OPENING
Chandu Champion (NR) This Indian sports biopic stars Kartik Aaryan as Murlikant Petkar, India’s first-ever gold medalist at the Paralympic Games. Also with Bhuvan Arora, Yashpal Sharma, Rajpal Yadav, Aniruddh Dave, and Adonis Kapsalis. (Opens Friday)
Cora Bora (NR) This comedy stars Megan Stalter as a lesbian whose attempt to salvage her relationship awakens her to her own issues. Also with Jojo T. Gibbs, Thomas Mann, Chelsea Peretti, Manny Jacinto, Heather Morris, Darrell Hammond, and Margaret Cho. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Face Off 7: One Wish (NR) This Vietnamese drama about an old woman needing to rely on her adult children for care stars Tram Anh, Truong Minh Cuong, Tran Kim Hai, Thanh Hien, and Dinh Y Nhung. (Opens Friday)
Firebrand (R) Alicia Vikander stars in this historical drama as Catherine Parr, the sixth wife of King Henry VIII (Jude Law) who has to fight for her survival as her husband’s health worsens. Also with Eddie Marsan, Sam Riley, Mia Threapleton, Ruby Bentall, Amr Waked, Erin Doherty, Patsy Ferran, and Simon Russell Beale. (Opens Friday)
Fresh Kills (NR) Jennifer Esposito stars in her own directing debut as a Mafia wife who takes control of her crime family in the 1980s. Also with Annabella Sciorra, Domenick Lombardozzi, Nicholas Cirillo, David Iacono, Odessa A’zion, and Emily Bader. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
G for Gap (NR) This Chinese drama is about a man who returns to his hometown after a series of personal setbacks. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Harom Hara (NR) This Indian action-thriller stars Sudheer Babu Posani, Malvika Sharma, V. Jayaprakash, Ravi Kale, and Keshav Deepak. (Opens Friday)
Indrani (NR) Kabir Duban Singh stars in this Indian science-fiction film as a future warrior who has to time-travel to the present day to protect the nation. Also with Ajay, Shataf Figar, Garima Kaushal, and Sanjay Swaroop. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Inside Out 2 (PG) The sequel to the Pixar animated hit has new emotions joining Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler) and the others as Riley (voiced by Kensington Tallman) enters her teen years. Additional voices by Phyllis Smith, Lewis Black, Liza Lapira, Tony Hale, Maya Hawke, Ayo Edebiri, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Paul Walter Hauser, Bobby Moynihan, Paula Poundstone, Frank Oz, Yvette Nicole Brown, Paula Pell, Flea, Ron Funches, June Squibb, Kyle MacLachlan, Diane Lane, and John Ratzenberger. (Opens Friday)
Latency (PG-13) James Croke’s thriller stars Sasha Luss as an agoraphobic professional gamer who receives mysterious and possibly sinister new gaming equipment. Also with Alexis Ren. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Maharaja (NR) Anurag Kashyap stars in this Indian thriller as a barber who goes on a violent revenge spree after his home is burglarized. Also with Abhirami, Vijay Sethupathi, Mamta Mohandas, Bharathiraja, and Divya Bharathi. (Opens Friday)
Pujar Sarki (NR) This Nepalese comedy stars Aaryan Sigdel as a man waging a fight to end caste discrimination in his country. Also with Pradeep Khadka, Paul Shah, Anjana Baralli, Prem Subba, Parikshya Limbu, and Lokendra Lekhak. (Opens Friday at Cinépolis Euless)
Reverse the Curse (NR) David Duchovny writes, directs, and co-stars in this comedy as a terminally ill man whose son (Logan Marshall-Green) fakes a winning streak by his favorite baseball team to lift his spirits. Also with Stephanie Beatriz, Pamela Adlon, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Evan Handler, and Jason Beghe. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Ride (R) Jake Allyn directs, co-writes, and co-stars in this movie about a family of rodeo cowboys who come together to raise money for their daughter’s hospital care. Also with C. Thomas Howell, Annabeth Gish, Josh Plasse, Forrie J. Smith, Scott Reeves, Liz Atwater, and Austin Robert Russell. (Opens Friday)
Satyabhama (NR) This Telugu-language thriller stars Kajal Aggarwal as a police detective whose latest case has personal repercussions for her. Also with Naveen Chandra, Prakash Raj, Nagineedu, and Ravi Varma. (Opens Friday)
Treasure (R) This Holocaust comedy stars Lena Dunham as a modern-day journalist who travels to Poland with her survivor father (Stephen Fry), who keeps getting into funny situations. Also with André Hennicke, Tomasz Wlosok, Zbigniew Zamachowski, Iwona Bielska, and Wenanty Nosul. (Opens Friday)
Tuesday (R) Julia Louis-Dreyfus stars in this fantasy film as the mother of a terminally ill daughter (Lola Petticrew) who is visited by Death in the form of a talking parrot (voiced by Arinzé Kene). Also with Leah Harvey, Ellie James, Taru Devani, and Jay Simpson. (Opens Friday)
NOW PLAYING
Bad Boys: Ride or Die (R) Will Smith and Martin Lawrence re-team for this fourth installment of the series as the Miami cops who become fugitives after trying to disprove corruption allegations against their late captain (Joe Pantoliano). Also with Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Paola Núñez, Eric Dane, Ioan Gruffudd, Jacob Scipio, and Tiffany Haddish.
Challengers (R) Even though the cast is young, this is the sort of grown-up romance that they supposedly don’t make anymore. Luca Guadagnino’s sports drama is about the love triangle between a six-time Grand Slam winner (Mike Faist), his wife and coach (Zendaya), and the tennis player whom she dated (Josh O’Connor) before a catastrophic knee injury brought her own playing career to an end. Guadagnino takes infectious joy in filming the tennis players’ bodies in motion as they strain their muscles to serve and run in for drop shots. The sport of tennis has never been filmed in such ecstatic terms. Justin Kuritzkes’ script gives all the characters juicy lines to work with, and Zendaya is truly stellar both as a teen champion who twists boys around her finger and the older coach who’s more uncertain as her life on the sidelines goes on. Her concluding scream of “Come on!” is well earned. Also with Darnell Appling, Nada Despotovich, and Hailey Gates.
The Fall Guy (PG-13) This big-screen version of the 1980s TV show is catnip for anyone who thinks stunt performers should be able to win Oscars. Ryan Gosling plays a Hollywood stuntman who’s called in to investigate the disappearance of a movie star (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) from the set of a blockbuster that’s filming in Australia. Director David Leitch is a former stuntman himself, and while he’s had trouble handling humor in his past projects as a director, here the laughs sit easily on the story as the stuntman has to deal with his ex-girlfriend (Emily Blunt), who happens to be directing the movie. The climax features so many stunts that it turns out to be too much of a good thing. The movie is better when focusing on the little details that help stunt performers do their job, making this an endearing tribute to the profession. Also with Hannah Waddingham, Winston Duke, Stephanie Hsu, Teresa Palmer, Ben Knight, Adam Dunn, Kalkida China, Heather Thomas, Lee Majors, and an uncredited Jason Momoa.
The Garfield Movie (PG) And still filmmakers haven’t deciphered how to make a good movie about the comic-strip cat. This animated version stars Chris Pratt as the fat orange kitty, whose long-lost father (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson) comes back into his life because he’s in debt to a cat mob boss (voiced by Hannah Waddingham) with a personal grudge. I would say Pratt is the wrong actor to voice such a sardonic character, but the generic adventure that follows doesn’t have much to do with Garfield at all, nor does it show much understanding of what made him popular in the first place. Some of the sequences in this Sony Animation film showcasing Garfield’s obsession with Italian food feel like outtakes from the studio’s Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs movies, but that’s not enough to lift this. Odie (voiced by Harvey Guillén) is the real hero here, which maybe cinches the idea that these filmmakers don’t know Garfield. Additional voices by Ving Rhames, Cecily Strong, Nicholas Hoult, Brett Goldstein, Bowen Yang, and Snoop Dogg.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (PG-13) At this point, why bother with the humans at all? Just have the massive beasts act out the drama, and we won’t miss the dialogue. King Kong and Godzilla are awakened by a new threat to life on Earth, which forces our scientists (Rebecca Hall and Brian Tyree Henry) to undertake a journey into uncharted reaches of the hollow Earth. Dan Stevens turns up as a veterinary dentist with an Australian accent, Hawaiian shirt, and blond highlights, and he’s the only one who’s remotely having fun. Everything else is swallowed up by the special effects. It’s all just exquisitely boring. Also with Kaylee Hottle, Fala Chen, Alex Ferns, Rachel House, and Greg Hatton.
Haikyuu!! The Dumpster Battle (PG-13) This Japanese anime spinoff of the TV and manga series has Shoyo (Ayumu Murase) and his volleyball team advancing to the third round of the national tournament. Additional voices by Kaito Ishikawa, Yûki Kaji, Yûichi Nakamura, Kôki Uchiyama, HIsao Egawa, and Nobuaki Fukuda.
I Saw the TV Glow (PG-13) Whether you think of this as a movie about being trans or a movie about being a fan of a TV show, it’s a work of unsettling power. Justice Smith and Dallas native Brigette Lundy-Paine portray outcast teens who grow up in the 1990s and bond over their love for a supernatural teen drama called The Pink Opaque. Filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun is transfeminine and non-binary, and relates to the deep disconnect of their characters. They also extensively reference Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and their tube-lit glow of suburban America is punched up by striking visuals like a soft-serve ice cream monster in the TV show. Our lead actors also conjure up some fearsome conviction as teens so seduced by fiction that they become unmoored from reality. This won’t satisfy fans of more conventional horror films, but those open to its alienated point of view may find this movie following them home and staring at them balefully from the darkness. Also with Ian Foreman, Helena Howard, Lindsey Jordan, Amber Benson, Emma Portner, Fred Durst, and Danielle Deadwyler.
IF (PG) John Krasinski the writer comes up with a great premise, and then John Krasinski the director immediately squanders it. John Krasinski the actor portrays a widowed father who’s having heart surgery in a New York hospital, so his 12-year-old daughter (Cailey Fleming) moves in with her grandma (Fiona Shaw) in the city. When she acquires the ability to see and talk to kids’ imaginary friends whose children have outgrown them, she has to team up with the grandmother’s shut-in neighbor (Ryan Reynolds) to rehome them with new kids. The pacing is slack, the movie takes forever to get Reynolds on the screen, the director yanks at our heartstrings in exhausting fashion, and worst of all, a stacked voice cast is wasted. Also with Alan Kim, Liza Colón-Zayas, and Bobby Moynihan. Voices by Steve Carell, Emily Blunt, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bradley Cooper, Blake Lively, Awkwafina, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Sam Rockwell, Jon Stewart, Bill Hader, Amy Schumer, Keegan-Michael Key, Matthew Rhys, Maya Rudolph, Richard Jenkins, Sebastian Maniscalco, and the late Louis Gossett Jr.
In a Violent Nature (NR) Not a retro-1980s horror film, but something more interesting. This Canadian import follows the killer rather than the stupid young people he chases around the woods of northern Ontario. Writer-director Chris Nash spends most of the time either taking the camera behind the slasher (Ry Barrett) as he plods around the forest or filming him without showing his face. This tactic is so effective that it’s needlessly jarring when Nash breaks from the format. The technique on display is ruthless, so it’s too bad that the movie fails to comment on the tropes of slasher flicks the way previous films have. There’s still no denying Nash’s talent behind the camera. With a few more ideas, he’ll be a filmmaker to reckon with. Also with Andrea Pavlovic, Reece Presley, Cameron Love, Liam Leone, Charlotte Creaghan, Lea Rose Sebastianis, Sam Roulston, Alexander Oliver, Timothy Paul McCarthy, and Lauren-Marie Taylor.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (PG-13) The latest installment in the series is proficient and stubbornly unexciting. Decades after Caesar’s death, ape civilization has gone to hell, with a king (Kevin Durand) enslaving tribes of apes to glorify himself. The lone survivor of one captive tribe (Owen Teague) resolves to free his people with the help of a starving human (Freya Allan) who has her own agenda. Director Wes Ball (from the Maze Runner films) is more comfortable with these CGI simians than he is with human beings, and the action sequences are legible without ever raising the pulse. It’s all eminently watchable, and it exists at entirely too comfortable a remove. Also with Peter Macon, Eka Darville, Lydia Peckham, Sara Wiseman, Travis Jeffery, and William H. Macy.
Kung Fu Panda 4 (PG) If this is the last installment of the animated series, it’s ending at the right time. Po (voiced by Jack Black) has to choose a successor for the title of Dragon Warrior while also teaming up with a street criminal of a fox (voiced by Awkwafina) to take down a villainous chameleon (voiced by Viola Davis) who wishes to steal the souls and kung fu skills of every villain Po has ever faced. The martial arts sequences are still well-filmed and capture stunts that couldn’t be done by human performers, but the wit in the script and the humor in the original premise have leaked away over the years. The film still has a few cinematic references to Stephen Chow’s films and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but it’s time for the warrior panda to lay down his weapons and spend his retirement eating all the dumplings he wants. Additional voices by Dustin Hoffman, Bryan Cranston, James Hong, Ian McShane, Lori Tan Chinn, Ronny Chieng, Seth Rogen, Harry Shum Jr., and Ke Huy Quan.
The Strangers: Chapter 1 (R) It’s the same movie! This is the same movie as the 2008 slasher flick! Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez play a couple who rent an Airbnb in the remote Oregon countryside and then are stalked by the trio of masked killers. This is intended as the first in a trilogy of horror films, but did they have to repeat the original so slavishly? And where does the series go from here? Neither the killers nor the protagonist victims are interesting enough to merit their own cinematic universe. Neither the acting nor Renny Harlin’s direction are enough to make this movie stand on its own. Also with Richard Brake, Rachel Shenton, Gabriel Basso, Ema Horvath, and Ella Bruccoleri.
The Watchers (PG-13) Adapted from A.M. Shine’s novel, Ishana Night Shyamalan’s horror film stars Dakota Fanning as an American expat who becomes trapped in a mysterious room in the forests of western Ireland. Also with Georgina Campbell, Oliver Finnegan, John Lynch, and Olwen Fouéré.
Young Woman and the Sea (PG) The story of Gertrude Ederle has been Disneyfied into this perfectly ordinary sports drama. Daisy Ridley plays the New Yorker of German extraction who, after a disappointing showing at the 1924 Olympics, decides to become the first woman to swim the English Channel. The movie gets a jolt from Stephen Graham as the Scotsman who accomplishes the feat and unexpectedly swoops in to coach Gertrude, and there’s a vivid sequence with Gertrude swimming through a patch of red jellyfish. Still, director Joachim Rønning follows the template too obediently to make this period piece come to life. Nyad is the much odder and better film about the loneliness of the long-distance swimmer. Also with Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Kim Bodnia, Jeanette Hain, Ethan Rouse, Sian Clifford, Glenn Fleshler, Olive Abercrombie, Alexander Karim, and Christopher Eccleston.
DALLAS EXCLUSIVES
Late Bloomers (NR) Karen Gillan stars in this comedy as a directionless young woman who befriends her Polish nurse (Malgorzata Zajaczkowska) after breaking her hip in an accident. Also with Talia Balsam, Lori Tan Chinn, Jermaine Fowler, Samuel Farnsworth, Loni Ackerman, Danielle Alonzo, and Eric Elizaga.
Life After Fighting (NR) Bren Foster writes, directs, and stars in this action thriller about a martial-arts instructor who investigates when two of his students disappear. Also with Luke Ford, Cassie Howarth, Annabelle Stephenson, Arielle Jean Foster, Anthony Nassif, Jake Ryan, and Eddie Arrazola.
