OPENING
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (PG-13) Adapted from Benjamin Alire Sáenz, this drama stars Max Pelayo and Reese Gonzales as teenage friends coming of age in El Paso in the 1980s. Also with Eva Longoria, Kevin Alejandro, Luna Blaise, Isabella Gomez, Veronica Falcón, Marlene Forte, Emiliano Torres, and Eugenio Derbez. (Opens Friday)
Fremont (NR) This drama stars Anaita Wali Zada as an Afghan translator for the U.S. military who tries to adjust to her new life making Chinese fortune cookies in America. Also with Jeremy Allen White, Gregg Turkington, Hilda Schmelling, Siddique Ahmed, Avis See-tho, and Taban Ibraz. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Jawan (NR) Shah Rukh Khan plays a double role in this Indian action-thriller. Also with Nayanthara, Vijay Sethupathi, Priyamani, Riddhi Dogra, Sanjay Dutt, Sanya Malhotra, Yogi Babu, and Deepika Padukone. (Opens Friday)
Miss Shetty Mr. Polishetty (NR) This Indian romantic comedy is about a standup comic (Naveen Polishetty) wooing a London chef (Anushka Shetty). Also with Murali Sharma, Tulasi, Jayasudha, Nassar, and Abhinav Gomatam. (Opens Friday)
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 (PG-13) The latest installment has the Portokalos family traveling to Greece to track down their relatives. Starring Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Andrea Martin, Louis Mandylor, Elena Kampouris, Lainie Kazan, Gia Carides, Maria Vacratsis, Elias Kacavas, Melina Kotselou, and Joey Fatone. (Opens Friday)
The Nun II (R) Taissa Farmiga reprises her role as the Catholic nun who must face down the demon nun (Bonnie Aarons). Also with Storm Reid, Anna Popplewell, Jonas Bloquet, Katelyn Rose Downey, Suzanne Bertish, Peter Hudson, Tamar Baruch, Natalia Safran, Patrick Wilson, and Vera Farmiga. (Opens Friday)
NOW PLAYING
Barbie (PG-13) This philosophical statement about being a woman in present-day society is likely the strangest Hollywood blockbuster you’ll see all year, and much more than the crass corporate product it could have been. A perfectly pitched Margot Robbie plays a Barbie doll who has to travel from Barbie Land to our reality to discover why she’s having random thoughts about death. When Ken (Ryan Gosling) follows her into our reality, he likes the sight of men running everything and tries to turn Barbie Land into another patriarchy. All this takes place against a backdrop that’s wholly committed to Barbie-ness, with streets lined with life-size Barbie Dream Houses and more pink than you’ve ever seen in your life. If the storytelling loses a bit in its last third, the loose ends fit a story about the messiness of being a woman (or a man). This girly film is also thoughtful, complex, and funny, and will ensure that you never look at a Barbie doll the same way again. Also with America Ferrera, Arianna Greenblatt, Emma Mackey, Issa Rae, Beanie Feldstein, Simu Liu, Michael Cera, Will Ferrell, Kate McKinnon, Alexandra Shipp, Hari Nef, Sharon Rooney, Ritu Arya, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Ncuti Gatwa, Nicola Coughlan, Emerald Fennell, Scott Evans, Sharon Rooney, Ana Cruz Kayne, Rhea Perlman, and John Cena. Narrated by Helen Mirren.
Blue Beetle (PG-13) The Mexican family at the center of this is enough to make this DC superhero movie feel different. Xolo Maridueña portrays a young man on a U.S. territory in the Caribbean who stumbles onto a suit of armor that gives him superhuman powers and also makes him a target of the evil tech firm that wants it. The movie does drag towards the end when the bad guys square off with the good guy and his familia, but director Angel Manuel Soto does not look overmatched by the scale and special effects, and the humor among the hero’s tightly knit family is both funny and culturally specific, especially with his crackpot uncle (George Lopez) and his abuelita (Adriana Barraza) who mysteriously knows how to handle an automatic firearm. Also with Elpidia Carrillo, Bruna Marquezine, Raoul Max Trujillo, Damián Alcázar, Belissa Escobedo, Harvey Guillén, and Susan Sarandon.
Bottoms (R) Weirdly like Pitch Perfect with a lot less singing and a lot more face-punching. I’m down for that. Ayo Edebiri and Rachel Sennott play openly gay high-schoolers who found a self-defense club, ostensibly to help girls defend themselves from predators but really to hook up with their respective girl crushes. The two lead actresses have a well-established chemistry, having roomed together in college and collaborated on numerous projects. If the script by Sennott and director/co-writer Emma Seligman (Shiva Baby) is a tad predictable, it leaves lots of room for funny business from the various actors portraying the students and teachers. Even former NFL star Marshawn Lynch contributes laughs as a teacher who reads porn magazines in class. If the right-wing demonization of gay kids leaves you wanting to hit back, here’s the violent knockabout comedy for you. Also with Ruby Cruz, Havana Rose Liu, Kaia Gerber, Nicholas Galitzine, Miles Fowler, Zamani Wilder, Summer Joy Campbell, Virginia Tucker, Wayne Pére, Dagmara Domińczyk, and Punkie Johnson.
Elemental (PG) The latest Pixar movie looks and sounds like other Pixar movies, but is missing that ineffable spark that we recognize. The story is set in a city populated by air, earth, water, and fire elementals, and revolves around a forbidden romance between a water particle (voiced by Mamadou Athie) and a fire particle (voiced by Leah Lewis). The fire elementals are treated as second-class citizens by the others, and the whole conceit was done much more cleverly in Zootopia. The largely unknown voice cast doesn’t provide much distinctiveness, and the entire affair washes over you without leaving much of a mark. The feature is accompanied by Carl’s Date, a short sequel to Up that is unworthy of the movie that spawned it. Additional voices by Wendi McLendon-Covey, Ronnie Del Carmen, Shila Ommi, Mason Wertheimer, and Catherine O’Hara.
The Equalizer 3 (R) It’s unusual how slowly this movie goes about its business, and even more unusual that it works so well. Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) is wounded in action and has to heal up in a small town on the Italian coast. He does so just in time for the Neapolitan camorra to start throwing their weight around. Before McCall faces down the bad guys, director Antoine Fuqua stops to take a breath and take in the sights in the various towns in Campania that stand in for the setting. It feels appropriate for the story of an aging hit man who realizes that he needs to hang it up while he can. If this is the last movie in the series, it’s a worthy ending. Also with Gaia Scodellaro, Remo Girone, David Denman, Eugenio Mastrandrea, Andrea Scarduzio, Andrea Dodero, Daniele Perrone, Zakaria Hamza, Manuela Tasciotti, Dea Lanzaro, Sonia Ben Ammar, Adolfo Margiotta, and Dakota Fanning.
Gadar 2 (NR) The sequel to the 2001 film Gadar: Ek Prem Katha stars Sunny Deol as a man who sneaks into Pakistan in 1971 to save his son. Also with Ameesha Patel, Utkarsh Sharma, Manish Wadhwa, Gaurav Chopra, and Simrat Kaur.
Golda (PG-13) Helen Mirren is fundamentally miscast in this historical drama about Golda Meir during the Yom Kippur War. The story covers 18 days in 1973 as the Israeli government sees Syrian and Egyptian forces gathering on their borders and debates among themselves whether this is a real threat. Director Guy Nattiv deploys a whole arsenal of cinematic devices to depict Meir as a chain-smoking, tormented leader who’s hiding her radiation treatments to better project strength, but in the end it feels like he’s just throwing stuff at the wall. The relentless focus on the prime minister as the main character demands nothing less than a great performance, and Mirren is off her game. The whole thing is conducted with the solemnity of a state funeral, and winds up being about as much fun. Also with Liev Schreiber, Lior Ashkenazi, Camille Cottin, Rotem Keinan, Rami Heuberger, Emma Davies, and Ohad Knoller.
The Good Mother (NR) Despite some interesting parts, this drama stubbornly refuses to ignite. Hilary Swank plays an Albany newspaper reporter whose estranged son is killed in a drug-related murder. She has to team up with her son’s pregnant girlfriend (Olivia Cooke) to find the killer. Director/co-writer Miles Joris-Peyrafitte manages some cool shots, like the one where a character commits a murder and tries to dispose of the dead body while his security system shows his wife about to arrive at home. Still, the focus on the procedures of investigating the murder fail to yield much in the way of excitement, and the movie ends before we even find out what our protagonist does with what she finds. Also with Jack Reynor, Hopper Penn, Dilone, Norm Lewis, and Frank Alfano.
Gran Turismo (PG-13) Rather than a straight adaptation of the auto racing video game, this sports drama is based on the true story of Jann Mardenberger (Archie Madekwe), a soccer player’s son from Cardiff whose skill at the game translated into a career driving race cars for real. The movie hammers home its emotional beats with less subtlety than most video games, and the acting isn’t good enough to carry this. Director Neill Blomkamp (District 9) shoots the racing sequences to resemble the game as closely as possible, and the American chief engineer is an embarrassing character, even though David Harbour plays the hell out of the part. This is a glorified commercial for the video game, and you’d get more drama out of playing the game for two hours than this. Also with Orlando Bloom, Takehiro Hira, Darren Barnet, Josha Stradowski, Maeve Courtier-Lilley, Daniel Puig, Pepe Barroso, Thomas Kretschmann, Geri Halliwell Horner, and Djimon Hounsou.
Haunted Mansion (PG-13) Another corporate conglomerate turns over a beloved property to a smart and inventive independent filmmaker, and if this isn’t as good as Barbie, at least it’s better than the 2003 movie from the Disney ride. Rosario Dawson plays a single mother who buys a New Orleans mansion, finds out that it’s haunted, and hires a tour guide (LaKeith Stanfield), a priest (Owen Wilson), a medium (Tiffany Haddish), and a history professor (Danny DeVito) to exorcise her house. The Big Easy setting offers up some promise, and the cast and director Justin Simien are well suited to the comedy elements in this movie. The horror elements, on the other hand, don’t work at all, and the ending is a complete botch job. The tone of this thing is all over the place, and the enticing talent here deserves better than this mess. Also with Jamie Lee Curtis, Jared Leto, Chase W. Dillon, J.R. Adduci, Charity Jordan, Hasan Minhaj, Dan Levy, and an uncredited Winona Ryder.
The Hill (PG) Hate to bash a movie with Fort Worth ties, but this baseball drama isn’t good. Colin Ford stars as Rickey Hill, a Texas preacher’s kid who overcame weak leg bones and a degenerative spinal condition in the 1970s to become a professional baseball player. Rickey’s father (Dennis Quaid) is the main obstacle, forbidding his son from playing out of a desire to protect him. The preacher being overly sure that he knows God’s plan sounds like it should be an interesting note in this Christian drama, but director Jeff Celentano takes this at a sleep-inducing pace and spends way too much time with the childhood of little Rickey (Jesse Berry). The baseball sequences would have been old hat 50 years ago, too. The real Hill, who’s now a golf instructor in Fort Worth, appears as a coach who tries to squelch Rickey’s career. Also with Joelle Carter, Siena Bjornerud, Ryan Dinning, Randy Houser, James Devoti, Mason Gillett, Bonnie Bedelia, and Scott Glenn.
Jailer (NR) Rajinikanth stars as a retired prison warden who starts killing his way through the mob hierarchy in Chennai after a crime boss (Vinayakan) murders his police detective son (Vasanth Ravi). There are some memorable action sequences like the one with our antihero sitting still as snipers take out the death squad that has come to his house. Still, the plot makes a bizarre detour into Bollywood satire as the revenge quest scoops up a fat, ugly movie star (Suhil), and some musical numbers get shoehorned into the business. More grievously, the movie glosses over the hero’s past brutalizing the inmates in his prison. Also with Ramya Krishnan,Yogi Babu, VTV Ganesh,Mirnaa Manon, Mohanlal, Shiva Rajkumar, Tamannaah, Nagendra Babu, and Jackie Shroff.
Meg 2: The Trench (PG-13) Everything’s bigger and badder in this sequel, and yet it all feels stubbornly unexciting. Jason Statham reprises his role as an environmental activist who goes back up against a pod of colossal sharks after a deep-sea mining operation goes wrong. Statham is saddled with a cute kid (Shuya Sophia Cai) and a part that doesn’t allow him to be funny. Director Ben Wheatley takes over this sequel and fails to bring any of the twisted humor or visual pyrotechnics that distinguished his previous films (Sightseers, Free Fire). This is adapted from Steve Alten’s novel The Trench, so this may well be the worst and most profitable literary adaptation of the year. Also with Wu Jing, Cliff Curtis, Skyler Samuels, Page Kennedy, Kiran Sonia Sawar, Felix Mayr, Melissanthi Mahut, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, and Sienna Guillory.
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One (PG-13) A thrilling burst of relevance hits this series just as it’s winding down. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team try to track down a sentient AI that can corrupt any online data, meaning that neither they nor the people chasing them can trust anything they see or hear on the internet. Hayley Atwell joins the series as a high-class pickpocket who unwittingly works her way into the spy plot, and she’s a great pickup for the franchise, as she gets to play a devious character who’s living high off her ill-gotten gains. The action set pieces remain strong, with an extended chase through the airport in Abu Dhabi and a car chase in Rome that strikes a new and welcome note of farce. The series’ escapism has just enough real-world issues here to become newly bracing. Also with Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Vanessa Kirby, Esai Morales, Henry Czerny, Shea Whigham, Pom Klementieff, Greg Tarzan Davis, Mark Gatiss, Indira Varma, Rob Delaney, and Cary Elwes.
No More Bets (NR) Zhang Yixing and Gina Chen Jin star in this Chinese thriller as two workers caught up in an international financial scam. Also with Yong Mei, Wang Chuan-jun, Wang Talu, Zhou Ye, and Jim Liu.
OMG 2 (NR) The sequel to the 2012 comedy stars Akshay Kumar as a messenger of Lord Shiva who sues everybody in his small town over his son’s expulsion from school. Also with Pankaj Tripathi, Yami Gautam, Pavan Malhotra, Govind Namdev, and Arun Govil.
Oppenheimer (R) This three-hour biographical epic aims to evoke a single mood of guilt-wracked despair, and darned if Christopher Nolan doesn’t almost pull it off. Around the story of how J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) takes charge of the Manhattan project and builds the atomic bomb that ends the war, there are two interlocking framing stories about him trying to renew his security clearance while his former boss Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) tries to be confirmed as the U.S. Commerce Secretary. Nolan gives us precious little time to catch our breath from the start as he toggles between timelines while the supporting characters around Oppenheimer largely get lost. Still, the framing stories snap together in a marvelous way, and the successful atomic bomb test is a splendid set piece. Inside this movie is a better, smaller film that’s trying to get out. Also with Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Matt Damon, Alden Ehrenreich, Josh Hartnett, Jason Clarke, Tony Goldwyn, Benny Safdie, James D’Arcy, Harry Groener, Tom Conti, David Krumholtz, Matthias Schweighöfer, Alex Wolff, Michael Angarano, David Dastmalchian, Dane DeHaan, Josh Peck, Jack Quaid, Gustaf Skarsgård, James Remar, Olivia Thirlby, Matthew Modine, Kenneth Branagh, Casey Affleck, and Gary Oldman.
Retribution (R) The plot holes are big enough to drive 18-wheelers through in this rickety thriller. Liam Neeson plays an American banker in Berlin who drives his kids (Jack Champion and Lilly Aspell) to school one morning when a person with an artificial voice calls him and tells him they’ll all be killed by a bomb in the car if anybody tries to get out. The movie is a remake of a similarly titled 2015 Argentinian film, and none of the characters makes a halfway sensible decision once the premise snaps into place. The emotions in the piece are crudely handled, and director Nimród Antal can’t even manage the pacing of this thing right, which is the least you’d expect him to do. Also with Embeth Davidtz, Noma Dumezweni, Emily Kusche, Arian Moayed, and Matthew Modine.
Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (NR) This Indian romantic comedy takes on some subjects that most other Bollywood movies won’t. Ranveer Singh plays a flashy Punjabi snack-conglomerate heir who falls for an intellectual Bengali TV journalist (Alia Bhatt). Their cultural differences provide some comedy that runs out of steam before the intermission, at which time things pick up again when the two lovers defy social convention and go to live with each other’s families to see if they are compatible. There’s still too many supporting characters and subplots to tie up, but the movie manages to have our two protagonists question mores about marriage and their own prejudices in an even-handed way. Much of the humor, too, comes from the characters’ shaky handle of English — one person mistakes the word “orgasm” for “organize.” Also with Dharmendra, Jaya Bachchan, Shabana Azmi, Tota Roy Chowdhury, Aamir Bashir, Churni Ganguly, Namit Das, Janhvi Kapoor, and Varun Dhawan.
Sound of Freedom (PG-13) This thriller probably works best for those people who see pedophiles lurking around every corner. For the rest of us, it’s somehow overheated and too slow at the same time. Jim Caviezel plays a heroic Homeland Security agent who quits his job and sets up a full-time operation in Colombia to bust a child sex trafficking operation. He’s flat as usual in the role, and the movie is stolen away by Bill Camp as an American who pretends to be a pedophile so he can buy children from the traffickers and then set them free. He’s the only person who feels like he’s inhabiting a character instead of acting as a mouthpiece for some seriously paranoid filmmakers. Also with Mira Sorvino, Scott Haze, José Zúñiga, Eduardo Verástegui, Gary Basaraba, Manny Perez, and Kurt Fuller.
Strays (R) This comedy’s germ of an interesting idea doesn’t have enough comic material to sustain it. The main character is a mutt (voiced by Will Ferrell) whose abusive, unemployed loser of an owner (Will Forte) abandons him in a city three hours away. The dog falls in with a pack of strays (voiced by Jamie Foxx, Isla Fisher, and Randall Park) who take him in and then go with him back to his old home to take revenge on the man. The film has the bright idea of making the dog into a codependent victim in the relationship, and there are some welcome jabs at movies like A Dog’s Purpose and Marley & Me. Unfortunately, the comic talent in the voice cast never brings this anywhere near critical mass and the set pieces only catch once, when the dogs eat psychedelic mushrooms and start to freak out. The profanity and sexual humor in this film shot to look like a kid-friendly movie seems to have been the only stroke of inspiration. Additional voices by Rob Riggle, Josh Gad, Jamie Demetriou, Jimmy Tatro, Harvey Guillén, and Sofía Vergara. Also with Greta Lee, Brett Gelman, and Dennis Quaid.
Talk to Me (R) Like Haunted Mansion, this Australian film is about a Black protagonist who’s coping with grief and vulnerable to spirits from the next world, but this is the much better film. Sophie Wilde plays a teen who goes to a suburban house party in Adelaide and takes up a dare to communicate with the next world by using a ceramic sculpture of a hand. The movie doesn’t engage race as a subject, but first-time filmmakers (and former YouTube pranksters) Danny and Michael Philippou show great talent for conjuring Hollywood-level special effects on a shoestring budget. The newcomer Wilde is superb both as a confused teen trying to deal with the family secrets hidden from her and the girl who’s possessed by something very bad. This feels like the scary campfire tale you need for the summer. Also with Alexandra Jensen, Joe Bird, Zoe Terakes, Otis Dhanji, Marcus Johnson, Ari McCarthy, Chris Alosio, and Miranda Otto.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (PG) This animated reboot of the cartoon series scores its laughs, recasts its origin story, and then gets off the screen. Bless it for that. A mad scientist (voiced by Giancarlo Esposito) loses his magic ooze down the city drain, which creates Splinter (voiced by Jackie Chan), our mutant heroes (voiced by Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Nicolas Cantu, and Brady Noon), and the gang of criminal half-humans whom they’re trying to foil. The turtles are voiced by actual kid actors, some of whose voices haven’t changed yet, and they’re very funny, particularly in the frequent spots when all of them are talking at once. Co-writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg make sure that a good share of the humor appeals to the adults in the audience as well. This isn’t as deep as the other Hollywood blockbusters, but it’s enjoyable. Additional voices by Ayo Edebiri, Ice Cube, Post Malone, Hannibal Buress, Rose Byrne, Maya Rudolph, Seth Rogen, John Cena, and Paul Rudd.
DALLAS EXCLUSIVES
All Fun and Games (NR) Asa Butterfield and Natalia Dyer star in this horror film about a group of teens forced to play deadly children’s games by a cursed artifact. Also with Laurel Marsden, Kolton Stewart, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, Summer H. Howell, and Annabeth Gish.
Beaten to Death (NR) This Australian thriller stars David Tracy as a man seeking help in the outback after killing his wife’s murderer. Also with Thomas Roach, Justan Wagner, Fiona Svamvur, David Curtain, Elaine Curtain, and Nicole Tudor.
Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia (PG) The third animated adventure by the bear and the mouse has them trying to restore music to Ernest’s home country. Voices by Andrew Kishino, Ashley Boettcher, Anne Yatco, Bill Lobley, and Daniel Hagan.
Nandor Fodor & The Talking Mongoose (PG-13) Simon Pegg stars in this comedy as a paranormal investigator looking into allegations of a talking rodent in Britain. Also with Minnie Driver, Paul Kaye, Tim Downie, and Christopher Lloyd. Voice by Neil Gaiman.
Oldboy (R) The 20th anniversary re-release of Park Chan-wook’s thriller stars Choi Min-sik as a man seeking to learn who imprisoned him for 15 years. Also with Yoo Ji-tae, Kang Hye-jeong, Kim Byeong-ok, Ji Dae-han, Lee Seung-shin, and Oh Dal-su.
