OPENING
Bubblegum (NR) Bindu Chandramouli and Anannyaa Akulaa star in this Indian romantic comedy as a poor DJ who falls in love with a wealthy fashion student. Also with Harsha Chemudu, Harsha Vardhan, Roshan Kanakala, and Anu Hasan. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Devil: The British Secret Agent (NR) This Indian historical spy thriller stars Nandamuri Kalyan Ram, Elnaaz Norouzi, Samyuktha Menon, Malvika Nair, and Edward Sonnenblick. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
The Goldfinger (NR) This corporate thriller is about a criminal conspiracy that causes Hong Kong’s stock market to crash in the 1980s. Starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Andy Lau, Simon Yam, Charlene Choi, Alex Fong, Carlos Chan, Catherine Chau, Philip Keung, Robert Chen, and Oliver Williams. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
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Animal (NR) Ranbir Kapoor stars in this Indian action thriller as a rebellious son who vows violent revenge after his corporate mogul father (Anil Kapoor) is murdered. Also with Bobby Deol, Rashmika Mandanna, Tripti Dimri, Babloo Prithiveeraj, Shakti Kapoor, Maganthi Srinath, Indira Krishnan, and Mathew Varghese.
Anyone But You (R) This romantic comedy stars Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney as a short-lived couple who feign that their relationship is still going on when they reunite unexpectedly in Australia. Also with Alexandra Shipp, Mia Artemis, Josh Bonello, Hadley Robinson, Rachel Griffiths, and Dermot Mulroney.
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (PG-13) Jason Momoa reprises his role as the underwater superhero, now dealing with the demands of kingship. Also with Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Patrick Wilson, Nicole Kidman, Amber Heard, Randall Park, Temuera Morrison, Pilou Asbæk, Vincent Regan, Jani Zhao, Dolph Lundgren, and Ben Affleck.
The Boy and the Heron (PG-13) If this is the last anime film by Hayao Miyazaki, the master’s hallucinatory powers are undiminished. Set during World War II, the story is about a boy (voiced by Soma Santoki in the Japanese-language version and Luca Padovan in the English-dubbed one) who wants to reunite with his dead mother and instead discovers a fantastical world through a talking gray heron (voiced by Masaki Suda and Robert Pattinson). Miyazaki gives us villainous clans of pelicans and parakeets for the boy hero to negotiate, and the voice cast for the English dub might just be the starriest that any Miyazaki film has received on our shores. The story does resolve itself rather too quickly, but the psychedelic visuals and world-building of Miyazaki is always glorious on the big screen. Additional voices by Aimyon, Karen Fukuhara, Yoshino Kimura, Gemma Chan, Shōhei Hino, Mark Hamill, Ko Shibasaki, Florence Pugh, Kaoru Kobayashi, Willem Dafoe, Jun Kunimura, Dave Bautista, Takuya Kimura, and Christian Bale.
The Boys in the Boat (PG-13) George Clooney’s sports drama is awfully plain, especially since he’s taking on a sport that doesn’t get much play in movies. Callum Turner stars as a homeless University of Washington student in the 1930s who joins the school’s rowing team, learns from a curmudgeonly coach (Joel Edgerton), and eventually competes in the 1936 Summer Olympics for Team USA. The cast full of unknowns fails to inject much personality into this, and this follows the template of sports movies so neatly that it’s rowing in lockstep. Even if you are a rowing fanatic, this won’t hold much for you. Also with James Wolk, Hadley Robinson, Sam Strike, Thomas Elms, Jack Mulhern, Luke Slattery, Bruce Herbelin-Earle, Chris DIamantopoulos, Peter Guinness, and Ian McElhinney.
The Color Purple (PG-13) A Hollywood studio hands a big-ticket item to an African director, and Blitz Bazawule does well enough with it to make you wonder why Tinseltown never tried it before. The film is based on the Broadway musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s novel, with Fantasia Barrino starring as a woman who spends more than 40 years waiting to hear from the sister she’s separated from. Neither the songs from the stage show nor the new ones written for the film are that impressive, so it’s fortunate that Bazawule finds such dramatic backdrops for the musical numbers. His cast is even better, with memorable singing and dancing performances coming from nine or ten actors, and Danielle Brooks is particularly grand as the heroine’s sister-in-law. If this movie misses the complexities in the novel, it makes up for that with exuberance and skill. Also with Taraji P. Henson, Colman Domingo, Corey Hawkins, H.E.R., David Alan Grier, Deon Cole, Jon Batiste, Phylicia Pearl Mpasi, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Halle Bailey, Louis Gossett Jr., and an uncredited Whoopi Goldberg.
Dimag Kharab (NR) This Nepalese comedy is about a young man (Arpan Thapa) whose attempts to work overseas wreak havoc on his family. Also with Swastima Khadka, Khagendra Lamichhane, Dayahang Rai, and Bijay Baral.
Dunki (NR) Shah Rukh Khan stars in this comedy as one of a group of Indian friends who illegally immigrate into the U.K. for a better life. Also with Taapsee Pannu, Boman Irani, Dia Mirza, Vikram Kochhar, Anil Grover, and Vicky Kaushal.
Ferrari (R) Michael Mann’s sports biography is as visually scrupulous and well-edited as his other movies, but something’s missing. Adam Driver portrays Enzo Ferrari as he tries to engineer a win for his racing team at the 1957 Mille Miglia while negotiating between his angry, childless wife (Penélope Cruz) and the mistress (Shailene Woodley) with whom he has a son. The racing sequences are done well, especially during the catastrophic sequences, but both Driver and Cruz have been better elsewhere, and the depiction of their adultery-ridden marriage never quite strikes a spark. As much effort as has been taken to capture Italy in the 1950s, the film feels curiously underwhelming. Also with Gabriel Leone, Sarah Gadon, Giuseppe Festinese, Derek Hill, Michele Savoia, Giuseppe Bonifati, Valentina Belle, Ben Collins, Jack O’Connell, and Patrick Dempsey.
Godzilla Minus One (PG-13) The latest film reboots the series from its origins, as the giant lizard appears off the coast of Japan a couple of years after World War II ends. A failed kamikaze pilot (Ryunosuke Kamiki) has to spearhead the fight to save Tokyo. Anime director Takashi Yamazaki makes a worthy live-action debut here, even if some of the emotional beats droop when Godzilla isn’t on the screen. It’s all worth seeing for the scenes of Godzilla on the rampage, and it’s done without the bombast of the Hollywood versions of this story. Also with Minami Hamabe, Sakura Ando, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki, Kuranosuke Sasaki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, and Michael Arias.
Hi Nanna (NR) This Indian romance stars Nani, Mrunal Thakur, Jayaram, Priyadarshi Pulikonda, Angad Bedi, and Shruti Haasan.
The Holdovers (R) Paul Giamatti seems to do his best acting for Alexander Payne, and this may be the performance of his career. He portrays a schoolteacher in 1970 who’s stuck babysitting the handful of students at his ritzy all-male New England prep school who have nowhere to go over Christmas break. Screenwriter David Hemingson does an excellent job of capturing the protagonist’s erudite voice as he insults his students’ intelligence and can’t get through a conversation without referencing the Peloponnesian War. When only one student (Dominic Sessa) is left on campus, the movie becomes a piercing but also quite funny portrait of the loneliness of the teacher, the student, and the cafeteria worker (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) who has lost her son in Vietnam. Randolph and the newcomer Sessa are both excellent, but Giamatti is fantastic as the man learning to appreciate things beyond the job he hates but has clung to tenaciously. Also with Carrie Preston, Brady Heppner, Ian Dolley, Michael Provost, Naheem Garcia, Gillian Vigman, Stephen Thorne, Andrew Garman, and Tate Donovan.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (PG-13) In some ways better than the original set of films, this prequel stars Rachel Zegler as the heroine from District 12 and Tom Blyth as the future dictator of Panem who’s randomly assigned to mentor her. The film looks better than its predecessors, as holdover director Francis Lawrence seems more comfortable with the 1930s fascist-style decor. Amid a distinguished cast, Zegler proves worthy of her star turn, playing to the cameras, cracking jokes, evading attempts on her life, and singing bluegrass. The thing is lacking on the conceptual end, the conclusion is too drawn out, and the material with the ethically compromised hero’s family doesn’t amount to much more than an Easter egg. It’s still the most sustained piece of filmmaking in the series. Also with Viola Davis, Jason Schwartzman, Hunter Schafer, Fionnula Flanagan, Josh Andrés Rivera, Athena Strates, Ashley Liao, Mackenzie Lansing, Nick Benson, Isobel Jesper Jones, Dakota Shapiro, George Somner, Burn Gorman, and Peter Dinklage.
Journey to Bethlehem (PG) The fractured fairy-tales approach to the Bible is refreshing from this Christian musical. Funny comic material would have been better. Fiona Palomo and Milo Manheim are both about as exciting as overcooked pasta portraying Mary and Joseph, as they flee Judaea to have their baby. The songs (by Peer Astrom, Nikki Anders, and director/co-writer Adam Anders) are not only bad but also overproduced, and even Antonio Banderas can’t inject life as King Herod, though it is amusing that his armor breastplate is painted to make it look like he has washboard abs. Also with Geno Segers, Omid Djalili, Rizwan Manji, Moriah, Stephanie Gil, Alicia Borrachero, Antonio Gil, Joel Smallbone, and Lecrae.
Napoleon (R) Big, loud, dull, and mostly empty. Ridley Scott’s historical epic stars Joaquin Phoenix as the French gunnery sergeant who winds up conquering most of Europe in the early 1800s. The movie speeds through the highlights of his military career without bothering to take much deeper lessons from either the individual episodes of the larger arc of his life. Scott manages two good combat sequences during the battles of Toulon and Austerlitz, and Rupert Everett is cast well against type as the Duke of Wellington. Yet one of the key figures of 19th century history emerges as a charmless lump. The story’s emotional weight is supposed to rest on his romance with Joséphine (Vanessa Kirby), and the relationship is as passionless as the sex they have attempting to produce an heir. The story of an outsider who brought Europe’s monarchies to their knees has something to tell us, but this movie doesn’t find it. Also with Tahar Rahim, Paul Rhys, Mark Bonnar, Ben Miles, Riana Duce, Edouard Philipponat, Miles Jupp, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Ludivine Sagnier, and Catherine Walker.
Poor Things (R) This zany feminist take on the Frankenstein story has Emma Stone delivering the line, “I will keep my new life and my lovely old clitoris, thank you.” She plays a Victorian Englishwoman who is brought back to life after committing suicide, with her unborn baby’s brain transplanted into her body. Stone reunites with The Favourite director Yorgos Lanthimos, and this has the weirdness of some of his earlier Greek films. Stone gives her strangest and possibly greatest performance here, initially walking without control of her limbs and then doing a bizarre dance number in a Lisbon nightclub, and her performance makes this sex-positive story of a woman who fucks her way to wisdom and enlightenment into something credible. This lurid fantasia of sexual liberation packs some high comedy. Also with Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Yousseff, Jerrod Carmichael, Suzy Bemba, Kathryn Hunter, Vicki Pepperdine, Hanna Schygulla, Christopher Abbott, and Margaret Qualley.
Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé (NR) The pop music star directs this film of her own concert tour from this past summer. The performances are cut together, so sometimes the dancers wear different outfits while performing the same number. The film doesn’t have a thunderbolt that reveals what Beyoncé’s music is all about, and the star’s thoughts about balancing career and motherhood are nothing that you haven’t heard before. The movie’s main value lies in capturing the pop star in glorious voice (whether making beautiful sounds in “Flaws and All” or powering her way through “Drunk in Love”) and dancing imperiously despite her recent knee surgery. It’s all proof that your friends who saw the show and came back raving about it were not overselling it. Among the guest performances, 11-year-old Blue Ivy Carter steals the show, doing the dance moves with something of her mother’s stage presence. Also with Diana Ross, Kendrick Lamar, and Megan Thee Stallion.
Salaar: Part 1 — Ceasefire (NR) This Indian action-thriller is about a lawfully elected city leader (Prithviraj Sukumaran) who seeks to return to power after being overthrown by a foreign coup. Also with Prabhas, Shruti Hassan, Jagapathi Babu, Bobby Simha, Tinnu Anand, Ramachandra Raju, and Simrat Kaur.
Saltburn (R) Emerald Fennell’s follow-up to her Promising Young Woman is somehow even meaner. Barry Keoghan plays an impoverished Oxford student in the mid-2000s who’s invited to spend summer vacation at the estate of a rich classmate (Jacob Elordi). Fennell’s depiction of the rich dude’s family has an Evelyn Waugh-like curdled elegance, and our creepy, sexually fluid protagonist lurks memorably in the background, carrying himself like an incel even though he has almost all of the sex in the movie. This would be more interesting if it hinted that the antihero’s devious quest actually cost him something, but Fennell remains an uncompromising and skilled hand behind the camera. If The Talented Mr. Ripley and Parasite had a baby and Brideshead Revisited and Call Me by Your Name had a baby, and then those babies had a baby, it would be this film. Also with Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Alison Oliver, Archie Madekwe, Richie Cotterell, Paul Rhys, Reece Shearsmith, and Carey Mulligan.
Sam Bahadur (NR) Vicky Kaushal stars in this biography of India’s first field marshal, Sam Manekshaw. Also with Sanya Malhotra, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Neeraj Kabi, Edward Sonnenblick, Govind Namdev, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Naiyo Ishida, Bobby Arora, Paul O’Neill, Ravi Sharma, Rohan Varma, and Prajesh Kashyap.
Society of the Snow (R) J.A. Bayona’s thriller is based on the true story of an Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crash-landed in the Andes in the 1970s. Starring Enzo Vogrincic, Simón Hempe, Rafael Federman, Santiago Vaca Narvaja, Matías Recalt, Andy Pruss, Agustín Pardella, and Carlitos Paez.
The Shift (PG-13) What starts out as an intriguing Christian science-fiction film turns into yet another lugubrious post-apocalyptic film. Kristoffer Polaha stars as a man who’s shifted into a parallel universe by a guy calling himself The Benefactor (Neal McDonough) and has to find a way to get back to the universe where his wife is (Elizabeth Tabish). The special effects look cool and work to make this look different from other Christian films, but the movie sinks amid its evangelical paranoia and some rank overacting by the main principals. Also with Emily Rose, Jason Marsden, Rose Reid, Jordan Alexandra, and Sean Astin.
Silent Night (R) John Woo’s latest action thriller is nearly dialogue-free, which isn’t enough of a gimmick to make this worth seeing. Joel Kinnaman plays a man whose young son is caught in the crossfire during a gang shootout, and when he tries to avenge the boy, the gang leader shoots him in the throat and robs him of the power of speech. Some of the action sequences have that old Woo flair like the car chase at the beginning, but the movie degenerates into weepy melodrama only made slightly less tolerable by the lack of dialogue. Also with Catalina Sandino Moreno, Harold Torres, Yoko Hamamura, Vinny O’Brien, and Kid Cudi.
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (PG-13) You’ll likely be watching this in a packed theater with little girls running around and singing along with Taylor, but this movie is strong enough to hold up even if you see it on your smartphone by yourself six months from now. Sam Wrench’s concert documentary takes in Swift’s last performance from the first leg of her current concert tour, where she plays selections from all her previous albums. If you didn’t have the coin to pay your way in to her stadium show, this film showcases her deep understanding of stagecraft, her indefatigable energy, and her unforced chemistry with her fans. Maybe the moss-covered piano she plays on “Champagne Problems” is a bit much, but the show is full of wow moments like the mystical backdrop for “Willow” and the giant snake coiling around the stage to introduce the Reputation part of the program. Swift’s sturdy sense of songcraft underscores all of this. What more could you wish from a concert movie?
Trolls Band Together (PG) At this point, reuniting with *NSYNC is the best career move possible for Justin Timberlake. In this most watchable of the Trolls movies, his Branch is discovered to have four long-lost brothers (voiced by Eric André, Troye Sivan, Daveed Diggs, and Kid Cudi) with whom he used to be in a boy band. His attempt to save one of them leads Poppy (voiced by Anna Kendrick) to discover her own separated-at-birth sister (voiced by Camila Cabello), and Tiny Diamond (voiced by Kenan Thompson) asks, “Am I the only one without a long-lost sibling?” The movie doesn’t belabor any of its points too heavily and gives us an enjoyable batch of cover songs plus the first original *NSYNC song (“Better Place”) in more than 20 years. Nostalgia has given us worse than this. Additional voices by Amy Schumer, Andrew Rannells, Zooey Deschanel, Patti Harrison, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kunal Nayyar, Zosia Mamet, RuPaul, Ron Funches, Jungkook, Anderson .Paak, Lance Bass, JC Chasez, Joey Fatone, and Chris Kirkpatrick.
12:12: The Day (NR) This South Korean thriller is a fictionalized account of the chaos that enveloped the country after the 1979 assassination of President Park Chung-hee. Starring Hwang Jung-min, Jung Woo-sung, Park Hae-joon, Kim Sung-kyun, Kim Eui-sung, Jung Dong-hwan, Jung Man-sik, Jung Hae-in, and Lee Joon-hyuk.
Wish (PG) Disney marks its centennial with this oh-so-forgettable animated musical about a girl (voiced by Ariana DeBose) in an enchanted kingdom who discovers that the benevolent king (voiced by Chris Pine) is convincing the citizens to give up their dearest wishes in exchange for the kingdom’s continued security and prosperity. The script lacks any wit or creative story developments, the songs by Benjamin Rice and Julia Michaels are too plain by half, and even the voice cast seems to be phoning it in. The montage of great characters from Disney’s past only serves to make this movie look worse. Additional voices by Alan Tudyk, Angelique Cabral, Natasha Rothwell, Jennifer Kumiyama, Ramy Youssef, Niko Vargas, Evan Peters, Harvey Guillén, and Victor Garber.
Wonka (PG) Timothée Chalamet’s performance as a younger version of Roald Dahl’s candymaker is more than good enough to carry this prequel through its wobblier patches. He arrives in the big city ready to make chocolate but instead is turned into an indentured servant by a shady landlady (Olivia Colman) and kept out of business by a cartel of evil chocolatiers (Paterson Joseph, Mathew Baynton, and Matt Lucas). Director/co-writer Paul King (from the Paddington movies) brings a much-welcomed light touch to the material, and the Oompa-Loompa (Hugh Grant) is handled about as dexterously as modern audiences could hope for. When Willy Wonka finally opens his chocolate shop and welcomes in his customers by singing “A World of Your Own,” that’s when the film truly takes on a magical quality. Also with Calah Lane, Tom Davis, Keegan-Michael Key, Jim Carter, Natasha Rothwell, Rich Fulcher, Rakhee Thakrar, Freya Parker, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Simon Farnaby, Rowan Atkinson, and Sally Hawkins.
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Angel Baby (NR) Isabel Cueva stars in this horror film as a bereaved mother who’s plagued by evil spirits during a wilderness getaway. Also with Rebecca De Mornay, Chris Browning, Daniel Roebuck, Dan Thiel, and Douglas Tait.
