OPENING
Bachhala Malli (NR) Allari Naresh stars in this Telugu-language action-thriller. Also with Amritha Aiyer, Hari Teja, Rao Ramesh, Sai Kumar, and Achyuth Kumar. (Opens Friday)
Homestead (PG-13) Neal McDonough stars in this drama as a military veteran who joins a community of doomsday preppers. Also with Dawn Olivieri, Jesse Hutch, Susan Misner, Currie Graham, Bailey Chase, Kevin Lawson, and Olivia Sanabia. (Opens Wednesday)
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (PG) About what you’d expect, and not in a good way. When an evil superpowered hedgehog (voiced by Keanu Reeves) breaks out of his prison on Earth, Sonic and his friends (voiced by Ben Schwartz, Colleen O’Shaughnessey, and Idris Elba) have to do the unthinkable and team up with Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) to stop him. Unfortunately, the mad scientist betrays them when he’s reunited with his long-lost grandfather (also Carrey). The hedgehogs go to Tokyo and London as part of their fight, but the movie bogs down in so many platitudes about family that it could qualify as an installment in the Fast & Furious franchise. Even the movie’s left turn into a clone of The Shape of Water can’t save it. Also with James Marsden, Tika Sumpter, Lee Majdoub, Adam Pally, Shemar Moore, Natasha Rothwell, Alyla Browne, Tom Butler, Jorma Taccone, and Krysten Ritter. (Opens Friday)
UI (NR) Upendra directs and stars in this Kannada-language science-fiction thriller about a future colony taken over by a dictator. Also with Sunny Leone, Reeshma Nanaiah, Sadhu Kokila, Jisshu Sengupta, and Murali Sharma. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Vanvaas (NR) This Indian drama stars Nana Patekar as an elderly man whose family must deal with his senile dementia. Also with Utkarsh Sharma, Ashwini Kalsekar, Rajpal Naurang Yadav, Shruti Marathe, Simratt Kaur Randhawa, Snehil Dixit Mehra, and Prashant Bajaj. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Viduthalai Part 2 (NR) The continuation of last year’s epic stars Soori as a police constable clashing with a Tamil separatist group. Also with Vijay Sethupathi, Manju Warrier, Kishore, Bhavani Sre, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Rajiv Menon, Attakathi Dinesh, Ilavarasu, Balaji Sakthivel, Saravana Subbiah, Chetan, Munnar Ramesh, Anurag Kashyap, Bose Venkat, and Vincent Asokan. (Opens Friday at Cinemark Tinseltown Grapevine)
NOW PLAYING
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (PG) Judy Greer provides the only note of astringency or liveliness in this rote, muddy-looking adaptation of Barbara Robinson’s beloved novel. The treasured character actress stars a full-time mother who takes over directing her church’s Christmas pageant just in time for the neighborhood’s worst-behaved family of kids to assume the main roles. The book was written back in the 1970s, and the movie unfortunately feels trapped in period amber, as the unparented kids’ antics seem too tame by half. The movie’s religious message is muffled amid the family-friendly cutesiness. Also with Pete Holmes, Molly Belle Wright, Beatrice Schneider, Matthew Lamb, Mason D. Nelligan, Essek Moore, Ewan Wood, Kynlee Heiman, Lorelei Olivia Mote, Danielle Hoetmer, Daina Leitold, Stephanie Sy, and Lauren Graham.
Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin. (PG-13) This movie has the right message, but it’s a real shame about the execution. Jonas Dassler (from TV’s Dark) portrays the German pastor who travels to America in the early 1930s, falls in love with Black culture, returns to Germany, and speaks out against Adolf Hitler and his regime. The movie’s on solid intellectual ground when depicting a Christian man coming around on the need to assassinate a leader who is murderous and un-Christian, but writer-director Todd Komarnicki runs into all kinds of trouble trying to avoid dead ends and dead spots. The acting at least is worth watching, especially Dassler as a tormented man who nevertheless finds happiness singing jazz at a Harlem nightclub. Also with August Diehl, David Jonsson, Flula Borg, Nadine Heidenreich, Greg Kolpakchi, William Robinson, Katharina Heyer, Lisa Hofer, Moritz Bleibtreu, and Clarke Peters.
Flow (PG) In this dialogue-free animated film from Latvia, an apocalyptic event has destroyed all human life, and a cat finds that it has to work with a Labrador retriever, a lemur, a capybara, and a secretary bird to survive. Never mind that these animals live in different parts of the world, we’re assuming that global warming has brought them together as well as creating the flood conditions that threaten all of them. I’m less convinced by the part where the animals figure out how to steer a boat through the rising waters. Director Gints Zilbalodis comes up with some breathtaking vistas as the animals make their way through the wreckage of human civilization, including a Roman-style mountain city whose streets the animals paddle through. For all that, I think The WIld Robot covered the same ground more effectively.
Gladiator II (R) Denzel Washington steals the show in Ridley Scott’s sequel to his 2000 Best Picture Oscar winner. Paul Mescal stars as the son of Russell Crowe’s Maximus who swears revenge on Rome after they invade his adopted homeland and kill his wife, and Denzel plays the wealthy owner of gladiators who seeks to use him to bring down the rotting empire. Portraying an ex-slave who plays senators, generals, and Rome’s co-emperor brothers (Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger) against one another, Washington seems to take a caffeine jolt from the fact that he’s not playing The Guy, and his gleeful cynicism punctures the high seriousness that has plagued Scott’s other recent films. The fight sequences, as outlandish as they are, give us a break from the political machinations, and the movie’s jaded attitude seems to fit the current mood. Also with Pedro Pascal, Connie Nielsen, Tim McInnerny, Rory McCann, Lior Raz, Peter Mensah, Matt Lucas, Alexander Karim, Yuval Gonen, and Derek Jacobi.
Kraven the Hunter (R) Strangely uninvolving. Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays the Spider-Man-adjacent supervillain as the son of a Russian mob boss and big-game hunter (Russell Crowe). As a teenager, he’s torn up by a lion on an African safari only to have his life saved by some African potion that also gives him super-hearing, strength, and agility. He runs away from home and devotes himself to murdering bad people on his list. The film has a couple of interesting supervillains (Alessandro Nivola as a guy with bulletproof skin and Christopher Abbott as an assassin who hypnotizes people into killing themselves), and some interesting ideas float around in the script. Yet director J.C. Chandor (Margin Call, All Is Lost) can’t manage the tone properly, so the movie refuses to catch fire despite everything it has going for it. Also with Ariana DeBose, Levi Miller, Billy Barratt, Yuri Kolokolnikov, Murat Seven, and Fred Hechinger.
The Last Dance (NR) This Chinese comedy is about a failing wedding planner (Michael Hui) who attempts to diversify his business by becoming a funeral planner. Also with Dayo Wong, Michelle Wai, Pak Hon Chu, Catherine Chau, and Paul Chun.
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim (PG-13) A chance for anime fans to meet Tolkien fans, and not much more. This prequel drawn by Japanese animators is about a heroine named Héra (voiced by Gaia Wise) who has to lead her people during a siege after an incel of a lord (voiced by Luke Pasqualino) who’s proposed as a husband launches a war against her kingdom. It’s strange how neatly this story (which is considerably fleshed out from Tolkien’s genealogies) fits into the template of anime fantasies. There are some neat little story elements, but director Kenji Kamiyama fails to bring much in the way of memorable visuals. The gender flip doesn’t do much, either, and the movie is middling at best compared to other anime films. It still points an intriguing way for future Tolkien movies to go, but it fails to go there itself. Additional voices by Brian Cox, Yazdan Qafouri, Benjamin Wainwright, Lorraine Ashbourne, Shaun Dooley, Laurence Ubong Williams, Michael Wildman, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, and Miranda Otto.
The Man in the White Van (PG-13) This retro horror film is like a 1970s slasher flick in all the wrong ways. Madison Wolfe portrays an underage girl in 1975 South Florida who is stalked by a male person in a white vehicle with blacked-out windows, before that sort of conveyance became a screaming signal for “pedophile.” Even taking that into account, the killer (who has no lines and is never seen in full view) all but telegraphs his intentions, and everyone thinks our heroine is insane for reporting the white van stalking her. If director/co-writer Warren Skeels is trying to comment on the evolution of our sense of stranger danger, he misses by a mile. This fails on every level. Also with Brec Bassinger, Skai Jackson, Gavin Warren, Noah Lomax, Ali Larter, and Sean Astin.
Moana 2 (PG) The backwash hits the Disney animated sequel pretty hard. Auli’i Cravalho returns as the voice of our Polynesian heroine, who’s sent back out on the ocean to reunite her scattered people and meet back up with Maui (voiced by Dwayne Johnson). She’s given a crew this time, but her interactions with them aren’t as interesting as you’d hope for. More grievously, Lin-Manuel Miranda has jumped ship, and new songwriters Emily Bear and Abigail Barlow appear to have been given the assignment too soon. Maui remains the best thing about this sequel, with The Rock getting to wisecrack irreverently and sing the movie’s musical highlight, “Can I Get a Chee Hoo?” The sequel shows flashes of some great ideas like a sea monster that looks like a mountainous island, but those can’t keep this from feeling rote. Additional voices by Temuera Morrison, Rachel House, Rose Matafeo, Hualālai Chung, David Fane, Awhimai Fraser, Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda, Tofiga Fepulea’i, Alan Tudyk, Jemaine Clement, and Nicole Scherzinger.
Pushpa 2: The Rule (NR) More of the same, and at wearisome length. Allu Arjun reprises his role as the smuggler of red sandalwood who takes his business international and vows to topple his local government when the politicians who are happy to take his money refuse to be photographed with him. The plot entirely fails to track, which makes sense if you know that the filmmakers shot some of this movie simultaneously with the first film but then changed the plot. Our man continues to display superhuman strength and cunning, though the most unbelievable thing he does is learn Japanese during his 30 days trapped in a shipping container. It’s all just 215 minutes of Pushpa being so badass that he stretches credibility. Also with Rashmika Mandanna, Fahadh Faasil, Jagadeesh Prathap Bandari, Jagapathi Babu, Prakash Raj, Sunil, Rao Ramesh, Ajay Ghosh, and Sreeleela.
Queer (R) Luca Guadagnino’s period drama tries to be a lot of things. Based on William Burroughs’ novel, the film stars Daniel Craig as a Burroughs-like writer in the 1950s who finds love with an American military intel officer (Drew Starkey) in Mexico, then goes off with him to the jungles of Ecuador in search of an ayahuasca high. The movie works as a snapshot of a community of gay expats in Mexico City during that time period and Craig gives a fine, tormented performance as a homosexual who finds gay life in the States too depressing. For all the movie’s explicit sex scenes, it’s icy cold to the touch, and Guadagnino never settles on a tone or an emotional throughline that can carry this large-scale film. Watch for an unrecognizable Jason Schwartzman under prosthetic fat and a heavy beard and a small role by North Texas filmmaker David Lowery as a gay man with a wife and kid back home. Also with Henrique Zaga, Ariel Schulman, Michael Borremans, Lisandro Alonso, and Lesley Manville.
Red One (PG-13) This Christmas movie starts off well, with a terrific premise. After Santa Claus (J.K. Simmons) is kidnapped by persons unknown two days before Christmas, his head of security (Dwayne Johnson) contacts the blackhat hacker (Chris Evans) who helped the bad guys locate Saint Nick. Their attempts to recover the hostage are filmed like a spy thriller, along with the workings of Santa’s workshop. Kristofer Hivju turns up as Krampus, too. It all goes well for a while, but Johnson is the wrong actor to portray someone who’s jaded underneath his businesslike exterior. Evans, turning up his native Boston accent considerably, fares better as a shady guy who makes wisecracks as he’s dragged across the globe, but the script dampens down the comedy by making him a crappy dad to a teenage boy (Wesley Kimmel). The sleigh ride runs out of power before the movie is halfway through. Also with Lucy Liu, Bonnie Hunt, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, Kiernan Shipka, and Nick Kroll.
Venom: The Last Dance (PG-13) As implied by the subtitle, this looks to be the last installment of the series with Tom Hardy, though a couple of spinoff possibilities present themselves. Now a fugitive from justice, his Eddie Brock tries out a typically half-baked plan to fly across the country to clear his name, only to get sidetracked. As long as he and Venom are on the screen, the film is reasonably entertaining, with Eddie running into an itinerant hippie family and pining for the life they lead, and also stopping in Las Vegas to mess with tourists and play the slots. The rest of the plot is a mess, unfortunately. First-time director Kelly Marcel loses the whole thread of the story in the climax at Area 51, and wastes a rather stacked supporting cast. It really is time for Hardy to get out of this series while he’s ahead. Also with Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, Alanna Ubach, Cristo Fernández, Hala Finley, Dash McCloud, Peggy Lu, Stephen Graham, and Andy Serkis.
Werewolves (R) This incredibly stupid horror movie takes place one year after a supermoon turned one billion people into werewolves. Frank Grillo stars as a scientist who has turned his home into a bunker to protect his family while he looks for a cure during the next supermoon. Essentially, this is an installment of The Purge (which Grillo also starred in an installment of) but without the action sequences that distinguished that series. Instead, this movie can’t be bothered to obey the rules it sets up for itself, and characters repeatedly make stupid decisions that unleash the werewolves and keep the carnage going. Sentimentality creeps in, too, and warps the horror. Also with Katrina Law, Ilfenesh Hadera, James Michael Cummings, Kamdynn Gray, Lydia Styslinger, James Kyson, and Lou Diamond Phillips.
Wicked (PG) Better than the Broadway hit in some spectacular ways. Cynthia Erivo portrays the future Wicked Witch of the West, who enrolls at a magical school and is forced to room with the future Good Witch of the North (Ariana Grande). This movie only covers the first half of the show and somehow comes off as maximalist rather than bloated. The vocal contributions come from many different places in the cast, with Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard of Oz and Jonathan Bailey showing some springy dance moves in “Dancing Through Life,” performed in front of a rotating bookcase. Grande nails the vibe of a princess with a bitchy “me first” streak, but even she can’t take the spotlight from Erivo. Her skillful handling of the reflective numbers keeps the movie from collapsing, and the climax of “Defying Gravity” blows out the lights in the Emerald City. She doesn’t just sing the showstopper, she is the showstopper. Also with Michelle Yeoh, Ethan Slater, Marissa Bode, Bowen Yang, Bronwyn James, Andy Nyman, Keala Settle, Kristin Chenoweth, and Idina Menzel.
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.
Y2K (R) This comedy struggles to come to life. Jaeden Martell plays a teenager in 1999 who aims to kiss his nerdy dream girl (Rachel Zegler) on New Year’s Eve, but when the year changes over to 2000, all the machines in his small town try to kill him and his friends. Kyle Mooney makes his directing debut (and also portrays a perpetually stoned video-store clerk), and he switches successfully among evoking different modes of media that were available in the late ’90s. That’s not enough to carry this movie. He aims for the vibe of Kevin Smith movies from that time, and he can’t do it because he and co-writer Evan Winter don’t have the material. Fred Durst portrays himself as the sole survivor after the machines kill everyone else in Limp Bizkit, and he sings George Michael’s “Faith” to distract the machine overlords while our heroes unleash a computer virus. Also with Julian Dennison, Daniel Zolghadri, Lachlan Watson, The Kid Laroi, Mason Gooding, Tim Heidecker, Miles Robbins, and Alicia Silverstone.
NOW PLAYING IN DALLAS
Day of the Fight (R) Jack Huston makes his directing debut with this drama about a disgraced boxer (Michael Pitt) who prepares for his first match after serving a prison sentence. Also with Steve Buscemi, John Magaro, Ron Perlman, Nicolette Robinson, Anatol Yusef, and Joe Pesci.
The Girl With the Needle (NR) This Danish true crime thriller is about the manhunt for a pediatric nurse (Trine Dyrholm) who has murdered hundreds of babies in Copenhagen in 1919. Also with Vic Carmen Sonne, Besir Zeciri, Ava Knox Martin, Joachim Fjelstrup, and Ari Alexander.
Maria (R) Angelina Jolie stars in this biography of opera star Maria Callas. Also with Pierfrancesco Favino, Alba Rohrwacher, Haluk Bilginer, Stephen Ashfield, Valeria Golino, Caspar Phillipson, and Kodi Smit-McPhee.
Missing From Fire Trail Road (NR) Sabrina van Tassel’s documentary is about the continuing epidemic of missing Native American women from reservations in America.
Nightbitch (R) Based on Rachel Yoder’s novel, this fantasy film stars Amy Adams as a frustrated housewife who transforms into a wild animal. Also with Scoot McNairy, Mary Holland, Arleigh Snowden, Emmett Snowden, Zoë Chao, Archana Rajan, and Jessica Harper.
Nocturnes (NR) Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivasan’s documentary profiles entomologists who study moths in the forests at the foot of the Himalayas.
Oh, Canada (NR) Richard Gere stars in Paul Schrader’s drama as a Vietnam War draft dodger who reveals the truth about his life in exile in Canada. Also with Uma Thurman, Jacob Elordi, Victoria Hill, Caroline Dhavernas, Kristine Froseth, Jake Weary, and Michael Imperioli.
The Six Triple Eight (PG-13) Kerry Washington stars in Tyler Perry’s historical epic about an all-Black, all-female unit in World War II that sorted official mail for the U.S. military. Also with Ebony Obsidian, Milauna Jackson, Kylie Jefferson, Shanice Shantay, Sarah Jeffery, Pepi Sonuga, Moriah Brown, Dean Norris, Oprah Winfrey, Sam Waterston, and Susan Sarandon.
Young Werther (R) This modern-day comic adaptation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s novella stars Douglas Booth as a teenager who moves heaven and Earth to try to woo the girl of his dreams. Also with Iris Apatow, Amrit Kaur, Patrick J. Adams, and Alison Pill.
