OPENING
Audrey’s Children (PG) This biographical drama stars Natalie Dormer as Dr. Audrey Evans, the founder of Ronald McDonald House. Also with Jimmi Simpson, Brandon Michael Hall, Ben Chase, Roberto Lombardi, Evelyn Glovine, Julianna Layne, and Clancy Brown. (Opens Friday)
Black Heat (NR) Disgraced actor Jason Mitchell stars in this thriller as a father who infiltrates a drug dealer’s operation to rescue his teenage daughter. Also with Talha Barberousse, DreamDoll, NLE Choppa, Han Soto, Shiobann Amisial, and Garrett Hendricks. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
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. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Day of Reckoning (R) This Western is about a U.S. marshal (Billy Zane) and a local sheriff (Zach Roerig) trying to track down an escaped prisoner (Cara Jade Myers). Also with Scott Adkins, Travis Hammer, Gus Langley, Yelawolf, Struggle Jennings, and Trace Adkins. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Eephus (NR) Carson Lund’s comedy is about a group of old men playing one last game on their childhood baseball diamond before it’s demolished. Starring Keith William Richards, Bill Lee, Wayne Diamond, Cliff Blake, Conner Marx, Keith Poulsen, and Joe Castiglione. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
L2: Empyrean (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. (Opens Friday)
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. (Opens Friday)
Make Me Famous (NR) Brian Vincent’s documentary profiles painter Edward Brezinski and his adventures in New York’s art scene in the 1980s. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
My Love Will Make You Disappear (NR) This Filipino romantic comedy stars Kim Chiu as a woman who falls in love with a landlord (Paulo Avelino) while her ex-lovers disappear under mysterious circumstances. Also with Wilma Doesnt, Lovely Abella, Benj Manalo, Nico Antonio, Martin Escudero, and Migs Almendras. (Opens Friday)
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. (Opens Friday)
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. (Opens Friday)
Thank You Very Much (NR) Alex Braverman’s documentary profiles comedian Andy Kaufman. Starring Danny DeVito, Steve Martin, Bob Zmuda, and Marilu Henner. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
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. (Opens Friday)
The Woman in the Yard (PG-13) This horror movie is about a family who finds a woman clad all in black (Okwui Okpokwasili) who appears in their front yard. Also with Danielle Deadwyler, Peyton Jackson, Estella Kahiha, and Russell Hornsby. (Opens Friday)
A Working Man (R) Jason Statham stars in this action-thriller as a former soldier-turned-construction worker who’s forced to call on his former skills when his employer’s daughter is kidnapped in Mexico. Also with Michael Peña, Jason Flemyng, Merab Ninidze, Noemi Gonzalez, Arianna Rivas, Maximilian Osinski, Isla Gle, and David Harbour. (Opens Friday)
NOW PLAYING
The Alto Knights (R) Barry Levinson’s gangster film stars Robert De Niro as both Vito Genovese and Frank Costello as the two mobsters vie for control of a New York family. Also with Cosmo Jarvis, Debra Messing, Katherine Narducci, Wallace Langham, and Michael Rispoli.
Ash (R) Underneath the psychedelic visual trappings, this science-fiction movie is just another Alien retread. Eiza González portrays an astronaut on an alien planet who wakes up to find the rest of her crew killed and has no memory of how they came to be dead. The musician who calls himself Flying Lotus is the writer, director, and composer on this film (and also portrays one of the murdered astronauts). He generates some trippy visuals both on the surface of the planet and in the protagonist’s head, but the framing story about her attempts to recover her memory and whether she can trust her rescuer (Aaron Paul) makes very little impact. This would have worked better as a long-form music video than it does as a movie. Also with Iko Uwais, Kate Elliott, and Beulah Koale.
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.
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.
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 4 Rascals (NR) This Vietnamese comedy is about a group of troublemakers who decide to resolve a love triangle among their friends. Starring Huynh Uyen An, Tran Quoc Anh, Le Giang, Le Duong Bao Lam, Ky Duyen Cao Nguyen, Tran Thanh, and Tran Tieu Vy.
Last Breath (PG-13) Alex Parkinson adapts his own documentary into a rather unmemorable fiction film. Woody Harrelson and Simu Liu play two saturation divers repairing an oil pipeline in the North Sea when their fellow diver (Finn Cole) becomes detached from the ship by a storm. Film nerds like me will appreciate the difficulty of the movie’s underwater photography, but it’s not great enough to catch the attention of the ordinary moviegoer, and neither the character bits nor the performances are enough for the human aspect of the story to hook us. Considering the remarkable aspects of the real-life story, this film really should have come to more. Also with Cliff Curtis, Mark Bonnar, Josef Altin, Bobby Rainsbury, and MyAnna Buring.
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.
Locked (R) This remake of the Argentinian thriller 4×4 can’t transcend its gimmick. Bill Skarsgård stars as a petty thief who breaks into a shiny new SUV and then is locked in by its owner (Anthony Hopkins), who remotely tortures him by turning the heat or the A/C way up, playing Swiss yodeling songs at full volume, and taking the miscreant on wild rides that toss him against the windows and doors, because the vehicle has no seat belts. Whatever originality there was in the original has been washed away here, as director David Yarovesky (Brightburn) fails the relatively simple task of focusing on the action, instead padding it out with way too much back-and-forth between the two antagonists about the nature of right and wrong. Also with Ashley Cartwright.
Magazine Dreams (R) Fascinating, in the way that videos of people popping their pimples are gruesome in a way that you can’t look away from. Convicted felon and North Texas native Jonathan Majors stars in this drama as a bodybuilder attempting to win his way up to national recognition. His character is a creepy, single-minded incel who writes unanswered fan letters to his favorite bodybuilder (Michael O’Hearn) and has trouble interacting with anybody outside of the sport, as well as a history of violence. The movie could double as a glimpse inside its star’s twisted mind, but it would be off-putting even if some other actor had starred in it. The subnormal main character is too twisted for this movie to work as a commentary on gym culture or the sport of bodybuilding. Also with Haley Bennett, Harriet Sansom Harris, Harrison Page, Bradley Stryker, and Taylour Paige.
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.
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.
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.
Dallas Exclusives
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (PG-13) This film from Zambia stars Susan Chardy as a young woman who unearths family secrets after finding her uncle dead in the street. Also with Elizabeth Chisela, Henry B.J. Phiri, Benson Mumba, Doris Naulapwa, Mary Mulabo, Gillian Sakala, Carol Natasha Mwale, Loveness Nakwiza, and Bwalya Chimpampata.
