OPENING
Akaal: The Unconquered (NR) Gippy Grewal writes, directs, and stars in this historical drama about a group of Punjab warriors defending themselves against an enemy army. Also with Nimrat Khaira, Apinderdeep Singh, Nikitin Dheer, Gurpreet Ghuggi, Mita Vashisht, and Raj Hundal. (Opens Friday)
The Ballad of Wallis Island (PG-13) This British comedy stars Tim Key as a lottery winner who decides to use his winnings to reunite the split-up members of his favorite band. Also with Carey Mulligan, Tom Basden, Akemnji Ndifornyen, and Sian Clifford. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Bazooka (NR) This Malayalam-language film stars Gautham Vasudev Menon as a homicide detective who teams up with an ethical hacker (Mammootty) to track down a serial killer. Also with Babu Antony, Neeta Pillai, Divya Pillai, Sidharth Bharathan, Iswarya Menon, and Shine Tom Chacko. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Drop (PG-13) There are several plot contrivances too many in this thriller. Meghann Fahy stars as a psychotherapist and widowed mother who goes on a blind date at a fancy Chicago restaurant, only for a mysterious caller to keep sending digital drops to her phone threatening the lives of her family if she doesn’t kill the man she’s dating (Brandon Sklenar). The movie has some intrigue in narrowing down the perpetrator to somebody in the restaurant, and Broadway star Fahy does some good work as someone who’s haunted by a previous abusive relationship. However, the puppetmaster who’s trying to manipulate her remotely is too absurd to be credible. Christopher Landon previously directed Happy Death Day and Freaky, and he did wittier work in those than he does here. Also with Violett Beane, Jacob Robinson, Reed Diamond, Gabrielle Ryan, Jeffery Self, Sarah McCormack, Ed Weeks, Travis Nelson, and Ben Pelletier. (Opens Friday)
Gazer (R) Ariella Mastroianni stars in and co-writes this horror film about a mother who struggles to perceive time. Also with Renee Gagner, Jack Alberts, Emma Pearson, Marianne Goodell, and Tommy Kang. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Good Bad Ugly (NR) Ajith Kumar stars in this Tamil-language action-comedy about a gang boss who tries to go straight. Also with Trisha Krishnan, Arjun Das, Prabhu, Prasanna, Sunil, Rahul Dev, Redin Kingsley, Raghu Ram, Darkkey Nagaraja, Karthikeya Dev, and Simran. (Opens Friday)
Gunslingers (R) This Western stars Nicolas Cage and Stephen Dorff as former outlaws who must defend their town against bandits. Also with Heather Graham, Tzi Ma, Randall Batinkoff, Cooper Barnes, and Costas Mandylor. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Jaat (NR) This Hindi-language action-thriller stars Sunny Deol as a mysterious drifter who battles a criminal overlord (Randeep Hooda) terrorizing a small village. Also with Regina Cassandra, Vineet Kumar Singh, Saiyami Kher, Ramya Krishnan, Jagapathi Babu, Babloo Prithiveeraj, Urvashi Rautela, and Murali Sharma. (Opens Friday)
Jack (NR) This Indian spy comedy stars Vaishnavi Chaitanya as a spy who must investigate his own son (Siddhu Jonalagadda). Also with Prakash Raj, Naresh, and Brahmaji. (Opens Friday)
The King of Kings (PG) This animated Christian film has novelist Charles Dickens (voiced by Kenneth Branagh) telling his son the story of Jesus Christ (voiced by Oscar Isaac). Additional voices by Uma Thurman, Ben Kingsley, Pierce Brosnan, Jim Cummings, Fred Tatasciore, Roman Griffin Davis, and Forest Whitaker. (Opens Friday)
Maranamass (NR) This Indian black comedy is about a group of people whose individual stories come together on one late-night bus. Starring Basil Joseph, Rajesh Madhavan, Suresh Krishna, and Babu Antony. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Marshmallow (NR) This horror film is about a group of campers who find that one of their campfire tales has come to life. Starring Giorgia Whigham, Miya Cech, Alysia Reiner, Pierson Fode, Paul Soter, Amanda Clayton, and Corbin Bernsen. (Opens Friday)
Psycho Therapy: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer (NR) This comedy stars John Magaro as a blocked writer who discovers that his marriage counselor (Steve Buscemi) is also a retired serial killer. Also with Britt Lower, Sydney Cole Alexander, Anthony Michael Lopez, Ward Horton, and Jacob Ming-Trent. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Sacramento (R) Michael Angarano stars in his own directing debut as a young man who convinces his expectant best friend (Michael Cera) to take a road trip with him from L.A. to California’s state capital. Also with Kristen Stewart, Rosalind Chao, and Maya Erskine. (Opens Friday)
Warfare (R) Alex Garland (Civil War) co-directs this movie about a group of Navy SEALs on a mission in Iraq. Starring Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Joseph Quinn, Alex Brockdorff, Aaron Mackenzie, Finn Bennett, and Michael Gandolfini. (Opens Friday)
We Were Dangerous (NR) This comedy from New Zealand stars Manaia Hall, Erana James, and Nathalie Morris as three girls who band together at a school for delinquent girls in the 1950s. Also with Rima te Wiata, Molly Jarvis-Taylor, Tomairangi Paterson-Waaka, Kylana Peauafi Symonds, and Stephen Tamarapa. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Yo No Soy Esa (R) This Spanish comedy stars Verónica Echegui as a woman who falls into a coma in 1999 and then wakes up 25 years later. Also with Silma López, Adam Jezierski, Anna Alarcón, Olivia Molina, Ángela Molina, and Alicia Reyero. (Opens Friday)
Zero (NR) This British dystopian film stars Lauren Grace and Anya McKenna-Bruce as two sisters trying to survive a post-apocalyptic event. Also with Oliver Woollford, Archie Renaux, Kieron Bimpson, Abbie-Jane Gates, Jamie Irvine, and Megan Zina. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
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 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.
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.
The Friend (R) Adapted from Sigrid Nunez’ novel, this drama moves slowly but effectively enough as it takes in the story of a New York writer (Naomi Watts) who’s tasked with taking care of a 150-pound Great Dane after her mentor and the dog’s owner (Bill Murray) commits suicide. The dog was originally abandoned before the previous owner found him, and our protagonist is going through a few abandonment issues of her own. The filmmaking team of Scott McGehee and David Siegel stay patient as she tries to keep the dog in her too-small Manhattan apartment while also editing her mentor’s letters for publication, detailing the complications that the dog introduces into her life. As movies about dogs and their owners go, this one rates as above-average. Also with Carla Gugino, Constance Wu, Felix Solis, Owen Teague, Noma Dumezweni, Sarah Pidgeon, Annie Fox, Josh Pais, Tom McCarthy, and Ann Dowd.
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.
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.
The Luckiest Man in America (R) Paul Walter Hauser is the best reason to see this historical drama about Michael Larson, an unemployed ice-cream truck driver from Ohio who went on the game show Press Your Luck in the 1980s and won tons of money because he had figured out a flaw in the game. The film doesn’t have much of a viewpoint on the events beyond “That’s crazy!”, and likely the only reason it exists at all is because producer Elizabeth Banks is the host of the current iteration of Press Your Luck. The best thing about this is Hauser, playing a white-haired hayseed whose lopsided brain is only good for figuring out the show’s patterns, who finds a way to make the most of it. Also with Walton Goggins, Maisie Williams, Haley Bennett, Brian Geraghty, Shamier Anderson, Patti Harrison, Johnny Knoxville, and David Strathairn.
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.
A Minecraft Movie (PG) The charm that has won the video game millions of followers around the world is little in evidence in this film version. Jack Black stars as the ruler of the Overworld, who has to prevent the queen of the Nether (voiced by Rachel House) from taking over, with the help of a group of visitors from Idaho (Jason Momoa, Emma Myers, Danielle Brooks, and Sebastian Hansen) who have accidentally been pulled into the Minecraft world. Director Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite) finds a nice comic groove in Idaho, but once everybody goes into the game, his sense of pacing and timing deserts him. The writers frantically move these characters back and forth to make up for the fact that the game famously has no story, and the actors scream their lines. Making an intellectual property into a good movie requires a filmmaker with peculiar talents, and this movie doesn’t find one. Also with Jennifer Coolidge, Bret McKenzie, Matt Berry, Jemaine Clement, and an uncredited Kate McKinnon.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
