Hollywood to him. Also with Hugo Weaving, Rachel Griffiths, Luke Bracey, Luke Pegler, Ben Mingay, Richard Roxburgh, Sam Worthington, and Vince Vaughn. (Re-opens Friday)
Hell or High Water (R) A great Western. This contemporary thriller stars Ben Foster and Chris Pine as two West Texas brothers looking to save their family ranch by robbing the rural branches of the very bank that owns the mortgage on their place. Screenwriter Taylor Sheridan wrote Sicario, but unlike that film, this one has a sense of humor and earns its moral ambiguity by counting up the cost of the brothers’ crime spree and having them stand to become wealthy if they can clear their debt. Jeff Bridges contributes a magnificent turn as a crusty old Texas Ranger who’s chasing the outlaws down, and the final confrontation between him and Pine is one you won’t soon forget. Also with Gil Birmingham, Marin Ireland, Katy Mixon, John-Paul Howard, and Dale Dickey. (Re-opens Friday)
I Am Michael (NR) James Franco stars in this biography of ex-gay activist Michael Glatze. Also with Emma Roberts, Leven Rambin, Zachary Quinto, Ahna O’Reilly, Lesley Ann Warren, and Daryl Hannah. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Kaabil (NR) Hrithik Roshan stars in this Indian action thriller as a blind man out to revenge the murder of his girlfriend. Also with Yami Gautam, Ronit Roy, Rohit Roy, Narendra Jha, and Sahidur Rahaman. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
The King (NR) Jo In-seong stars in this Korean thriller as a 1990s prosecuting attorney who discovers evidence of abuse of power among his colleagues. Also with Bae Seong-woo, Jung Woo-sung, Ryu Jun-yeol, Jung Eun-chae, and Kim Ah-jung. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Neruda (R) This Chilean satire by Pablo Larraín (Jackie) stars Gael García Bernal as a bumbling cop who chases after the poet Pablo Neruda (Luis Gnecco) after he’s forced to flee the country. Also with Mercedes Morán, Alfredo Castro, Pablo Derqui, Marcelo Alonso, Alejandro Goic, Amparo Noguera, Diego Muñoz, and Emilio Gutiérrez Caba. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Un Padre No Tan Padre (PG-13) Héctor Bonilla stars in this Mexican comedy as an 85-year-old man who’s expelled from his retirement home and forced to move in with his son (Benny Ibarra) and adapt to his unconventional lifestyle. Also with Jacqueline Bracamontes, Camila Selser, Zamia Fandiño, Sergio Mayer Mori, and Sergio Bonilla. (Opens Friday)
Paterson (R) Jim Jarmusch’s latest film stars Adam Driver as a bus driver in Paterson, N.J., who writes poetry in his spare time. Also with Golshifteh Farahani, Barry Shabaka Henley, Jared Gilman, Kara Heyward, Masatoshi Nagase, and Method Man. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Raees (NR) Shah Rukh Khan stars in this biography of Raees Alam, a bootlegger who built a criminal empire in the alcohol-free state of Gujarat in the 1980s. Also with Sunny Leone, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Mahira Khan, Rupinder Nagra, and Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (R) Milla Jovovich’s farewell to the long-running series has her making one last stand against the zombies and the corporation that created them. Also with Ali Larter, Ruby Rose, Shawn Roberts, William Levy, Lee Joon-gi, Rola, Eoin Macken, and Iain Glen. (Opens Friday)
Toni Erdmann (R) Maren Ade’s Oscar-nominated comedy is about an elderly German retiree (Peter Simonischek) who travels to Bucharest and takes eccentric measures to pull his daughter (Sandra Hüller) out of her unsatisfying life as a corporate consultant. Also with Michael Wittenborn, Thomas Loibl, Tristan Pütter, Ingrid Bisu, Hadewych Minis, Vlad Ivanov, and Lucy Russell. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
The Woman Who Left (NR) Charo Santos-Conocio stars in this Filipino thriller as a wrongfully imprisoned woman who seeks revenge on her former lover. Also with John Lloyd Cruz, Michael de Mesa, Nonie Buencamino, and Mae Paner. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
NOW PLAYING
Arrival (PG-13) Amy Adams saves the world and this science-fiction epic. She plays a linguistics professor who’s brought in by the government when the aliens land to try to communicate with them. Denis Villeneuve (Sicario, Prisoners) adapts this from Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life” and does well by the nonlinear source material, as the heroine starts having flash-forwards of her life to come. Unfortunately, the script’s attempts to inject some conventional dramatic tension through human-alien hostilities fall flat, and Villeneuve offers chilly virtuosity where a more emotional approach might have suited the material. He’s bailed out by the great Adams, displaying loneliness, vulnerability, decency, courage, and much-needed warmth at the center of this. Also with Jeremy Renner, Michael Stuhlbarg, Mark O’Brien, Tzi Ma, and Forest Whitaker.
Assassin’s Creed (PG-13) Complete gobbledygook. Michael Fassbender stars in this adaptation of the popular video game series as a Texas Death Row prisoner whose ancestry dates back to a killer from a brotherhood of assassins during the Spanish Inquisition, so an evil corporation kidnaps him to recover his memories so they can retrieve a doohickey that will let them take over the world. The action sequences are filmed in Seville and feature some of the same high-flying, wall-crawling action that has earned the games their following. However, basic storytelling goes out the window and too much of the film is a bunch of people in suits standing around in a lab droning about free will. Save your cash for the next game in the series. Also with Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Ariane Labed, Brendan Gleeson, Michael Kenneth Williams, Dénis Menochet, Callum Turner, Essie Davis, and Charlotte Rampling.
The Bye Bye Man (PG-13) The scares are slim, but in general, this is a tolerable, low-budget horror flick that makes up for its infantile title and ill-defined monster with a consistent sense of dread. Douglas Smith plays a college kid who moves into a spooky old house with his girlfriend (Cressida Bonas) and best friend (Lucien Laviscount), and such as it is with cheap rent on spooky houses, weird things start happening after a post-party séance introduces the trio to the Bye Bye Man (Doug Jones). The whole concept is that the more you think about him or talk about him, the closer he gets and the worse a person’s psychoses become until they start murdering people. The only way to stop the demon is to erase all memory and mention of him. So, more murder. This is probably better enjoyed on your couch via a streaming service. Also with Carrie-Anne Moss and Faye Dunaway. — Steve Steward
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (PG-13) The Harry Potter saga goes to America for this prequel, and it’s an inauspicious beginning. Eddie Redmayne stars as a wizarding-world animal conservationist who travels to the States after being kicked out of Hogwarts. Writing directly for the screen for the first time, J.K. Rowling tries to squeeze an entire novel into the film. As a result, her themes about racism and terrorism come out muddled. We don’t spend enough time with the scary anti-magic religious zealots, and neither Redmayne’s absent-minded professor vibe nor Katherine Waterston as the U.S. magic official who keeps tabs on him are enough to center the movie. You realize how much the original series depended on its lead actors’ skill and charisma. Also with Colin Farrell, Dan Fogler, Ezra Miller, Samantha Morton, Alison Sudol, Carmen Ejogo, Dan Hedaya, Ron Perlman, Jon Voight, and Johnny Depp.
Fences (PG-13) Director Denzel Washington does only a workmanlike job adapting August Wilson’s play to the big screen, but fortunately, he gets career-best performances from star Denzel Washington and others. He portrays a Pittsburgh garbageman in the 1950s whose determination to hold on to what he’s made for himself blows apart his family. The qualities that have made Washington such a great movie star here make his character tragic: the handsome face, the athlete’s body, the verbal dexterity that lets him turn Wilson’s urban slang into fiery poetry all clue us into a man who would have had a bigger life if not for his skin color and the time of his birth. He’s complemented by a terrific supporting cast, especially Viola Davis, whose frustrations explode in a scene that’ll have you ducking down in your seat. Also with Jovan Adepo, Russell Hornsby, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Saniyya Sidney, and Mykelti Williamson.
The Founder (PG-13) Not hot enough. Michael Keaton stars in this historical drama as Ray Kroc, a frustrated vendor of milkshake makers in the 1950s until he comes across an innovative California fast-food stand called McDonald’s that Ray takes nationwide and then worldwide while pushing out the brothers (John Carroll Lynch and Nick Offerman) who founded the place. John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side) directs this thing lugubriously when the material and Keaton’s fast-talking performance demand that he pick up the pace. A well-matched Lynch and Offerman steal away the picture as the brothers describe their business travails to Ray, but outside of them the whole enterprise lacks sizzle. Also with Linda Cardellini, B.J. Novak, Patrick Wilson, and Laura Dern.
Hidden Figures (PG-13) Chalk up another incredible real-life story that gets reduced to a drearily conventional movie. Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monáe portray three African-American mathematicians and scientists who worked at NASA in the 1960s, helping launch John Glenn into space. The movie is adapted from a book by Margot Lee Shetterly, whose father worked at the agency alongside those women. Director Ted Melfi (St. Vincent) seems at ease with the special-effects shots of rockets flying in space, but his script (co-written with Allison Schroeder) is all too boilerplate, including the romantic subplot involving Mahershala Ali as a National Guard colonel. The movie gets the small moments right but falls down in the big moments. The predictability of it all wastes some terrific actors here. Also with Kevin Costner, Jim Parsons, Aldis Hodge, Glen Powell, Olek Krupa, and Kirsten Dunst.
Jackie (R) Good, but also overrated. Natalie Portman stars in this biography of Jacqueline Kennedy that pushes her husband (Casper Phillipson) to the periphery as it concentrates on her before, during, and after the president’s assassination. Director Pablo Larraín structures this unusually, giving it a free-associative, fantastical feel that distinguishes it from more conventional Hollywood biopics. Like the director’s Chilean films, this one focuses on how we project the image to the world that we need to, as Jackie keeps an eye on the public’s expectations of her even while dealing with her grief as she plans her husband’s funeral. However, Portman can’t help but show off how hard she’s working, and her distant presence makes this movie’s impact intellectual rather than emotional. Also with Peter Sarsgaard, Greta Gerwig, Billy Crudup, Richard E. Grant, John Carroll Lynch, Beth Grant, Max Casella, and John Hurt.
La La Land (PG-13) Who needs antidepressants when there’s this movie? In the hands of writer-director Damien Chazelle (Whiplash), this love story about an aspiring Hollywood actress (Emma Stone) and a jazz pianist (Ryan Gosling) becomes a musical throwback to the likes of Singin’ in the Rain. Chazelle, choreographer Mandy Moore, and songwriters Justin Hurwitz, Benj Pasek, and Justin Paul make unabashedly romantic and technically astonishing set pieces out of numbers like “Another Day of Sun” and “Someone in the Crowd,” but Chazelle knows when to get out of his stars’ way, too. Gosling’s trademark cool is essential, but Stone makes the film deeply moving in her first great role in a great movie. This is enough to blow the doors off the multiplex. Also with John Legend, Callie Hernandez, Sonoya Mizuno, Jessica Rothe, Finn Wittrock, Tom Everett Scott, Rosemarie DeWitt, and J.K. Simmons.
Lion (PG-13) An amazing real-life story gets a by-the-numbers treatment in this biopic. Dev Patel portrays Saroo Brierley, who was separated from his family as a small boy in India and adopted by an Australian family, but then started an obsessive search for his birth relatives when he grew up. Sunny Pawar is a tremendous kid actor as the young Saroo, and cinematographer Greig Fraser creates some stunningly beautiful visuals like an early shot of young Saroo surrounded by butterflies in a valley. Patel is good, too, but director Garth Davis hammers home the emotional beats so relentlessly that the film wears out its welcome well before the end. Also with Rooney Mara, Abhishek Bharate, Priyanka Bose, David Wenham, and Nicole Kidman.
Live by Night (R) Ben Affleck’s directing career needs turning around. He stars in his own adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s novel as a 1930s Irish gangster who finds a second career working for the Italian mob in Florida, running their bootleg rum operation. There’s a ton of plot that Affleck the screenwriter gets lost in, but more grievous are all the gangster cliches that he trots out, with characters spouting variations on You Can’t Trust Anyone, No One Gets Away Clean, and Live It Up Because There Is No God Anyway. Affleck’s skills with action set pieces give us a nice climactic shootout in a Tampa hotel, but his movie-star vanity crowds out the supporting players except Chris Messina as a wisecracking right-hand man. Affleck is dullest as an actor when he’s trying to be intimidating, and that’s pretty much all he lets himself do here. Also with Zoe Saldana, Elle Fanning, Brendan Gleeson, Robert Glenister, Matthew Maher, Max Casella, Titus Welliver, Sienna Miller, and Chris Cooper.
Manchester by the Sea (R) Kenneth Lonergan (You Can Count on Me) is fully back in form with this crusher of a drama about a miserable Massachusetts janitor (Casey Affleck) who unexpectedly finds himself appointed legal guardian to his teenage nephew (Lucas Hedges) after the death of his brother (Kyle Chandler). This movie doesn’t reveal until halfway through what made the protagonist so morose, but Lonergan is savvy enough to counter the heavy stuff with comedy and lively small talk. Affleck and Michelle Williams as his ex-wife give tremendous performances, while the supporting cast is consistently good. Lonergan’s emphasis on the bonds of family helps end this movie on a much-needed hopeful note. Also with C.J. Wilson, Josh Hamilton, Ben O’Brien, Tate Donovan, Heather Burns, Gretchen Mol, and Matthew Broderick.
Moana (PG) Not the most innovative Disney musical we’ve seen, but more than likable enough. Set on a Pacific island in the past, this is about a teenage girl (voiced by Auli’i Cravalho) who defies her tribe’s orders and sails out into the wider ocean to find the trickster demi-god Maui (voiced by Dwayne Johnson) and restore the balance to the waters. Directors Ron Clements and John Musker (The Little Mermaid) stick so closely to the Disney template that you can predict where the song about the heroine’s deepest desires will land. Still, the 16-year-old Cravalho is funny and a fine singer, Johnson may just have the role of his career as the full-of-himself deity, and the songs are by Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda. This one’s for all the Polynesians. Additional voices by Temuera Morrison, Rachel House, Nicole Scherzinger, Alan Tudyk, and Jemaine Clement.
Monster Trucks (PG) Not as bad as you’ve heard, Monster Trucks is the brainchild of a child, specifically the formerly 4-year old son of former Paramount Executive President Adam Goodman. The idea of large trucks powered by literal monsters is original, but the execution is pretty lackluster. Lucas Till (X-Men: First Class) stars as an outsider teen in a North Dakota oil town who discovers that the squid-like, oil-drinking creature loosed from a recent oil drilling accident can power his ancient Dodge pickup.It’s essentially a hybrid of E.T. and Herbie the Love Bug, and at least one of the chase scenes is inventive and amusing. There are worse ways to kill a couple hours with your kids — after all, you could be at home with them thinking up bad movies! Also with Jane Levy, Thomas Lennon, Barry Pepper, Holt McCallany, Frank Whaley, Amy Ryan, Rob Lowe, and Danny Glover. — Steve Steward
Moonlight (R) The great gay romance of African-American cinema. Barry Jenkins’ film tracks the life of its hero as a young boy growing up rough in Miami (Alex HIbbert), a high-school student (Ashton Sanders) falling in love for the first time, and a drug dealer (Trevante Rhodes) trying to heal all the scars from his past. The movie is stuffed with great performances from Rhodes, Sanders, Mahershala Ali as a kind drug dealer who acts as a father figure, Naomie Harris as a crack-addicted mother, and André Holland as an ex-lover who’s full of remorse. Jenkins’ control over this is absolute, as he knows when to be unfussy and when to be flamboyant, and makes the sun and waves of south Florida seem an integral part of these characters. The scene with the hero and his ex staring at each other while “Hello Stranger” plays in the background is as breathtaking as the rest of the movie. Also with Jharrel Jerome, Patrick Decile, and Janelle Monáe.
Passengers (PG-13) All the star charisma here can’t save a film that’s confused about what it’s supposed to be. Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt play two passengers who are awakened too soon on a spaceship carrying them to a distant planet, doomed to grow old and die before they reach their destination. These two actors make as personable a pair as you’d want to spend two hours or a lifetime on spaceship with, but the romance between them is soft-boiled stuff filled with boring platitudes about how no one wants to be alone. The movie works rather better as a space thriller, but this 120-minute movie could have easily lost 30 minutes, as well as its terminally silly final shot. Also with Michael Sheen, Laurence Fishburne, Julee Cerda, and Andy Garcia.
Patriots Day (R) They should just cut this together with Lone Survivor and Deepwater Horizon and play them all as one long movie. No one will notice the difference. Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg team up once again for this dramatization of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and resulting manhunt for the bombers. Wahlberg is playing a composite of three people, which explains why he seems to solve the bombing all by himself after being present for the two explosions. Director Berg has been working on autopilot for so long that you wonder whether he remembers how to steer. This movie feels like it was cranked out over a weekend by people with more talent than that. Also with Michelle Monaghan, Kevin Bacon, J.K. Simmons, Melissa Benoist, Jimmy O. Yang, Michael Beach, Alex Wolff, Khandi Alexander, and John Goodman.
The Resurrection of Gavin Stone (PG) Brett Dalton stars in this Christian drama as a disgraced Hollywood former child star who finds a new purpose while doing community service at a church. Also with Anjelah Johnson-Reyes, Shawn Michaels, Neil Flynn, Tim Frank, and D.B. Sweeney.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (PG-13) Conceptually flawed from the start. Set before the events of the 1977 Star Wars, this prequel stars Felicity Jones as a small-time criminal who joins the Rebels to rescue her father (Mads Mikkelsen) from the Empire’s clutches and find the fatal flaw in the Death Star. The movie lacks the visual and verbal wit of previous entries (save for the deadpan droid voiced by Alan Tudyk), the extended climax has too many moving parts for director Gareth Edwards (Godzilla), and we can guess these characters’ ultimate fate without even seeing the thing. Even the reappearance of Darth Vader (voiced by James Earl Jones) doesn’t accomplish much. Some nice efforts by the cast get wasted. Also with Diego Luna, Donnie Yen, Jiang Wen, Riz Ahmed, Ben Mendelsohn, Jimmy Smits, and Forest Whitaker.
Silence (R) A movie that Martin Scorsese has been trying to make for decades, this is not a masterpiece but still a powerful meditation on the nature of religious faith. Based on a novel by Shūsaku Endō, this stars Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver as Portuguese Jesuit priests who are sent to Japan in 1640 to locate a fellow priest and mentor (Liam Neeson) while spreading the word of God in a country that has outlawed Christianity. Despite the 161-minute running time and deliberate pace, Scorsese makes this feel nimble and full of incident as Garfield’s missionary watches people suffer and die for his belief and then has Neeson’s apostate priest dismantle his arrogant assumption that the Catholic God will conquer this pagan land. Through the end, Scorsese never tells us where his flawed characters stand with God, and while that ambiguity would be anathema to the makers of God’s Not Dead, it’s the very stuff of art. Also with Tadanobu Asano, Issei Ogata, Shinya Tsukamoto, Yoshi Oida, Yôsuke Kubozuka, Ryô Kase, and Ciarán Hinds.
Sing (PG) An uninspired mashup of Zootopia and Pitch Perfect. This animated film is about a koala (voiced by Matthew McConaughey) who decides to save the theater that he owns by staging a singing contest for the animals who live in his city. Writer-director Garth Jennings (Son of Rambow) spreads his script too thin by flitting among so many different characters, storylines, and songs that we can’t get a purchase on what’s going on. The koala isn’t interesting enough to hold the center, and the montage of failed auditioners is a golden comic opportunity that the movie speeds over. The final round features some nice musical performances by voice actors like Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson, and Seth MacFarlane, but they come too late to save this. Additional voices by Taron Egerton, John C. Reilly, Tori Kelly, Peter Serafinowicz, Nick Kroll, Beck Bennett, Jay Pharoah, Leslie Jones, Nick Offerman, Rhea Perlman, Laraine Newman, Jennifer Saunders, and Jennifer Hudson.
Sleepless (R) Jamie Foxx stars in a remake of 2011 French thriller Nuit Blanche about a corrupt cop who steals cocaine from a major crime family, only to have his son kidnapped as payback, leaving him one night to return the drugs and rescue his son while also avoiding the IA officer (Michelle Monaghan) out to prove he’s dirty. God knows what this gem is doing in January, as it’s a fun, exciting little B-movie. Foxx isn’t exactly going for an Oscar, but he’s fine, Monaghan is very engaged, and Scoot McNairy steals every scene as an intense bad guy. The movie walks a fine line, being cliché as hell, but in the best, most entertaining way. Good cinematography, from an ominous beginning to an exciting and well-shot fight scene in a kitchen, add to the fun. Also with Gabrielle Union, T.I., Dermot Mulroney, and David Harbour. — Cole Williams
Split (PG-13) Some of the worst and a lot of the best of M. Night Shyamalan are on display in his latest thriller. Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch) stars as one of three teenage girls who are kidnapped by a man with multiple personalities (James McAvoy) and imprisoned for mysterious purposes. The supernatural twist ending is way crazier than the villain, but Shyamalan executes slow-burn dread as well as ever and induces shivers during the interpolated flashbacks to the heroine’s childhood. The performances make gripping stuff out of scenes where the heroine tries to figure out which of the villain’s personalities she’s talking to and get some of them to help her and her friends. The comic bits mostly work, too. Shyamalan’s tales seem to creep us out best on a small scale. Also with Haley Lu Richardson, Jessica Sula, Sebastian Arcelus, Brad William Henke, Neal Huff, Betty Buckley, and an uncredited Bruce Willis.
20th Century Women (R) Mike Mills’ Beginners was about his father, so this movie is about his mother, his older sister, and the girl he had a crush on while growing up in Santa Barbara in the 1970s. Lucas Jade Zumann plays the young boy being raised by a second-wave feminist single mom (Annette Bening). Mills’ rhetorical flourishes continue to be off-putting, as he has different characters narrate from omniscient points of view about their futures and superimposes text by Gloria Steinem on the screen. Fortunately, his touch with actors is even better here, as Bening is excellent and Greta Gerwig even better as a punk rocker in precarious health who’s laid low by the news that she can’t have children. Also with Elle Fanning, Billy Crudup, Alison Elliott, Thea Gill, Waleed Zuaiter, and Alia Shawkat.
Underworld: Blood Wars (R) Kate Beckinsale returns from the dead with more superpowers and the ends of her hair dyed white. Other than that, I can’t think why they bothered with this fifth installment of the vampires vs. werewolves series that was never very good to begin with. Once again, we get caught up in the interminable politics of the vampire and werewolf worlds, which leads to endless scenes with actors standing around declaiming huge chunks of bad dialogue while we wait for the next disappointing swordfight or gun battle. The Divergent series’ Theo James comes onboard as a tough male sidekick, which amounts to subtraction by addition. This series is drained. Also with Tobias Menzies, Lara Pulver, James Faulkner, Peter Andersson, Bradley James, Daisy Head, Clementine Nicholson, and Charles Dance.
Why Him? (R) James Franco slightly raises his natural James Francosity to portray an eccentric tech mogul with lots of tattoos and no boundaries, whose potential father-in-law (Bryan Cranston) is horrified when his daughter (Zoey Deutch) wants to marry this guy. This setup is too good not to raise a few hearty laughs, but the base material is weak, and these talented comic actors don’t rescue it often enough. Director/co-writer John Hamburg (I Love You, Man) is yet another comic filmmaker from the School of Apatow, and he’s one of the low achievers in that school. Save this for a weekday evening at home when you’re in dire need of a laugh. Also with Megan Mullally, Griffin Gluck, Keegan-Michael Key, Adam Devine, Casey Wilson, Andrew Rannells, and Kaley Cuoco.
XXX: Return of Xander Cage (PG-13) Age hasn’t improved the series. Vin Diesel reprises his role as an extreme athlete who goes back to work for the government after his former boss (Samuel L. Jackson) is murdered while trying to recruit Neymar (who portrays himself) into the CIA program. Sometimes the movie is intentionally funny when it gives us dossier files on characters that include irrelevant information (“Go To Karaoke Song: ‘What a Wonderful World’”), but mostly this thing is self-consciously hip dialogue and characters falling over at the sight of the legendary Xander, with Diesel way too self-satisfied in the role. To top it off, director D.J. Caruso makes hash out of the action and wastes a personable cast. Also with Donnie Yen, Deepika Padukone, Ruby Rose, Toni Collette, Tony Jaa, Kris Wu, Nina Dobrev, Rory McCann, and Ice Cube.
DALLAS EXCLUSIVES
Julieta (R) The latest film by Pedro Almodóvar is based on Alice Munro’s stories and stars Emma Suárez as a middle-aged Madrid woman who tries to contact her daughter after 12 years of estrangement. Also with Adriana Ugarte, Daniel Grao, Inma Cuesta, Michelle Jenner, Pilar Castro, Nathalie Poza, Rossy de Palma, and Darío Grandinetti.
Strike a Pose (NR) Ester Gould and Reijer Zwaan’s documentary profiles Madonna’s backup dancers.
