6 New Movies Our Critics Are Talking About This Week
Vivid world-building but not world- changing.
‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’
James Cameron returns to the lush alien world of the Na’vi for the third installment in this franchise.
From our review:
For all their visual pow — and despite their impressive bleeding-edge technological wizardry — the movies have remarkably little staying power. … While Cameron’s commitment to the environment is evident in every flower and creature, the results never speak to our time the way, say, “The Dark Knight” and its nihilistic threat did. Cameron’s signature mix of pulp and poetry can be transporting, but here it just gave me whiplash.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Thriller fun.
‘The Housemaid’
After Millie (Sydney Sweeney) accepts a job as a maid at the luxe home of Nina (Amanda Seyfried), she dusts off some sinister secrets in this thriller directed by Paul Feig.
From our review:
It is a movie about what goes on behind fancy facades, about the weak being preyed upon. But it is also about empowerment and triumph. Borrowing on certain familiar erotic thriller tropes — let’s all point and stare at the cray-cray lady — it does some back flips and corkscrews appropriate for our time and lands with a cathartic smack.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Open mic, open hearts.
‘Is This Thing On?’
Will Arnett stars as a man who tries his hand at stand-up comedy to cope with his separation from his wife (Laura Dern) in this dramedy directed by Bradley Cooper.
From our review:
“I wrote this script faster than I’ve written anything,” Cooper admits in the press notes, and it shows in the movie’s sometimes slapdash characterizations. (Sean Hayes and Scott Icenogle, real-life spouses, appear as no more than background space fillers.) But with a cast this likable and adroit, not even the soundtrack’s heavy-handed harping on Queen and David Bowie’s “Under Pressure” can dispel our good will.
In theaters. Read the full review.
A heart-wrenching voice from Gaza.
‘The Voice of Hind Rajab’
Emergency call center workers scramble to save a Palestinian girl trapped in a car in Gaza City in this film directed by Kaouther Ben Hania which blends dramatic re-enactments with documentary, including the real voice of the girl in peril.
From our review:
As wrenching as “The Voice of Hind Rajab” is, there is something uneasy-making about turning a child’s harrowing cries for help into a pretext for metacinematic flourishes. Hind’s story does not need that kind of intellectualized gimmickry, in which recordings of authentic terror serve as proof of the staging’s verisimilitude.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Flops like a fish.
‘The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants’
The giggly sea sponge returns to the big screen for an adventure on a pirate ship in this animated film directed by Derek Drymon.
From our review:
It is ultimately the worst kind of movie for kids — one that is devoid of any respect for their intelligence or sensibilities. The adventure perpetually cycles through a cheap, rote format: innuendos (the punchline to seemingly every other joke comes down to the existence of butts); jittery slapstick; and the belief that constant eye candy is needed to keep a child’s brain tickled.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Preachy but pretty.
‘David’
This animated film directed by Phil Cunningham and Brent Dawes follows the biblical story of David and Goliath.
From our review:
From the gleaming water running over a stone pulled from a stream to the fine bits of yarn woven into a tapestry on a loom, the details all throughout “David,” which was animated by the small Cape Town-based Sunrise Animation Studios, are surprisingly magnificent. It can be a preachy and po-faced movie, to be sure, but a handsome one.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Compiled by Kellina Moore.