OPENING
Baadshaho (NR) This Indian period heist film is about an arrogant cop (Ajay Devgn) transporting a shipment of seized gold from Jaipur to Delhi. Also with Ileana D’Cruz, Emraan Hashmi, Esha Gupta, Vidyut Jammwal, Sanjay Mishra, and Sunny Leone. (Opens Friday)
A Boy Called Po (PG) Christopher Gorham stars in this drama as a newly widowed father having to take care of an autistic son (Julian Feder). Also with Kaitlin Doubleday, Andrew Bowen, Bryan Batt, Fay Masterson, Caitlin Carmichael, and Sean Gunn. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Crown Heights (R) Matt Ruskin’s well-intentioned drama tells the real-life story of Colin Warner (LaKeith Stanfield), the Trinidadian immigrant who spent 21 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of a murder he had no part in. Stanfield is really good as usual, but his performance is wasted amid some slipshod filmmaking by the writer-director. The time period is covered in fits and starts, the dialogue is clumsy, and the characters of Colin and his tireless friend on the outside (played by former NFL star Nnamdi Asomugha) who fights to overturn his conviction are developed in the most cursory fashion. At a certain point, you start to crave the formulaic plot construction of a Law & Order episode. Also with Natalie Paul, Luke Forbes, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Zach Grenier, Josh Pais, Skylan Brooks, Nestor Carbonell, Gbenga Akinnagbe, and Bill Camp.
Do It Like an Hombre (R) This Spanish-language comedy stars Alfonso Dosal as a Chilean man who upsets his friends by coming out as gay. Also with Aislinn Derbez, Mauricio Ochmann, Humberto Busto, Ignacio Allemand, and Ariel Levy. (Opens Friday at América Cinemas Fort Worth)
Goon: Last of the Enforcers (R) Jay Baruchel takes over the writing and direction in this sequel to Kevin Smith’s comedy about a hockey enforcer (Seann William Scott) facing the end of his career. Also with Elisha Cuthbert, Alison Pill, Wyatt Russell, Liev Schreiber, Callum Keith Rennie, Kim Coates, and T.J. Miller. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
I Do… Until I Don’t (R) Lake Bell writes, directs, and stars in her own comedy about a documentary filmmaker (Dolly Wells) who charts the relationships between three different couples to prove that love is unsustainable. Also with Ed Helms, Paul Reiser, Mary Steenburgen, Amber Heard, Wyatt Cenac, and Chace Crawford. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Jackals (NR) This horror film is about a family whose attempts to take their teenage son back from a religious cult results in them being besieged in their house by the cult members. Starring Deborah Kara Unger, Stephen Dorff, Johnathon Schaech, Nick Roux, Chelsea Ricketts, and Jason Scott Jenkins. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
The Layover (R) This comedy by William H. Macy stars Alexandra Daddario and Kate Upton as two best friends whose friendship dissolves when they fight over the same guy (Matt Barr). Also with Kal Penn, Rob Corddry, Matt Jones, and Molly Shannon. (Opens Friday)
Menashe (PG) This Yiddish-language drama stars Menashe Lustig as an Orthodox Jewish widower in New York trying to regain custody of his son. Also with Yoel Falkowitz, Ruben Niborski, Meyer Schwartz, and Yoel Weisshaus. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Served Like a Girl (NR) Lysa Heslov’s documentary profiles five female war veterans who now run their own organization to help homeless female veterans. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Temple (NR) This horror film is about three American tourists (Logan Huffman, Brandon Sklenar, and Natalia Warner) who become lost in the jungles of Japan while searching for an ancient temple. Also with Naoto Takenaka and Asahi Uchida. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Tulip Fever (R) Dane DeHaan stars in this drama as a 17th-century Dutch painter who falls for a married woman (Alicia Vikander) during the country’s mania for tulips. Also with Jack O’Connell, Holliday Grainger, Tom Holland, Matthew Morrison, Kevin McKidd, Douglas Hodge, Cara Delevingne, Zach Galifianakis, Judi Dench, and Christoph Waltz. (Opens Friday)
Unlocked (R) Noomi Rapace stars in this action thriller as a CIA interrogator drawn into a trap that puts London in threat of a biological attack. Also with Orlando Bloom, Toni Collette, Akshay Kumar, Adelayo Adedayo, John Malkovich, and Michael Douglas. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Valley of Bones (R) This drama stars Autumn Reeser as a disgraced paleontologist who teams up with a meth addict (Steven Molony) who may have found a rare fossil. Also with Rhys Coiro, Mason Mahay, Bill Smitrovich, and Mark Margolis. (Opens Friday)
The Vault (NR) Taryn Manning and Francesca Eastwood star in this supernatural thriller as two sisters who get more than they bargained for when they try to rob a bank. Also with James Franco, Scott Haze, Clifton Collins Jr., Jeff Gum, and Q’orianka Kilcher. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
NOW PLAYING
All Saints (PG) John Corbett stars as Rev. Michael Spurlock, the real-life Anglican minister in Tennessee who saved his financially failing church by taking in a few hundred Karen refugees from civil war-torn Myanmar. Perhaps this film glosses over the racial difficulties involved here, but it does show the pressures that a church takes on providing for immigrants who have lost everything, as well as a grasp of the ethical pitfalls — it’s an old white guy (Barry Corbin) who accuses the preacher of wanting to run a plantation. A nicely understated and conflicted turn by Corbett does much to keep this from lapsing into sanctimony. Here’s another one to show people who think Christian movies are always bad. Also with Cara Buono, Nelson Lee, Myles Moore, David Keith, Patrick Johnson, and Gregory Alan Williams.
Annabelle: Creation (R) Director David Sandberg’s disappointing follow-up to Lights Out is this horror prequel showing how a bereaved couple (Anthony LaPaglia and Miranda Otto) created the evil doll to deal with their grief, then opened up an orphanage for young girls, unwittingly giving the doll what it wants. Whatever creep factor the doll had in the first movie, it’s lost it by now, and Sandberg’s go-slow approach doesn’t pay off here like it has done for others. This movie makes me yearn for the charisma of Chucky. Also with Stephanie Sigman, Lulu Wilson, Talitha Bateman, Grace Fulton, Kerry O’Malley, Philippa Coulthard, and Alicia Vela-Bailey.
Atomic Blonde (R) A deadly stylish showcase for Charlize Theron. She plays an undercover MI6 agent who is sent into Berlin just before the end of the Cold War to retrieve a list of British agents and operations. As a spy thriller, this is riddled with holes and inconsistencies, as director David Leitch can evoke neither the atmosphere of 1980s Germany nor the paranoid sense of the best spy movies, and the final revelation makes no sense at all. Fortunately, Theron is in top form as this bisexual operative who’ll happily seduce women for the mission. The action sequences are stellar, and the brutal fight against a KGB sniper team on the stairs of an East Berlin apartment is destined to become a classic. Also with James McAvoy, Toby Jones, Sofia Boutella, Eddie Marsan, Bill Skarsgård, Roland Møller, Til Schweiger, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, James Faulkner, Sam Hargrave, Barbara Sukowa, and John Goodman.
Baby Driver (R) A car-chase movie that’s also a musical. Ansel Elgort plays a youthful-looking getaway driver with a passion for music who works off a debt to an Atlanta crime boss (Kevin Spacey) by driving armed robbers away from the police. In his first American movie, writer-director Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz) uses his trademark repeated lines and skillfully set-up gags, but also stages car stunts that are all the sicker because you know they’re being performed for real. The supporting cast is terrific, but Elgort owns the show completely as he rocks out behind the wheel to Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s “Bellbottoms” and dances to Bob & Earl’s “Harlem Shuffle.” The movie’s match of music, editing, and performances makes for a delirious experience. Also with Lily James, Jamie Foxx, Jon Hamm, Eiza González, Jon Bernthal, CJ Jones, Flea, Big Boi, Killer Mike, and Paul Williams.
The Big Sick (R) The romantic comedy of the summer is this one based on the autobiography of Kumail Nanjiani, the Pakistani-American stand-up comic and actor who fell for a white American woman and was wondering how to tell his parents when she became desperately ill and was placed in a coma. The film bolts out of the gate thanks to a script by Nanjiani and his real-life wife Emily Gordon, with jokes coming from all directions, including Emily’s fictional alter ego (Zoe Kazan), the Chicago stand-up scene where this is set, and Kumail’s Muslim family. The movie loses some of its surefootedness in the second half, as the filmmakers have trouble keeping the laughs going while Emily continues to lie in a hospital. Still, this is likely the first comedy from a Muslim perspective that most Americans have seen, and the more charming because of its real-life story. Also, Kumail’s joke about 9/11 is the most outrageous one I’ve heard all year. Also with Holly Hunter, Ray Romano, Zenobia Shroff, Adeel Akhtar, Aidy Bryant, Bo Burnham, Kurt Braunohler, Vella Lovell, David Alan Grier, Linda Emond, and Anupam Kher.
Birth of the Dragon (PG-13) This formulaic but watchable martial-arts film is set in San Francisco in the 1960s and dramatizes the real-life fight between a young Bruce Lee (Philip Ng) and a Chinese kung fu master (Xia Yu) who disapproves of the way Lee is propagating kung fu in America. The romantic subplot between an angry American student of Lee’s (Billy Magnussen) and a Chinese girl (Qu Jingjing) whose fate is owned by the triads is a losing gambit, but the film does reasonably well at portraying Lee as a brilliant, arrogant jerk in need of a lesson in the humility and discipline at the heart of kung fu. The martial-arts sequences by longtime Hong Kong fight director Cory Yuen make the whole thing worthwhile. Also with Simon Yin, Jin Xing, Terry Chen, Wu Yue, Vanness Wu, Vincent Cheng, Yee Jee Tso, Ron Yuan, and Simon Chin.
Cars 3 (PG) Basically, this is like Creed with talking cars. In this latest Pixar installment, Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) faces his sporting mortality after a bad run of results and makes drastic changes to his training regimen thanks to a new billionaire sponsor (voiced by Nathan Fillion) who’s so nice that he can’t possibly be a good guy. Once Lightning’s new young trainer (voiced by Cristela Alonzo) is shown topping out over 200 on a racing simulator, we know where this is going. Even so, the base material has a power of its own as the old veteran finds he has to dig into a bag of tricks to stay competitive with the younger racers, and Pixar’s customary in-jokes and throwaway gags help it all go down easy. Check for F1 champion Lewis Hamilton as an electronic assistant named Hamilton. Additional voices by Larry the Cable Guy, Chris Cooper, Bonnie Hunt, Armie Hammer, Tony Shalhoub, Lea DeLaria, Margo Martindale, Kerry Washington, Bob Costas, Darrell Waltrip, Richard Petty, Kyle Petty, Cheech Marin, John Ratzenberger, and the late Paul Newman.
The Dark Tower (PG-13) Like a fever dream — an exceptionally boring fever dream. Tom Taylor stars in this Stephen King adaptation as a New York boy whose nightmares about a gunslinger (Idris Elba) battling a Satanic overlord (Matthew McConaughey) in a barren wasteland turn out to be real. The plot is squashed down from various books in King’s epic series, which is probably why events unfold with no discernible logic or cause. Everything looks gray because director Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair) can’t think of another way to portray dystopia, and the actors are restricted to a single note for their characters. This isn’t as bad a King adaptation as Dreamcatcher, but it’s not far off. Also with Jackie Earle Haley, Claudia Kim, Abbey Lee, Katheryn Winnick, Fran Kranz, José Zúñiga, and Dennis Haysbert.
Despicable Me 3 (PG) There are all sorts of things going on in this third installment, what with Gru meeting his long-lost twin brother (both voiced by Steve Carell), Lucy (voiced by Kristen Wiig) learning to be a mom, the minions (voiced by Pierre Coffin) exiled to their own subplot doing God knows what, and a 1980s kid actor-turned-supervillain (voiced by Trey Parker) trying to destroy Hollywood. All of it fails because the filmmakers behind this seem to have run out of ideas sometime during the last movie. It’s time for Gru to retire and spend more time with his family, away from our screens. Additional voices by Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier, Nev Scharrel, Steve Coogan, Jenny Slate, and Julie Andrews.
Detroit (R) Flawed and powerful. Kathryn Bigelow does this dramatization of the 1967 Detroit race riots and the resulting police brutality incident at the Algiers Motel that year, when city cops tortured guests and eventually murdered three while searching for a gun that they never found. As usual, Bigelow excels at depicting the chaos in the streets and evoking slowly unfolding dread, and while the first half of the movie depicting the riots unbalances the film, it also provides valuable context. However, while her approach has value, it also has limitations. All the suffering she depicts here requires an equally great catharsis, and the bit with the soul singer (Algee Smith) leaving his band and joining a church choir isn’t enough of a counterweight to all the white mendacity here. The film will still be timely as long as white cops kill unarmed black men and get away with it. Also with John Boyega, Will Poulter, Jacob Latimore, Jason Mitchell, Hannah Murray, Kaitlyn Dever, Ben O’Toole, Jack Reynor, Nathan Davis Jr., Malcolm David Kelley, Jeremy Strong, Samira Wiley, Laz Alonso, Anthony Mackie, and John Krasinski.
Dunkirk (PG-13) Not a masterpiece, but it gets the job done. Christopher Nolan’s World War II epic tells the story of British civilians rescuing more than 300,000 soldiers from the French beach where they were trapped by the Nazis. Nolan tells the story in three overlapping timelines, from the viewpoints of an RAF pilot (Tom Hardy), a private (Fionn Whitehead), a boat owner (Mark Rylance), and others. Nolan probably should have gone with a more straightforward approach; the temporal dislocation doesn’t increase the chaos of the battle or the story’s forward drive. Luckily, this movie does much better at the small-picture level, conveying the analog nature of aerial combat back then and the private’s series of brushes with death as he tries to flee. This movie may not have the emotional impact that it’s looking for, but it succeeds thanks to Nolan’s assiduous application of his craft. Also with Cillian Murphy, Jack Lowden, Aneurin Barnard, Tom Glynn-Carney, Barry Keoghan, Tom Nolan, Harry Styles, and Kenneth Branagh.
The Emoji Movie (PG) Crying face emoji. Angry face emoji. Poop emoji. Nauseated face emoji. Skull and crossbones emoji. Bomb emoji. Wastebasket emoji. Dagger emoji. Anger symbol emoji. Radioactive sign emoji. Biohazard emoji. Thumbs-down emoji. Exclamation question mark emoji. Stop button emoji. Voices by T.J. Miller, James Corden, Anna Faris, Maya Rudolph, Jennifer Coolidge, Christina Aguilera, Sofia Vergara, Sean Hayes, Rachael Ray, Patrick Stewart, and Steven Wright.
47 Meters Down (PG-13) Since The Shallows became a hit last summer, everybody else has to have a shark flick. This one can’t hold a candle or even a shaky flashlight to that film. Mandy Moore and Claire Holt star as sisters who are trapped in a shark cage that comes loose from the boat and hits the ocean floor. English director Johannes Roberts (The Other Side of the Door) can’t think of anything inventive to do with the situation or with the open ocean and limited visibility that the setting offers. The acting from the two actresses is undistinguished at best as well. Look elsewhere for your B-grade thrills. Also with Matthew Modine, Yani Gellman, Chris Johnson, and Santiago Segura.
A Gentleman (NR) Sidharth Malhotra stars in this Indian comedy as a boring American-based realtor and a dashing Mumbai undercover agent who happen to look exactly alike. Also with Jacqueline Fernandez, Sunil Shetty, Darshan Kumar, and Zachary Coffin.
Girls Trip (R) In the “raunchy summer female comedy” tournament, this one defeats Snatched and Rough Night. Regina Hall stars as an Oprah Winfrey-like lifestyle guru who invites her college friends (Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Tiffany Haddish) for a weekend of partying at the Essence Festival in New Orleans. The raunchy summer female comedies tend to be for the white women, so it’s gratifying to see the black women get in on the action, and do it to hilarious effect. Some of the subplots play out predictably, but who cares when you’ve got set pieces like a zipline ride across Bourbon Street that goes wrong? Haddish winds up upstaging her more famous co-stars repeatedly, especially during a sex demonstration with a grapefruit and a banana. Also with Larenz Tate, Mike Colter, Mike Epps, Lara Grice, and Kate Walsh.
The Glass Castle (PG-13) Woody Harrelson steals the show in this film adaptation of Jeannette Walls’ memoir as the author’s damaged, drunken, abusive dad who’s always planning to build his children a glass house when he’s not picking up the family and running from the law. Walls’ life story is packed with incredible incidents, so much that the movie even leaves out the one where she was thrown from her parents’ moving car and her parents didn’t notice, but director/co-writer Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12) has trouble wrangling all of it into proper shape. Brie Larson does all right by the lead role, but it’s Harrelson, brimming with shame, regret, and an anger that he’s powerless to control, that you’ll remember more than anything. Also with Naomi Watts, Ella Anderson, Chandler Head, Max Greenfield, Josh Caras, Sarah Snook, and Robin Bartlett.
Good Time (R) Robert Pattinson has never been more convincing than in this hellish, grimy thriller about a small-time thug from Queens who spends a frantic night and day trying to bail his mentally handicapped brother (Benny Safdie) out of prison. Safdie is also one of the directors here along with his brother Josh, and they have a feel for New York’s seedy underbelly and its tendency to mix with the city’s richer side at unexpected times. They build up a sense of remorseless momentum and take in all the collateral damage that the protagonist inflicts on everyone he meets in his single-minded determination to help his brother and his own incessant hustling. Watching this guy destroy himself is undeniably riveting in these filmmakers’ hands. Also with Jennifer Jason Leigh, Taliah Lennice Webster, Buddy Duress, Necro, Peter Verby, and Barkhad Abdi.
The Hitman’s Bodyguard (R) Theoretically, this is a comic thriller. In practice, this is really just Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson sitting in cars for long periods, being snarky, and hoping that something funny will happen. Jackson plays a contract killer about to turn state’s evidence against an Eastern European dictator (Gary Oldman) when his security is compromised and he’s forced to turn to a disgraced former bodyguard (Reynolds) with whom he has an unfriendly past. The action sequences make no sense, the stars have no chemistry, and there’s no comic material for them to work with anyway. Also with Elodie Yung, Richard E. Grant, Rod Hallett, Sam Hazeldine, Joaquim de Almeida, and Salma Hayek.
Ingrid Goes West (R) This enjoyable comedy is the first one to satirize social media influencers, now that that’s a thing, and gets a fair chunk of the target. Aubrey Plaza stars as a crazed stalker who moves to L.A. to go all Single White Female on her favorite Instagram blogger (Elizabeth Olsen) because she’s gullible enough to mistake people’s flawless internet facades for reality. Director/co-writer Matt Spicer never quite works out how far gone Ingrid’s mind is, and Plaza doesn’t project the character’s unease at interacting with the real world or her capacity for violence. Still, she balances physical comedy with more nuanced bits where she turns passive-aggressive in the presence of any threats to her relationship with her new bestie, and her climactic monologue into her phone is well done. We have yet to see the first great comedy about how far our perfect social-media selves from us, but we will. Also with O’Shea Jackson Jr., Wyatt Russell, Pom Klementieff, and Billy Magnussen.
Kidnap (R) Laughably bad. Halle Berry stars in this thriller as a single mother whose 9-year-old son (Sage Correa) is forcibly kidnapped from the park, and who chases after the kidnapper in her car after she loses her phone. Nothing that happens here is remotely believable, not the police ignoring the high-speed chase through the city, not the mechanics of the chase itself, not the way the kidnappers work, and certainly not the mother’s lengthy monologues to herself while she’s driving. This is so actively terrible, you’ll wonder how it got into the movie theaters at all. Also with Chris McGinn, Lew Temple, Dana Gourrier, and Jason George.
Leap! (PG) This wildly misconceived animated film is supposed to take place in 19th-century France, but the characters wisecrack like contemporary American kids. Elle Fanning is the voice of an orphaned girl from Brittany who escapes from her orphanage with a friend (voiced by Nat Wolff), and they make their way to Paris, where she cottons on at a prestigious ballet school and fulfills her dream of becoming a dancer. This film was originally done in French, and maybe it was better in that language, but the American dub is so lame that you won’t be curious to find out. Additional voices by Kate McKinnon, Carly Rae Jepsen, Maddie Ziegler, and Mel Brooks.
Logan Lucky (PG-13) Steven Soderbergh returns to filmmaking and reminds us what a nifty flair he has for light entertainment. Channing Tatum and Adam Driver star as two brothers in West Virginia who’ve fallen on hard times and decide to rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway during the running of the Coca-Cola 600. Soderbergh delights in these uneducated folks’ ingenuity when it comes to pulling off a big heist on a limited budget, using Gummi Bears and cockroaches painted with nail polish as part of their intricate plan. Yet the most fun comes from his offbeat casting, including Seth MacFarlane as a boorish British racing sponsor and Daniel Craig giving his funniest ever performance as a platinum-haired safecracker, delivering his lines in a high-pitched redneck twang. It’s good to have this filmmaker back. Also with Riley Keough, Katie Holmes, Katherine Waterston, Farrah Mackenzie, David Denman, Brian Gleeson, Jack Quaid, Dwight Yoakam, Jon Eyez, Macon Blair, and Hilary Swank.
The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature (PG) Less interesting than the original, maybe because it has the same plot. Will Arnett reprises his role as the antisocial squirrel named Surly who has to learn once again to work with the other animals in order to survive after a greedy mayor (voiced by Bobby Moynihan) decides to pave over the city park where they all live. The whole enterprise seems to lack inventiveness and even energy. Additional voices by Katherine Heigl, Maya Rudolph, Peter Stormare, Bobby Cannavale, Isabela Moner, Jeff Dunham, Gabriel Iglesias, and Jackie Chan.
Spider-Man: Homecoming (PG-13) The best high-school movie so far this year. After a bunch of angst-ridden Spider-Men, Tom Holland headlines this relatively and invigoratingly carefree outing. Director/co-writer Jon Watts (Cop Car) keeps the whole thing from Peter Parker’s teenage perspective, where participating in the academic decathlon looms as large as battling the villain (Michael Keaton), a screwed-over salvage worker now making weapons for the supervillain. The supporting cast is subtly loaded, but the best parts go to Peter’s school friends, and the most rewarding scenes are him interacting with his Star Wars geek pal (Jacob Batalon), the pretty girl he wants to ask out (Laura Harrier), the cool loser chick (Zendaya), and the nerd bully (Tony Revolori). A predictable third-act twist notwithstanding, the web-slinger’s latest reboot is well worthy of him. Also with Robert Downey Jr., Marisa Tomei, Jon Favreau, Donald Glover, Bokeem Woodbine, Logan Marshall-Green, Martin Starr, Hannibal Buress, Kenneth Choi, Garcelle Beauvais, Michael Chernus, Selenis Leyva, Abraham Attah, Angourie Rice, Tyne Daly, Gwyneth Paltrow, Chris Evans, and Jennifer Connelly.
Tales of an Immoral Couple (R) This Mexican comedy stars Manuel Garcia-Rulfo and Cecilia Suárez as two high-school sweethearts who reunite 25 years after their breakup and set off a chain of chaotic events. Also with Paz Vega, Natasha Dupeyrón, Juan Pablo Medina, Mariana Treviño, and Andrés Almeida.
A Taxi Driver (NR) A Korean history lesson told with enough skill to make it go down easy. Jang Hun’s thriller tells the true story of a West German journalist (Thomas Kretschmann) and a Seoul taxi driver (Song Kang-ho) who risked their lives to document the 1980 Gwangju Massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators by South Korea’s new military dictatorship. The movie delicately balances the grim historical situation with the comedy of the early going between a cabbie with little English and a reporter with no Korean. Some of the action is historical liberty; it’s not true that the journalist got out thanks to a fleet of Gwangju cabdrivers who covered their escape. Still, the whole thing is anchored by the great Song, who couldn’t be a better choice to play an ordinary man who becomes a hero. Also with Ryu Jun-yeol, Yoo Hae-jin, Park Hyuk-kwon, Um Tae-goo, Yoo Eun-mi, Ko Chang-seok, Jeon Hye-jin, and Daniel Albright.
War for the Planet of the Apes (PG-13) These movies continue to wash over me without making much of an impact. Andy Serkis reprises his role as Caesar in this third installment that’s also a retelling of the Book of Exodus, as Caesar has to lead his apes from their jungle home to a new place in the desert when they start being terrorized by a ruthless military colonel (Woody Harrelson). The biblical parallels are pretty exact — we get a mountain avalanche instead of a parting of the Red Sea — and they’re filled out with Holocaust parallels, as the colonel winds up imprisoning the apes in a concentration camp. The CGI effects are done well enough, but they can’t quite cover up how run-of-the-mill this story is. Also with Steve Zahn, Amiah Miller, Karin Konoval, Michael Adamthwaite, Gabriel Chavarria, Terry Notary, Toby Kebbell, Judy Greer, and Ty Olsson.
Wind River (R) Screenwriter and Fort Worth product Taylor Sheridan (Sicario, Hell or High Water) shows some promise in his directing debut. Jeremy Renner stars as a U.S. Fish & Wildlife ranger who finds a teenage girl’s frozen body on an Indian reservation and has to assist the FBI agent (Elizabeth Olsen) in charge of the murder case. Sheridan’s particularly strong on the script’s procedural elements, depicting the logistical challenges of investigating in such a remote and inhospitable place, and the performances are hard to fault. This movie could have been shorter, and the extended flashback placed just before the climax is a regrettably clumsy misstep. Still, this is a solid Western. Also with Gil Birmingham, Kelsey Asbille, Julia Jones, Teo Briones, Martin Sensmeier, Tantoo Cardinal, Apesanahkwat, and Graham Greene.
Wonder Woman (PG-13) Not all that good, but still yards better than the other DC Comics movies. Gal Gadot plays the warrior princess who gives up her birthright and leaves her island to help an American spy (Chris Pine) bring a successful end to World War I. The origin story means that the other superheroes don’t get awkwardly shoehorned in for cameos, Wonder Woman has a character arc (wobbly though it is) that’s more satisfying than any of those superheroes have had, and the film owes a great deal to Pine and his comic instincts to keep the story grounded. The movie does leave all sorts of things on the table and doesn’t appear to leave the heroine with much place to go as a character, but the good outweighs the bad, on balance. Never send a Man of Steel to do a Wonder Woman’s job. Also with Robin Wright, David Thewlis, Connie Nielsen, Elena Anaya, Lucy Davis, Ewen Bremner, Eugene Brave Rock, Saïd Taghmaoui, and Danny Huston.
DALLAS EXCLUSIVES
Bushwick (NR) This thriller is about Texan secessionists seizing New York City by force, with Dave Bautista and Brittany Snow as two New Yorkers trying to survive. Also with Christian Navarro, Arturo Castro, Jeremie Harris, Angelic Zambrana, and Leo Minaya.
Legend of the Naga Pearls (NR) This Chinese fantasy-adventure film stars Darren Wang as a thief who’s hunted down after he takes a set of pearls belonging to an ancient tribe of flying people. Also with Zhang Tianai, Sheng Guansen, Wang Xun, He Sui, Yu Xing, and Simon Yam.
Lemon (NR) Brett Gelman stars in this comedy as a middle-aged man whose life unravels after his longtime girlfriend (Judy Greer) leaves him. Also with Michael Cera, Gillian Jacobs, Jeff Garlin, Shiri Appleby, Megan Mullally, Nia Long, Rhea Perlman, Fred Melamed, Martin Starr, Rex Lee, and David Paymer.
Marjorie Prime (NR) Lois Smith stars in this science-fiction film as an 86-year-old woman whose companion is a holographic re-creation of her dead husband’s younger self (Jon Hamm). Also with Geena Davis, Stephanie Andujar, Hannah Gross, and Tim Robbins.
Patti Cake$ (R) This low-budget comedy stars Danielle Macdonald as a fat working-class white girl from New Jersey who dreams of being a rapper. Also with Siddharth Dhananjay, Bridget Everett, Mamoudou Athie, McCaul Lombardi, Kirk Knight, MC Lyte, and Cathy Moriarty.
Shot Caller (R) Nikolaj Coster-Waldau stars in this thriller as a recently released ex-con who must work with a rival gang to pull off a major crime in Los Angeles. Also with Lake Bell, Jon Bernthal, Jeffrey Donovan, Omari Hardwick, Holt McCallany, Emory Cohen, and Benjamin Bratt.
The Trip to Spain (NR) This third film in the series reunites director Michael Winterbottom with stars Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, as they do celebrity impressions and tour the country’s finest restaurants. Also with Claire Keelan and Marta Barrio.
