OPENING
Blink (PG) Daniel Roher and Edmund Stenson’s documentary is about a Canadian family who travel to see the world’s natural wonders before their children lose their vision to a rare genetic disorder. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Frankie Freako (NR) Steven Kostanski’s horror film stars Conor Sweeney as a man who attends a dance party hosted by a goblin to spice up his boring life. Also with Adam Brooks and Kristy Wordsworth. (Opens Friday at Alamo Drafthouse Denton)
I Am Sorry (NR) This Indian film is about a poor young man (Kanvr Buttar) who comes to America to find love and career prospects. Also with Simarjit Singh, Rajinder Kaur, and Augusta Lorene. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Joker: Folie à Deux (R) The musical sequel to the 2019 hit stars Lady Gaga as a crazed fan who tries to spring the Joker (Joaquin Phoenix) loose from prison. Also with Zazie Beetz, Ken Leung, Harry Lawtey, Bill Smitrovich, Steve Coogan, Brendan Gleeson, and Catherine Keener. (Opens Friday)
Ma Da: The Drowning Spirit (NR) This Vietnamese horror film is about a corpse collector (Viet Huong) whose child is abducted by an evil spirit. Also with Trung Dan and Thanh Loc. (Opens Friday)
Monster Summer (PG-13) Two kids swimming in the ocean see a female figure in black standing on the pier above them. Then they hear a splash and see her no longer on the pier, so they ask, “Where’d she go?” That’s about the intelligence level of this horror movie that can’t decide whether it’s for kids or adults. Mason Thames plays a boy who lives on Martha’s Vineyard in 1997, and when some of the other kids start turning up in an unresponsive state after undergoing traumatic events, he enlists the help of a grumpy retired cop (Mel Gibson) to investigate. Gibson gives the only coherent performance here as the film gets into witches and can’t figure out how seriously to treat them as a villain. This thoroughly weird entry’s inability to please any segment of the audience will leave you with the summertime blues. Also with Lorraine Bracco, Noah Cottrell, Julian Lerner, Gavin Bedell, Abby James Witherspoon, Nora Zehetner, Patrick Renna, Spencer Fitzgerald, and Kevin James. (Opens Friday)
Sam and Colby: The Legends of the Paranormal (NR) Colby Brock and Sam Golbach write, direct, and star in this horror-comedy as paranormal investigators. Also with Nate Hardy, Becky Vickers, Jeff MacBurnie, and Chris Roberts. (Opens Friday)
Sathyam Sundaram (NR) Aravind Swamy stars in this Indian drama as a man who returns to his village only to meet a mysterious man (Karthi) who showers him with gifts and affection. Also with Sri Divya, Devadarshini, Saran Shakhti, and Jayaprakash. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Scarygirl (PG) Based on a popular series of Australian children’s books, this animated film is about a girl (voiced by Jillian Nguyen) who must save her city from encroaching darkness. Additional voices by Sam Neill, Anna Torv, Liv Hewson, Deborah Mailman, and Tim Minchin. (Opens Friday)
Swag (NR) This Telugu-language romantic comedy stars Sree Vishnu, Ritu Varma, Getup Srinu, Sunil, Meera Jasmine, and Ravi Babu. (Opens Friday)
Tiger Wolf Rabbit (NR) This Chinese thriller is about three parents (Xiao Yang, Zanilla Zhao, and Liu Ye) who must embark on a dangerous journey to find their missing children. Also with Stephen Fung, Xu Dongdong, Pan Binlong, Chen Minghao, and Wang Xun. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
White Bird (PG-13) A spinoff of Wonder, this film stars Bryce Gheisar as a boy who learns about his family’s ties to the Holocaust. Also with Gillian Anderson, Olivia Ross, Ariella Glaser, Ishai Golan, Priya Ghotane, Orlando Schwerdt, and Helen Mirren. (Opens Friday)
NOW PLAYING
Alien: Romulus (R) Not as good as the first two movies in the series, but better than the last two. Some years after the events of the first Alien movie, the story is about a miner (Cailee Spaeny) and her android protector (David Jonsson) who fall in with a group of young space pirates looking to ransack a space station before it self-destructs, not knowing that the aliens are waiting for them on board. The film fills in some bits of knowledge about the alien mythology, and new director Fede Álvarez (Don’t Breathe) does much to bring the franchise back to its horror roots. Unfortunately, it doesn’t point the series in any sort of new direction, although Spaeny has the emotional depth to be the heroine of any future installments. Also with Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, and Aileen Wu.
Am I Racist? (PG-13) Matt Walsh stars in Justin Folk’s documentary about DEI practices.
Azrael (R) Horror movies continue to be the best showcase for Samara Weaving, who can look either as vulnerable as a trapped fawn or ready to lay waste as the situation requires. She portrays a woman who has given up speech as sinful on a post-Rapture Earth and has to escape from a barbaric Christian cult who want to sacrifice her to charred cannibals living in the forest. The film is mostly dialogue-free, and director E.L. Katz makes sure that it wears that limitation lightly. There’s also a superb one-take sequence after a car accident when the heroine has to fight to the death against the cultist gunman who caused the crash. If it never quite takes off the way A Quiet Place did, it is a pleasingly odd way for horror fans to spend 86 minutes. Also with Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Vic Carmen Sonne, Sebastian Bull, Eero Milonoff, Rea Lest, Phong Giang, Johhan Rosenberg, and Katariina Unt.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (PG-13) Oddly comforting. Among many reprising their roles from Tim Burton’s 1988 film, Winona Ryder plays the grown-up Lydia Deetz who’s back in Connecticut to go through her deceased father’s things when her teenage daughter (Jenna Ortega) gets dragged into the afterlife, and Lydia has to enlist Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) to get her back. There are even more subplots that cause this movie to run all over the place, although tight plotting was never what we went to Burton’s movies for. None of the actors in this heavyweight cast seem to quite bring their best, either, but the macabre comedy bits hit at an agreeable pace, especially with the waiting room for dead people and a flashback that parodies Mario Bava’s 1960s horror movies. It’s enough to make this return trip to Burton’s old stomping grounds worth taking. Also with Catherine O’Hara, Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Arthur Conti, Santiago Cabrera, Amy Nuttall, Danny DeVito, and Willem Dafoe.
Deadpool & Wolverine (R) The partnership of Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman has been teased for so long, it would have been easy for the thing to disappoint. Fortunately, Jackman’s eternally grumpy Wolverine and Reynolds’ Deadpool with his psychological need to make a joke out of everything is comedy gold. Deadpool has to save his world from annihilation, so he teams up with the worst version of Wolverine and goes to The Void, a funny dystopia where superheroes past are banished because their storylines never got resolved. It may not add up to great art, but it is very funny. Also with Emma Corrin, Morena Baccarin, Karan Soni, Matthew Macfadyen, Leslie Uggams, Brianna Hildebrand, Dafne Keen, Tyler Mane, Ray Park, Aaron Stanford, Henry Cavill, Jon Favreau, Jennifer Garner, Wesley Snipes, Channing Tatum, and Chris Evans. Voices by Stefan Kapicic, Nathan Fillion, Blake Lively, and Matthew McConaughey.
Devara: Part 1 (NR) N.T. Rama Rao Jr. stars in this Indian epic about a sailor and his son who protect India against its enemies. Also with Saif Ali Khan, Janhvi Kapoor, Shruti Marathe, Prakash Raj, Srikanth, and Murali Sharma.
Faith of Angels (PG) This Christian film is about a stranger (J. Michael Finley) called by God to rescue a boy trapped in a mine. Also with Michael Bradford, Cameron Arnett, Kirby Heyborne, Jasen Wade, Ben Lomu, and Charlotte Hemmings.
The Forge (PG) While other Christian movies are getting better, the ones by the Kendrick brothers are getting worse. Aspen Kennedy plays a young Black man in Charlotte who goes to work for a fitness equipment manufacturer and winds up learning lessons about manhood and Jesus Christ from the company’s CEO (Cameron Arnett). The lack of pace and dramatic tension in this thing makes you wonder whether the filmmakers have ever seen a movie before, and the acting is too embarrassing even to trash in this space. Whatever lessons this movie is trying to teach about what makes a boy into a man, they get lost amid this movie’s amateur theatrics. Also with Priscilla C. Shirer, Selah Avery, T.C. Stallings, Ben VanderMey, Tommy Woodward, and Karen Abercrombie.
I, the Executioner (NR) A huge hit in South Korea, this action-comedy by Ryoo Seung-wan (Escape from Mogadishu) stars Hwang Jung-min as a police detective trying to bring down a mob boss protected by a wealthy family. Also with Jung Hae-in, Jang Yoon-ju, Jin Kyung, Jung Man-sik, Shin Seung-hwan, and Oh Dal-su.
Lee (R) Kate Winslet stars in this biography of fashion model-turned-war photographer Lee Miller. Also with Alexander Skarsgård, Andrea Riseborough, Josh O’Connor, Andy Samberg, Noémie Merlant, Arinzé Kene, James Murray, and Marion Cotillard.
Lubber Pandhu (NR) This Indian sports movie stars Harish Kalyan and Attakathi Dinesh as local cricket stars whose rivalry spans years. Also with Swasika, Sanjana Krishnamoorthy, Kaali Venkat, Bala Saravanan, Devadarshini, Geetha Kailasam, and Jenson Divakar.
Megalopolis (R) Francis Ford Coppola’s film throws every idea he has at the wall after thinking too much about ancient Rome. Set in a modern city that’s like Rome and New York mashed together, the movie sort of revolves around a conflict between a greedy mayor (Giancarlo Esposito), a utopian architect (Adam Driver), and the former’s daughter (Nathalie Emmanuel) who goes to work for the latter. The film boasts some breathtakingly beautiful visuals like the muse sharing a kiss with the architect while they’re balanced on girders in the sky, but Coppola can’t make any coherent points about society today or even decide whether this film is supposed to be satire, fairy tale, parable, or action yarn. The Hunger Games movies made better use of its parallels with classical times than this does. Also with Aubrey Plaza, Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, Kathryn Hunter, Balthazar Getty, James Remar, Chloe Fineman, Grace VanderWaal, D.B. Sweeney, Jon Voight, Shia LaBeouf, and Dustin Hoffman.
My Old Ass (R) Despite its title, this comedy offers up a genuine cinematic experience. Maisy Stella portrays a Canadian teenager preparing to leave her small town for college in Toronto when a magic mushroom trip conjures up her 39-year-old self (Aubrey Plaza), who gives her advice on the way her life will turn out. Writer-director Megan Park (The Fallout) cuts humor into what could be a soppy story, and the humor largely works. Much of this is down to the performances by Plaza and Stella, who captures the character’s foul-mouthed, chaotic energy. What starts out as a high-concept comedy turns into a teen weeper that somehow works because of Park’s combination of youthful energy and mature wisdom. This is what these movies look like when they’re good. Also with Percy Hynes White, Kerrice Brooks, Maddie Ziegler, Seth Isaac Johnson, Carter Trozzolo, Al Goulem, and Maria Dizzia.
Never Let Go (R) Halle Berry stars in this horror film as a mother who’s raising her two young sons (Anthony B. Jenkins and Percy Daggs IV) off the grid in a remote cabin after an apocalyptic event, except that the boys are now old enough to wonder whether Momma might just be delusional, especially since she’s the only one who seems able to see the evil that she claims is out there in the woods. Director Alexandre Aja (Crawl) keeps things moving and Daggs is particularly good as the youngest and most skeptical son, but the writers try to have it too many different ways when the movie ends. Lee Daniels’ The Deliverance is another current movie about an unstable Black mother, and while it’s a lot messier than this, it’s the better movie because it touches on more subjects. This claustrophobic exercise is too thin intellectually when you take a step back. Also with William Catlett and Matthew Kevin Anderson.
Reagan (PG-13) Weird, very weird. This biography of the movie star-turned-40th president of the United States applies a ton of CGI de-aging to Dennis Quaid and to Penelope Ann Miller as Nancy Reagan. That’s not nearly as bizarre as the framing story of a retired KGB agent (Jon Voight) in the present day telling the story of Reagan’s ascent to power. In addition to whitewashing the president’s record on civil rights, AIDS, and propping up dictatorships abroad, the movie also casts hideous studio boss Jack Warner (Kevin Dillon) as a hero of anti-communism. Other than about a thousand dead spots, this movie’s cavalier approach to history is a ton of fun. Also with Mena Suvari, C. Thomas Howell, Justin Chatwin, Amanda Righetti, Xander Berkeley, Lesley-Anne Down, Jennifer O’Neill, Robert Davi, Mark Moses, Nick Searcy, Scott Stapp, and Kevin Sorbo.
Speak No Evil (R) Fine, as long as you’re not expecting it to stick to the 2022 Danish film that it’s based on. This remake is about an American expat family in London who visit a British family in the countryside only to realize that they’re very wrong. James McAvoy is pretty well the right shade of uncomfortable as the British father who bullies both his guests and his 10-year-old mute son (Dan Hough) — his performance generates the queasy feeling that you get when you see a Karen berating a service employee, when you don’t know if intervening might make the situation worse. Still, more interesting stuff in this remake comes with the treatment of the ineffectual American father (Scoot McNairy), who blows two good chances of killing people threatening his family and is full of repressed anger over his family situation. It all makes for a flawed but effective piece of entertainment. Also with Mackenzie Davis, Aisling Franciosi, Alix West Lefler, Motaz Malhees, and Kris Hitchen.
The Substance (R) The culmination of Demi Moore’s career. She stars as an aging Hollywood star who receives word of a black-market beauty product and uses it to transform into a younger, hotter self (Margaret Qualley). French writer-director Coralie Fargeat (Revenge) keeps both actresses naked for much of the time as a way of illustrating that while our protagonist has a physique that many 60-year-olds would envy, she can’t resist wanting to stay in the younger body. Qualley, who usually plays self-possessed types, comes memorably unhinged as she takes out her rage on her older alter ego, and Moore also seems to be tapping into a deep well of anger as she turns into a reclusive monster full of anger at herself and the culture that leaves her behind. It all plays like David Cronenberg meets The Picture of Dorian Gray from a female perspective, and that’s something we haven’t seen. Also with Dennis Quaid, Oscar Lesage, Hugo Diego Garcia, and Joseph Balderrama.
Transformers One (PG) The irreverent tone of this animated origin story is just about right for little kids. Too bad the writing isn’t sharp enough for the grown-ups. The story goes back to when Optimus Prime and Megatron (voiced by Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry) are menial labor robots on Cybertron who acquire the power to transform into vehicles just as they discover that their leader (voiced by Jon Hamm) is a fraud who’s actually working for their sworn enemies. Director Josh Cooley (Toy Story 4) makes sure that the thing doesn’t drag and the whole story bears an uncanny resemblance to Lucifer’s rebellion against God, but the thing just isn’t funny or distinctive enough to stick in the mind. Additional voices by Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, James Remar, Jon Bailey, Steve Buscemi, and Laurence Fishburne.
Vindicating Trump (PG-13) Convicted felon Dinesh D’Souza’s latest documentary makes a case for the president who pardoned him being a great president.
The Wild Robot (PG) Not as good as the hype, but still good. Chris Sanders’ animated film is about a helper robot (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o) that activates on an island devoid of humans and learns to communicate with the animals. The film is adapted from Peter Brown’s illustrated novel, and the animators do well to translate Brown’s simple drawings into a world of riotous colors and a robot that can change shape depending on the situation. The plot here has the robot having to take care of a baby gosling (voiced by Kit Connor), and on a story level, it doesn’t compare with either WALL-E or Big Hero 6 as a movie about a robot becoming more human by interacting with our world. Additional voices by Pedro Pascal, Mark Hamill, Catherine O’Hara, Matt Berry, Ving Rhames, Stephanie Hsu, and Bill Nighy.
DALLAS EXCLUSIVES
Bagman (PG-13) Sam Claflin stars in this horror film as a father who must protect his family from the child-snatching monster who pursued him as a boy. Also with Antonia Thomas, Caréll Rhoden, Steven Cree, Adelle Leonce, and William Hope.
Girls Will Be Girls (NR) This Indian drama stars Preeti Panigrahi as a 16-year-old girl coming of age sexually in a repressive family. Also with Kani Kusruti, Kesav Binoy Kiron, Kajol Chugh, Nandini Verma, Devika Shahani, Akash Pramanik, and Aman Desai.
The Lost Holliday (NR) The title is not a misprint. Jussie Smollett co-stars in and directs this comedy as a gay man who must deal with his late husband’s mother (Vivica A. Fox), who had no idea of her son’s homosexuality. Also with Jabari Redd, Marquise Vilson, Brittany S. Hall, Miriam A. Hyman, Leslie David Baker, and Gina Belafonte.
Notice to Quit (PG-13) This comedy stars Michael Zegen as a struggling New York actor who discovers the existence of a 10-year-old daughter (Kasey Bella Suarez) while dealing with a career change. Also with Nell Verlaque, Isabel Arraiza, Michael Angelo Covino, Leah Loftin, and Robert Klein.
