Peter Debruge: Last News

J. Kim Murphy The hierarchy of power in the DC Universe may be about to change with “Black Adam,” but the new film is landing low on the hierarchy of critical reputation for Warner Bros.’ last decade of superhero entries. With reviews hitting for the Dwayne Johnson vehicle this afternoon, “Black Adam” currently stands at a mediocre 30% approval rating from top critics on the the review-aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes. Should the number stand, it would mark the lowest such figure for a DC film since 2017’s “Justice League,” which netted a 23% approval rating from top critics and was so reviled among fans that a reworked version was eventually ordered by Warner Bros., arriving in the form of “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” in 2021.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic SPOILER ALERT: The following review contains mild spoilers for “Black Adam.” It’s kind of a cheat, casting someone as massive as Dwayne Johnson to play a DC superhero — or antihero, in the case of “Black Adam,” an action-packed, adolescent-skewing standalone that presents the swole Samoan star as a nearly invincible global threat. Black Adam is basically an A-bomb in human form, whose emergence from a 5,000-year lockdown calls for emergency intervention by the Justice Society of America, or “JSA,” which dispatches four glorified bench-warmers to contain the situation: Hawkman (Aldis Hodge, gruff), Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo, doofy), Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell, colorful) and Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan, the standout, even if his character reads like a second-rate Doctor Strange).

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Who can forget Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” that cheeky work of early-18th-century satire in which the author had the nerve to suggest cannibalism as a means of keeping Ireland’s unwanted kids “from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick”? In “Plan 75,” debuting director Chie Hayakawa floats an equally extreme idea of her own without so much as a glimmer of irony, and the suggestion is upsetting enough that the public will likely still be citing it decades down the road. Set in near-future Japan, where it’s a surplus of seniors — versus an abundance of babies — that’s causing trouble, this chilling social drama takes its name from a hypothetical new legislation whereby an overtaxed government offers its elderly citizens an incentive to euthanize.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic America has “Groundhog Day.” Now Malaysia has “Stone Turtle,” a beguiling, all-around gorgeous reimagining of Southeast Asian folklore that finds its characters caught in a loop of vengeance, lust and violence from which they cannot escape. Here, it’s a dead-serious political statement rather than rom-com karma that forces island-dwelling refugee Zahara (Asmara Abigail) and an intrusive outsider (Bront Palarae) to play out repeated versions of a cautious standoff: She deals in precious leatherback turtle eggs, he claims to be a wildlife researcher, but pursues her with a passion that suggests other priorities. “Stone Turtle” marks a welcome comeback for Woo Ming Jin (“Woman on Fire Looks for Water”), a leading voice in the Malaysian New Wave who spent the last decade working in more mainstream waters, churning out a mix of zombie flicks and popcorn movies. Now, having picked up a prestigious FIPRESCI prize at Locarno, he’s back on the international festival circuit with a project that intriguingly applies elements of genre filmmaking to a more anthropological art-house format. The result is a loony marriage between “The Wicker Man” and “Woman in the Dunes,” as an enigmatic siren in scarlet robes traps a man on the beach for all eternity, building to a dangerous ritual where lives are sacrificed and a straw effigy is set ablaze.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Saruul is studying to be an engineer when she agrees to take the last job her cosmopolitan but still relatively conservative Mongolian parents would ever imagine their daughter doing: selling intimacy aids (of the vibrating, silicone and inflatable variety) in a basement-level sex shop. Technically, Saruul’s just filling in for a shy friend at school who trusts her to be discreet, but this temporary gig has a subtle yet life-changing impact on the title character, who looks like she could be 14 years old at first, but blossoms into a more self-aware young woman over “The Sales Girl’s” slightly overlong running time. The top prize winner of the New York Asian Film Festival, veteran director Sengedorj Janchivdorj’s umpteenth feature takes a frank, sex-positive approach to the titillating world in which it’s set. But that doesn’t make this an erotic film. Instead, “The Sales Girl” focuses mostly on the unlikely friendship between Saruul (Bayartsetseg Bayangerel) and her Russian-speaking boss Katya (Enkhtuul Oidovjamts), a surly ex-dancer who takes a linking to her naive new employee. In a funny way, the film shares the slightly edgy but ultimately sentimental vibe of certain underground comics (“Ghost World” comes to mind) or the work of American indie director Sean Baker, whose last four features (dating back to “Starlet,” the film this most resembles) have had the honesty to acknowledge the role sexuality plays in modern life and commerce.

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. “Barbarian” is hitting streamers just in time for your Halloween movie marathon. Zach Cregger’s bloody feature film will arrive on HBO Max on Oct. 25. Alongside a 4k Ultra HD release, the digital version will also include never-before-seen bonus scenes, behind-the-scenes footage and extra commentary. Cregger’s debut horror film (which ranked No. 2 on Variety‘s list of this year’s top horror movies) got the internet buzzing as soon as the jam-packed trailer came out in June. Since hitting theaters last month, it’s received rave reviews online, with most noting its impressive jump-scares, eerie tonal shifts and crazy plot twists. The film follows a young woman, played by Georgina Campbell, as she discovers the rental home she’s booked is already occupied by a stranger. Against her better judgement, Tess ends up sharing the derelict Detroit apartment with a man named Keith (Bill Skarsgård) until she realizes that a monster is lurking in the house and she has to figure out how to defeat it.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic If Hollywood can justify making sequels to “Rambo” and “Top Gun” more than three decades on, why can’t Kollywood do the same? In tons-of-fun “Vikram,” a secret agent first introduced in 1986 emerges from deep undercover to thwart the biggest drug deal in Indian history. He’s a grandfather now, but that doesn’t stop the title character (Kamal Haasan) from tossing people across the room in this turbo-charged, three-hour action bonanza, which pairs Vikram with a younger operative named Amar (Fahadh Faasil). The two have at least one thing in common: Rules and regulations don’t matter, which means they’re free to fight crime as creatively as they (and director Lokesh Kanagaraj) see fit.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic In what plays like Singapore’s answer to “About Schmidt,” never-too-late-to-live dramedy “Ajoomma” follows a widowed housewife as she steps out of her comfort zone by making a solo trip to South Korea. This upbeat debut from director He Shuming — whose title is the Korean equivalent of all-purpose Asian term of respect “Auntie” — offers longtime TV actor Hong Huifang (“Housewives’ Holiday”) a chance to shine in the title role, which has already netted her a Golden Horse Award nom. Selected to rep Singapore at the Oscars, affable “Ajoomma” is more of a dark horse in that race, albeit one with art-house sleeper potential. Mrs. Lim’s life is light on excitement. What it lacks in drama, she fills by binging on Korean soap operas — a not at all uncommon obsession among Asian women (and a growing number of Americans, thanks to services like Kocowa and Viki). “Auntie,” as most of the other characters call Hong’s character, fusses a bit too much over her only son, who long ago agreed to accompany her on a special tour of Seoul. Now, mere days before they’re to depart, he backs out for a job interview in New York — one that would put some much-needed distance between the closeted young man and his overly suffocating mom.

Brent Lang Executive Editor In one corner, a star-studded murder mystery from one of the most acclaimed directors in Hollywood. In the other, a family fable that features a CGI crocodile who sounds a lot like Shawn Mendes. As Hollywood heads into another quiet fall weekend at the box office, David O. Russell’s “Amsterdam” is squaring off against “Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile,” and both new releases are facing strong competition from reigning champ “Smile.” Of the two new entrants, “Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile” seems to be in the stronger position. There haven’t been many movies geared toward kids — the last one was “DC League of Super-Pets” way back in July. The $50 million production will open in more than 4,300 locations, where it should make $15 million or more. Sony Pictures, the studio behind the film, is being more conservative and projecting an opening in the $11 million to $12 million range. That could be enough for a first-place finish, depending on how steeply “Smile,” which opened to $22.6 million, drops in its second weekend of release.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Growing up in Texas toward the tail end of the 20th century, I was not taught about Emmett Till. I’ve learned about him since, of course. Till’s name adorns this year’s overdue federal antilynching act, and his tragic fate has inspired plays and films, including 2018’s Oscar-nominated short, “My Nephew Emmett,” and now a powerful new feature from Chinonye Chukwu, who gave Alfre Woodard one of her greatest roles in 2019 Sundance winner “Clemency.” Till’s story — that of a 14-year-old Black boy from Chicago who was kidnapped in the middle of the night and lynched while visiting his family in Mississippi — may have been omitted from my Southern schooling for racist reasons, though I suspect it had as much to do with Western culture’s “great man” bias. History, as a field of study, celebrates the achievements of heroic individuals. Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks. Those names were all taught. But Emmett Till was a kid whose murder galvanized the American civil rights movement, and it has taken a different kind of thinking — à la “Say Their Names” campaign or Ryan Coogler’s “Fruitvale Station” — to position victims in the public’s mind.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic A middling movie with a must-see performance at its core, “The Good House” does something interesting with the notion of the unreliable narrator. As the unfortunately named Hildy Good (blame novelist Ann Leary, not married filmmakers Maya Forbes and Wallace Wolodarsky for that decision), Sigourney Weaver brings deceptive self-confidence to the role of a small-town Realtor. We meet Hildy introducing a couple to the fictional New England fishing village of where the Good family has lived for so long, there’s talk of witches in their past. But Hildy can’t be trusted — not because her character is bad (she’s Good, get it?), but because she’s in denial. “I can walk through a house once and know more about its occupants than a psychiatrist … could in a year of sessions,” Hildy boasts, addressing the audience directly. In truth, she’s not talking to us so much as she is rationalizing things to herself. The slyly insightful way Forbes (“Infinitely Polar Bear”) and Wolodarsky (who spent years writing for animation) have constructed “The Good House,” watching Hildy throw down boss energy to clients and the camera is like being inside her head, where the first person she has to convince that she’s in control is herself. We buy it — for a time — but the characters don’t, and that mismatch is the crux of all that follows.

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. The Salem witch sisters are back for a straight-to-streamer reunion this week with the release of “Hocus Pocus 2,” the highly anticipated sequel to the 1993 cult classic. The reboot arrives on Disney+ on Friday, Sept. 30. Bette Middler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy reprise their roles as the Sanderson sisters in the reboot, nearly three decades after their fabulously flamboyant performances turned what was expected to be a typical comedy with fleeting success into a campy cult favorite that has become a Halloween staple for millions across the country. Read More: The ‘Hocus Pocus’ Sequel Has Created Some Truly Insane (And Inspired) Merch

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic What strange sorcery is this that “Hocus Pocus” — a so-so comedy turned campy cult favorite starring Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy as absolutely fabulous Salem witch sisters — should be getting a sequel nearly three decades after its 1993 release? At the time, Variety speculated that, were it not for the film’s three stars, “‘Hocus Pocus’ wouldn’t seem out of place on the Disney Channel, and perhaps belongs there.” (Its director, Kenny Ortega, would go on to helm the “High School Musical” franchise for the cabler.) In a sense, that’s what’s happened with this follow-up, aimed to breathe some life into the graveyard that is Disney+. The sequel’s existence owes less to popular demand (the original earned a respectable $39.3 million stateside and went on to become a Halloween season staple) than the realization that the film had tapped into preteens’ fascination with witchcraft before Harry Potter came along. It can be no coincidence that the new feature lifts so much of its look and feel from that franchise — with eye of newt, a dead man’s head and some aspects of “The Craft” tossed in for good measure. In “Hocus Pocus 2,” the three teens called upon to save Salem from the Sanderson sisters’ return are themselves budding witches, which means the movie is less about scaring kids away from magic than indulging their post-Potter junior wizarding fantasies.

Amsterdam.” It’s a film from established auteur David O. Russell, whose reputation for delivering the goods allowed him to attract a murderer’s row of talent that includes Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Chris Rock, Anya Taylor-Joy, Taylor Swift and Robert De Niro. And yet, the film, bolstering more stars than in the heavens, to quote an old line — and a budget that’s upwards of $80 million — is arriving in theaters having been pulverized by the critics who have published so far and hoping to rescue its investment by overcoming the reviews to be a commercial success.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic “A lot of this really happened,” teases the opening card of David O. Russell’s unruly ensemble comedy “Amsterdam,” a loony early-’30s social satire that goes cartwheeling through a little-remembered episode in American history when fascists tried to overthrow the U.S. government. Russell clearly sees parallels between this alarming chapter of the nation’s past and our present, as national divisions threaten to overwhelm American democracy, but the writer-director has complicated the plot — the movie’s plot, that is, not the greater conspiracy on which it turns — to such a degree that audiences are bound to be bewildered. Instead of wondering which parts are true and which ones invented, they’re likely to find themselves asking, “What the hell is happening?” for the better part of 134 minutes.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic A pioneering movie star intensely aware of his place in film history, Sidney Poitier published no fewer than three autobiographies during his life, generously sharing what he’d lived and learned with those who’d appreciated his work in films such as “In the Heat of the Night” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” But words can only reach so far in an era dominated by the moving image, and as such, we’re fortunate that Poitier was open to repeating himself one last time for “Sidney” — director Reginald Hudlin’s definitive portrait for Apple TV+ — before his death this year at the age of 94. Few movie stars have been more inspirational than Poitier, who was more than just a star, but also a symbol to so many — be they aspiring Black performers or the public at large, who saw their own views on civil rights embodied in the characters he played. But what of those who were born too late to fully appreciate what this remarkable actor meant to audiences deprived of role models? Produced by Oprah Winfrey (who appears frequently throughout) with the participation of Poitier and his family, “Sidney” puts that legacy in context, retracing a career that changed the way that Hollywood — and the world — saw the Black experience.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic African American boxing champ Muhammad Ali famously refused to fight for his country, justifying himself with the oft-quoted quip, “No Viet Cong ever called me n—–.” That’s one-half of American history, and an important one. “Devotion” tells the other, presenting the story of a Black pilot so determined to defend — and die for, if need be — the United States that he was willing to endure institutional bigotry to become the Jackie Robinson of the skies: Jesse Brown, the first aviator of color to complete the Navy’s basic training program. A square but satisfying social justice drama set against the backdrop of the Korean War, “Devotion” impressed on the biggest screen possible at the Toronto Film Festival two months before its Nov. 23 theatrical release. Featuring elements of both “Green Book” and “Red Tails,” the film is more than just a stirring case of Black exceptionalism; it also celebrates the one white officer who had Brown’s back, Tom Hudner, treating the bond these two men formed as something exceptional unto itself. Director JD Dillard dazzles with see-it-in-Imax airborne sequences, but the meat of the film focuses on the friendship between Brown (“Da 5 Bloods” star Jonathan Majors) and his white wingman, played by Glen Powell, the “Hidden Figures” actor who most recently appeared in “Top Gun: Maverick.”

Zack Sharf Martin Scorsese got a little too scared by Ti West’s “Pearl,” the A24-backed “X” prequel starring Mia Goth. In a review sent to A24 and published by /Film, Scorsese called “Pearl” a “deeply disturbing” horror movie that is “mesmerizing” and “wild.” West and Goth co-wrote the prequel, which world premiered at the Venice Film Festival. “Ti West’s movies have a kind of energy that is so rare these days, powered by a pure, undiluted love for cinema,” Scorsese said. “You feel it in every frame. A prequel to ‘X’ made in a diametrically opposite cinematic register (think ’50s Scope color melodramas), ‘Pearl’ makes for a wild, mesmerizing, deeply — and I mean deeply — disturbing 102 minutes. West and his muse and creative partner Mia Goth really know how to toy with their audience… before they plunge the knife into our chests and start twisting.”

J. Kim Murphy “The Woman King” has found its throne at the box office. The Sony release is drumming up a projected $18 million opening from 3,765 locations, in line with most analysts’ estimates heading into the weekend. The epic also benefited from landing some premium format auditoriums, such as Imax, lending an additional boost to revenue. Though that doesn’t necessarily qualify as a grand opening, it’s a solid start for the action film, which carries a $50 million production budget and has no ties to existing franchises. What’s more, it’s more than enough for “The Woman King” to top box office charts on a slow weekend with few rival releases.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic In the DC Extended Universe, it’s not the villains who have identity issues, but the heroes. Bruce Wayne watched his parents get murdered, adopted a teenage sidekick and now spends his nights cosplaying as the creature everyone associates with vampires. Kal-El also saw his parents die and goes through life trying to pass as the earthling Clark Kent, wearing spandex under his work clothes, just in case. These are not the traits of well-adjusted normies, and as such, there’s enormous subversive appeal in seeing trans artist Vera Drew turn such iconic characters inside-out in the illicitly made marvel that is “The People’s Joker.” Coming from a place of deep fan love and equally profound institutional mistrust, Drew’s anarchic feature-length parody impishly treads the line of fair use, so much so that the helmer pulled the film from the Toronto Film Festival after its raucous Midnight Madness premiere, citing “rights issues.” But what did she expect? The irreverent underground project reimagines the Joker’s origin story as a queer coming-of-age/coming-to-terms narrative, using a mishmash of styles: mostly crude live-action of the kind you expect from public-access programming (shot against greenscreens, then composited with rudimentary CG sets), embellished with various forms of homemade animation.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic One of the greatest mysteries that ever faced investigative reporter Irwin Maurice Fletcher (“Fletch” to his friends) is why there haven’t been more movies featuring the character. Gregory Mcdonald’s popular Fletch novels, of which there are 11, were practically all dialogue. The author’s breezy style of repartee — which owed more to Hollywood’s screwball comedy tradition than film noir — should have lent itself well to screenplays, but only two ever got made: Back in the ’80s, we got a couple that positioned Chevy Chase as a goofy sleuth with a penchant for disguise, and others (including Jason Lee, Ben Affleck and Chris Tucker) have been trying to revive him ever since.