OPENING
Anjila (NR) Anjila Tumbapo Subba stars in this movie based on her own life as the starting goalkeeper for Nepal’s women’s soccer team. Also with Sunil Thapa, Dayahang Rai, Bijay Baral, Srijana Subba, Maotse Gurung, and Buddhi Tamang. (Opens Friday at Cinépolis Euless)
The Chosen: Last Supper (NR) Not to be confused with the other movie about the Last Supper that’s reviewed below, this continuation of the TV series also deals with Jesus’ final meeting with his disciples. Starring Jonathan Roumie, Shahar Isaac, Reza Diako, Jordan Walker Ross, Catherine Lidstone, and Elizabeth Tabish. (Opens Friday)
The Encampments (NR) Kei Pritsker and Michael T. Workman’s documentary profiles the student protests at Columbia University over its research money from Israeli weapons companies. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
The Friend (R) Naomi Watts stars in this comedy as a writer who adopts a Great Dane owned by her recently deceased friend (Bill Murray). Also with Carla Gugino, Constance Wu, Owen Teague, Noma Dumezweni, Sarah Pidgeon, Annie Fox, Josh Pais, and Tom McCarthy. (Opens Friday)
Hell of a Summer (R) Billy Bryk and Finn Wolfhard co-star in, co-write, and co-direct this parody of 1980s slasher movies. Also with Fred Hechinger, Abby Quinn, Pardis Saremi, Julia Doyle, Julia Lalonde, and D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai. (Opens Friday)
Janis Ian: Breaking Silence (NR) Varda Bar-Kar’s documentary profiles the 1970s music star and her impact on the culture. Also with Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, Laurie Metcalfe, Jean Smart, and Lily Tomlin. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
The Luckiest Man in America (R) Paul Walter Hauser stars in this biographical drama as Michael Larson, the real-life ice-cream truck driver who won huge amounts of money on the TV game show Press Your Luck. Also with Walton Goggins, Maisie Williams, Haley Bennett, Brian Geraghty, Shamier Anderson, Patti Harrison, Johnny Knoxville, and David Strathairn. (Opens Friday)
The Martial Artist (PG-13) Shaz Khan directs and stars in this movie as a rising MMA fighter who must face his own demons. Also with Faran Tahir, Gregory Sporleder, Liz Fenning, Ashton Solecki, Will Lurie, Herb Dean, and Sameer Khan. (Opens Friday at Cinépolis Euless)
A Nice Indian Boy (NR) Karan Soni (the Deadpool movies) stars in this comedy as a gay man who plans to come out to his Indian family by introducing them to his white boyfriend (Jonathan Groff). Also with Sunita Mani, Zarna Garg, Harish Patel, Peter S. Kim, Sas Goldberg, and Dhirendra. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Parvulos (NR) This Mexican horror film is about a family defending their cabin in the woods from a zombie attack. Starring Mateo Ortega Casillas, Farid Escalante Correa, Leonardo Cervantes, Carla Adell, Norma Flores, Horacio F. Lazo, and Noé Hernández. (Opens Friday)
Screamboat (NR) Taking advantage of copyright expiration, this horror remake of Disney’s Steamboat Willie stars David Howard Thornton as a ferry captain who takes his passengers on a murder-filled boat trip. Also with Allison Pittel, Amy Schumacher, Jesse Posey, Rumi C. Jean-Louis, Tyler Posey, Brian Quinn, and Joe DeRosa. (Opens Friday)
Sikandar (NR) Salman Khan stars in this Indian action-thriller as a local politician who fights corruption on a national scale. Also with Rashmika Mandanna, Kajal Aggarwal, Sathyaraj, Sharman Joshi, Prateik Babbar, Kishore, and Jatin Sarna. (Opens Friday at Cinemark Tinseltown Grapevine)
Wake Up (NR) This horror movie is about a group of environmental activists hunted down by an overzealous security guard (Turlough Convery). Also with Benny O. Arthur, Jacqueline Moré, Tom Gould, Alessia Yoko Fontana, and Kyle Scudder. (Opens Friday at AMC Lake Worth)
William Tell (R) This historical epic stars Claes Bang as the Swiss warrior defending his country against Austrian invasion in the 14th century. Also with Jonathan Pryce, Jonah Hauer-King, Golshifteh Farahani, Rafe Spall, Emily Beecham, Conror Swindell, Ellie Bamber, Sam Keeley, and Ben Kingsley. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
NOW PLAYING
Black Bag (R) This efficient entertainer is another one of Steven Soderbergh’s brilliant thrillers. Michael Fassbender portrays an MI6 analyst who discovers that his own wife (Cate Blanchett) and his personal friends are all among the suspects in a theft of a software program from the agency. Some spy-movie enthusiasts might find this movie light on action sequences. The set pieces are more in the vein of a dinner party where our hero spikes everyone’s food with truth serum, or a montage of him sitting everybody down for polygraph tests. In an environment where everybody is willing to betray everybody else, the question of whether the husband and wife can trust each other takes on an unexpected urgency. This slick exercise unmasks the traitor and then gets off the screen after 93 minutes. Maybe you can ask for more given the star power here, or maybe you can be happy with this as you head home. Also with Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page, Tom Burke, Marisa Abela, Gustaf Skarsgård, and Pierce Brosnan.
Bob Trevino Likes It (PG-13) Barbie Ferreira (TV’s Euphoria) stars in this comedy based on a true story about a young woman who befriends an older man (John Leguizamo) who happens to have the same name as her father (French Stewart). Also with Lauren “Lolo” Spencer, Rachel Bay Jones, and Debra Stipe.
Captain America: Brave New World (PG-13) A lean two-hour Marvel superhero film that yields some decent thrills. Anthony Mackie takes over the shield as the new Captain America working with and then against a new president (Harrison Ford) to avert a war between America and Japan as well as clear Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) of guilt in an assassination attempt on the president. Director/co-writer Julius Onah pares down the scale of the film without sacrificing the maximalist set pieces that Marvel fans are used to. Less successful is the supervillain (Tim Blake Nelson) and his overly convoluted plot to turn the president into the Red Hulk. Mackie well deserves a star vehicle like this and makes for an edgier and more modern Captain than Chris Evans did, and Ford manages to be fully engaged in his role. Also with Danny Ramirez, Shira Haas, Giancarlo Esposito, Xosha Roquemore, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, William Mark McCullough, Takehiro Hira, Liv Tyler, and an uncredited Rosa Salazar.
The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie (PG) Daffy Duck and Porky Pig (both voiced by Eric Bauza) headline this animated feature that’s drawn to look like one of Warner Bros.’ vintage cartoons from the 1940s. Unfortunately, stretching out a premise to feature length turns out to be a bridge too far. When aliens invade the Earth, it punches a hole in our heroes’ house, and they have to fix their roof while also saving the world. And Porky meets and falls in love with Petunia Pig (voiced by Candi Milo). The movie is pleasant enough and incorporates a few modern touches (such as Daffy trying to get work as a YouTube influencer) without too much trouble, but too few of the gags hit the mark. The only one that really scores is at the end, when Daffy discovers a home insurance policy that specifically covers alien invasions. Additional voices by Peter MacNicol, Wayne Knight, Fred Tatasciore, Carlos Alazraqui, and Laraine Newman.
Death of a Unicorn (R) The premise is unique, and that’s just about all I can say on behalf of this horror film. Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega star as a widowed father and teenage daughter who are driving in the forests of Alberta when they hit a unicorn on the road. The animal’s blood cures them of their allergies and acne, and when it later does the same for the dad’s pharma CEO boss (Richard E. Grant) and his cancer, the billionaire resolves to harvest all the unicorns in the neighboring wilderness. Will Poulter generates some laughs as the CEO’s venal, do-nothing son, but the movie fails as a satire of pharmaceutical companies, as a drama about a father grown estranged from his daughter, and as a horror movie with the unicorns picking the CEO’s servants and armed guards one by one. It takes more than an original idea to make a successful movie. Also with Téa Leoni, Steve Park, Sunita Mani, Jessica Hynes, and Anthony Carrigan. Voice by Kathryn Erbe.
Dog Man (PG) Dav Pilkey’s series of children’s books becomes this frenetic but unexpectedly moving animated film. Director Peter Hastings does the voice of a stupid cop and his genius dog whose lives are saved after a bombing when the dog’s head is glued onto the man’s body. Together, Dog Man aims to thwart a cat supervillain (voiced by Pete Davidson) with a lot of abandonment issues. Those lead the cat to ditch his cloned kitten self (voiced by Lucas Hopkins Calderon), and the movie has some sweet moments when Dog Man takes in the abandoned kitten. Some better writing and a bit of slacking off with the pace might have made this into a great movie. Additional voices by Lil Rel Howery, Isla Fisher, Poppy Liu, Billy Boyd, Maggie Wheeler, Laraine Newman, Cheri Oteri, and Stephen Root.
L2: Empuraan (NR) This Malayalam-language sequel to the 2019 film Lucifer has Mohanlal reprising his role as a mysterious international criminal. Also with Prithviraj Sukumaran, Abhimanyu Singh, Tovino Thomas, Manju Warrier, Jerome Flynn, and Eriq Ebouaney.
The Last Supper (PG-13) Less lively than a copy of the Da Vinci painting hanging on some nursing home’s wall, this Christian film depicts the events leading up to Judas Iscariot (Robert Knepper) betraying Jesus Christ (Jamie Ward). Director/co-writer Mauro Borrelli fails to find any dramatic excitement in the setup, and for a filmmaker whose background is in visual effects, you’d think his movie would look better. Even more than that, the bad acting by the principles sinks this Biblical drama. Also with James Faulkner, Henry Garrett, Daniel Fathers, James Oliver Wheatley, Harry Anton, Fredrik Wagner, Marie-Batoul Prenant, and Nathalie Rapti Gomez.
Mad Square (NR) The sequel to the 2023 film Mad has all the characters from the previous film taking a road trip to Goa. Starring Narne Nithiin, Sangeeth Sobhan, Ram Nitin, Priyanka Jawalkar, Vishnu Oi, Satyam Rajesh, Raghu Babu, K.V. Anudeep, and Reba Monica John.
Mickey 17 (R) Bong Joon-ho continues to be his crazy self in this English-language follow-up to his Oscar-winning Parasite. Based on Edward Ashton’s science-fiction novel, this movie stars Robert Pattinson as a future worker who agrees to be cloned repeatedly so that his doubles can get killed doing dangerous jobs on a space expedition to a distant frozen planet. Seeing Bong work on a Hollywood budget alone is worth the admission price, as the Korean filmmaker conjures awe-inspiring interiors for the spaceship and massive herds of giant animals on the planet. His wacky humor also cuts against the visual splendor, as stuff malfunctions constantly in this techno-utopia and the characters’ stupidity keeps them from achieving their dream of colonizing another world. Few other filmmakers would let themselves be this silly on such a big budget. Also with Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie, Patsy Ferran, Cameron Britton, Bronwyn James, Holliday Grainger, Daniel Henshall, Thomas Turgoose, Anamaria Vartolomei, Steve Park, Toni Collette, and Mark Ruffalo.
The Monkey (R) Osgood Perkins follows up Longlegs by trying to make a horror-comedy out of Stephen King’s short story, and the results are very bad indeed. Christian Convery and then Theo James portray identical twins who find a windup toy monkey that causes the deaths of everybody around them. Convery is particularly good at differentiating the twins, one of whom constantly bullies the other. Still, despite the deaths coming about in often farcical ways, Perkins doesn’t have the temperament for staging violent deaths that are also funny, and the supporting cast doesn’t have much opportunity to contribute to this. The director is just terribly miscast with this project. Also with Tatiana Maslany, Colin O’Brien, Rohan Campbell, Adam Scott, and Elijah Wood.
Mufasa: The Lion King (PG-13) More interesting, though not necessarily better, than any of Disney’s recent live-action remakes. This prequel shows the young Mufasa (voiced by Aaron Pierre) being orphaned at an early age, taken in by a rival pride, then sent away as a bodyguard to the king’s son (voiced by Kelvin Harrison Jr.), who will betray him and become Scar. Much of the humor comes from the framing story, as Rafiki (voiced by John Kani) narrates the tale along with Timon and Pumbaa (voiced by Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen). We get to see Rafiki prove his mettle as a sage, and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s song for the villainous lion (voiced by Mads Mikkelsen) gratifyingly dings Mufasa’s circle-of-life philosophy. However, director Barry Jenkins seems miscast and uncomfortable with the big climax during an earthquake, and the romantic triangle that drives Mufasa and Scar apart doesn’t land. Still, this seems like a direction Disney should pursue, using these live-action films to continue the animated movies’ stories instead of remaking them. Additional voices by Tiffany Boone, Kagiso Lediga, Preston Nyman, Blue Ivy Carter, Thandiwe Newton, Lennie James, Braelyn Rankins, Theo Somolu, Donald Glover, and Beyoncé.
Novocaine (R) If this is a one-joke movie, Jack Quaid makes sure that the joke works. He portrays Nathan “Novocaine” Caine, a San Diego credit union assistant manager who can’t feel pain. When some armed bank robbers take hostage a teller whom he’s in love with (Amber Midthunder), he steals a police cruiser and goes after them. The film starts more interesting than it ends, as it depicts Novocaine’s life with his condition — he can ink large tattoos on himself, but he also has to stick to a liquid diet and remind himself to urinate or else his bladder will burst. As the movie goes on, it takes too long to reach its end and fails in its attempts to connect Novocaine’s pain-free life with his unwillingness to seek romance, and it doesn’t come off. The main thing to see this for is Quaid, whether he’s expressing terror at being in the middle of an action-thriller plot or not reacting to being kicked in the testicles. His lightness and comic skills show he can carry a movie. Also with Jacob Batalon, Ray Nicholson, Conrad Kemp, Evan Hengst, Lou Beatty Jr., Craig Jackson, Betty Gabriel, and Matt Walsh.
One of Them Days (R) Keke Palmer and SZA make a capable comedy team in this film that occasionally catches a groove. They portray two women in L.A. who are hard up when one’s boyfriend blows their rent money, so they have nine hours to come up with $1,500 or face eviction. Despite the clock that these characters are on, I really wish director Lawrence Lamont had generated a sense of the time crunch and increasing desperation as the hours go by. Still, the movie has a white woman (Maude Apatow) who moves into this Black apartment complex as part of the gentrification process, and when the women try to take out a payday loan, everything about the business is funny, from the 1,900 percent interest rate to the homeless man (Katt Williams) who begs customers not to take the loan. Also with Vanessa Bell Calloway, Patrick Cage, Joshua David Neal, Gabrielle Dennis, Janelle James, Amin Joseph, Aziza Scott, Dewayne Perkins, Rizi Timane, and Lil Rel Howery.
Paddington in Peru (PG) Paul King left the series to work with Timothée Chalamet on the Willy Wonka movies, and he seems to have taken everything good with him. This brain-dead and unwatchable third installment has our marmalade-loving bear (voiced by Ben Whishaw) traveling with the Brown family to the Amazon jungle to locate his missing aunt (voiced by Imelda Staunton), only for the trip to turn into a quest to find El Dorado. The movie introduces Olivia Colman as a guitar-strumming nun and Antonio Banderas as a riverboat captain, and both of them are particularly badly served. The same goes for the Brown kids (Samuel Joslin and Madeleine Harris), who are now teenagers and much less interesting. The only time this movie even raises a laugh is during the post-credit sequence, when an uncredited Hugh Grant pops up. He only serves to remind you how much better the last movie was than this slog. Also with Hugh Bonneville, Emily Mortimer, Carla Tous, Julie Walters, Joel Fry, Robbie Gee, Jim Broadbent, and Hayley Atwell.
The Penguin Lessons (PG-13) This drama stars Steve Coogan as a British expat in Argentina in 1976 who adopts a penguin. Also with David Herrero, Aimar Miranda, Björn Gustafsson, Nicanor Fernandez, Hugo Fuertes, Joaquín Lopez, and Jonathan Pryce.
Robinhood (NR) This Indian crime thriller stars Nithiin as a criminal who steals from the rich and gives to the poor. Also with Vennela Kishore, Sreeleela, Rajendra Prasad, Devdatta Nage, Shine Tom Chacko, Subhalekha Sudhakar, Brahmaji, Ketika Sharma, and David Warner.
Snow White (PG) If this Disney live-action remake is too flawed to drown out the noise around it, it’s good enough to obscure that noise for a long stretch. Rachel Zegler plays the orphaned princess whose wicked stepmother (Gal Gadot) orders her killed for the crime of being more beautiful. Despite a darker color palette that distinguishes this from other Disney remakes, this film’s initial dramatic setup is flat, and the CGI dwarves are a huge distraction. Even so, the movie kicks into life with the villain’s aria “All Is Fair” and the romantic interest (Andrew Burnap) busting Snow White on her royal privilege in “Princess Problems,” and Zegler herself brings the appropriate energy in an expanded version of “Whistle While You Work.” If only the story of Snow White taking her kingdom back worked on any level, we could call this a success. Also with Hadley Fraser, Lorena Andrea, Emilia Faucher, Ansu Kabia, George Appleby, and Samuel Baxter. Voices by Patrick Page, Jeremy Swift, George Salazar, Andrew Barth Feldman, Martin Klebba, Jason Kravits, Andy Grotelueschen, and Titus Burgess.
Veera Dheera Sooran: Part 2 (NR) Interestingly, this movie comes out before Part 1 has even begun filming. Vikram stars in this Tamil-language film as a store owner who becomes enmeshed in a crime syndicate. Also with S.J. Suryah, Suraj Venjaramoodu, Dushara Vijayan, Siddique, Prudhvi Raj, and Pavel Navageethan.
The Woman in the Yard (PG-13) Missing greatness through some conceptual flaws, this horror movie stars Danielle Deadwyler as a mother widowed and disabled by the same car accident who’s trying to raise her children (Peyton Jackson and Estella Kahiha) on their remote rural farm. The appearance of a mysterious woman clad all in black (Okpui Okpokwasili) sitting on their property brings all her unresolved trauma to the surface. Director Jaume Collet-Serra knows his way around a claustrophobic horror film, but the film would have worked better if the same actress had played the mother and the woman in black. Even better would have been some more thinking through about what the woman is supposed to represent. Nevertheless, this exercise remains watchable and effective in spots. Also with Russell Hornsby.
A Working Man (R) This might have been okay if it weren’t for the overplotted script. Jason Statham stars in this thriller as an ex-British soldier-turned-construction foreman in Chicago who has to call on his former skills after his boss’ teenage daughter (Arianna Rivas) is kidnapped by human traffickers. This is based on Chuck Dixon’s novel Levon’s Trade, and all the extra stuff about Russian mobsters, crooked cops, bikers who deal meth, and the daughter (Isla Gie) whom the hero is raising by himself might have worked on the page. Here, though, it feels like so much padding for the protagonist to kill his way through. Director David Ayer doesn’t even come up with any memorable fight sequences for all this. Also with Michael Peña, Maximilian Osinski, Merab Ninidze, Noemi Gonzalez, Emmett J. Scanlan, Eve Mauro, Jason Flemyng, and David Harbour.
Dallas Exclusives
Make Me Famous (NR) Brian Vincent’s documentary profiles painter Edward Brezinski and his adventures in New York’s art scene in the 1980s.
Thank You Very Much (NR) Alex Braverman’s documentary profiles comedian Andy Kaufman. Starring Danny DeVito, Steve Martin, Bob Zmuda, and Marilu Henner.
