Movie Reviews: Last News

latest flesh-and-blood cash grab that’s more lifeless than far better two-dimensional painted drawings.The magic and soul of the studio’s animated classics never, ever translate to this colder, realistic context, and still they keep churning them out.   Why learn their lesson? “The Lion King” and “Beauty and the Beast” both grossed over $1 billion. The movies don’t need to be high-quality because the titles and logos do the heavy-lifting for them. While director Rob Marshall (“Chicago”) and writer David Magee make enough prudent changes to ensure their musical film functions efficiently, many alterations seem to exist only to achieve a bloated two-hour runtime or to wedge Lin-Manuel Miranda’s name into the end credits.For instance, when a smitten Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) takes speechless Ariel (Halle Bailey) around his island kingdom, the Caribbean carriage ride is more of the “Gilligan’s Island” length — a three-hour tour.  That’s one of many middling efforts to deepen the prince’s character from just a smile on legs.

awarded zero stars in 2020, now has a stomach-churning sequel called “Buddy Games: Spring Awakening.”Running time: 91 minutes. Rated R (crude sexual material, language throughout, drug use, some nudity and violent material).

Twenty-two years ago, the “Fast & Furious” franchise began as a sexy crime-and-cars saga set in LA. Ten movies later (not counting spinoffs), the meathead stars of these vacuous slogs look and behave like a group of retired gym teachers who’d be better off behind the wheel of a golf cart.Running time: 141 minutes. Rated PG-13 (intense sequences of violence and action, language and some suggestive material.) In theaters May 19.“The real question,” astutely asks one of the interchangeable doofuses in “Fast X,” “is how did we let this go on so long?” But let it, they did, and now we’re buckling up for another moronic “Fast” film that plods along like “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” and features increasingly fake chases.

80 For Brady,” which also starred Fonda in a group of trekking golden girls. Sally Field does not partake in a Guy Fieri chili eating contest here. Thank God.But “Brady,” at least, had a point and a solid aim — to get to the Super Bowl.

films about Air Jordan sneakers and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, of all things — “BlackBerry” offers something different: Tragedy.Like Romeo and Juliet, the BlackBerry is doomed to die from the very start. The road to ruin, though, is a geeky good time — a “Revenge of the Nerds” without college sex jokes but with billions of dollars at stake and a groundbreaking invention that still affects much of the planet every day.Running time: 119 minutes. Rated R (language throughout).

It’s the 32nd Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, which means we’ve reached the point where they’re telling us the weepy origin story of a talking raccoon.Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) is the order of the day in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” the final entry in the trilogy, in which the furry wiseguy is nearly killed and his co-heroes must chase down the assailant within 48 hours to save his little life.Running time: 150 minutes.

It’s “Mommie Dearest” gone wild.In the first scene, though, we’re back in one of those creepy, secluded cottages that made the 1981 film a classic. Out in the woods, a girl-turned-“Deadite” kills her two friends before an on-screen message reads: “One day earlier.” The location shifts to the soon-to-be-demolished city apartment building of Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), a mother of three kids who recently separated from her husband. The night her sister Beth (Lily Sullivan), a rebellious concert roadie, comes to visit, an earthquake opens a hole in their parking garage concealing our old friend the Book of the Dead and some vinyl recordings of spooky incantations.Teenage Danny (Morgan Davies) decides to pop them on his turntable and, you know, accidentally destroys his family, including sisters Bridget (Gabrielle Echols) and Kassie (Nell Fisher).Demons are unleashed, one enters Ellie’s body and then Mother Monster brutally goes after Beth and the kids. I vastly prefer the “Evil Dead” series to, say, never-ending “Scream” because unlike with Ghostface, no elaborate narrative excuse needs to be drummed up for why ancient evil spirits are still slumming it on earth.

Matthew McConaughey smoking a joint in Guy Ritchie’s new movie “The Covenant.” The prolific British director has, for the moment, left behind quirky crime and comedy for his Afghanistan War film — and it’s not hard to understand why. The story the movie is based on is a harrowing and special one. A US Army sergeant and an Afghan interpreter are on the run from the Taliban, when the American is knocked unconscious and his companion must go to extraordinary lengths to save him.Running time: 125 minutes.

Como se dice, “What the hell?”The priest, whose beard is mysteriously much whiter than his hair, is sent to the abbey by the pope — “Charlie’s Angels” style. The building was recently inherited by Julia (Alex Essoe) after the car-accident-impalement death of her husband.

Stuck in a movie theater seat watching “Renfield” plod along, the answer is a resounding meh.As the Count from “Sesame Street” would say, “‘Renfield’ gets TWO stars! Ah, ah, ah.”Cage — whose career has become so goofy he recently played a parody version of himself who gets kidnapped by a Spanish drug lord — is as funny and self-aware as the evil old vampire. Crazy, it would seem, has become Cage’s new normal. But don’t come looking for a wacky sendup of the story in the vein of Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein.” It’s actually not even as hilarious as that director’s much-worse 1995 movie “Dracula: Dead and Loving It,” and outside of a few basic details the film has little to do with Bram Stoker’s book.“Renfield,” directed by Chris McKay, has more in common with the (far better) “Zombieland” series, with high-body-count action sequences, quick-cut comedy and an unlikely, socially awkward hero. That would be Robert Montague Renfield (Nicholas Hoult), Count Dracula’s beleaguered “familiar,” who has been gifted an unnaturally long life in exchange for bringing the vamp fresh victims.

voiced by Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) work as plumbers.It’s a realistic setting. I spot mustachioed guys wearing overalls in Williamsburg all the time.But perhaps the boys would be better off selling artisan beard oil on Bedford, because they’re not very good with their socket wrenches.

Amazon Studios’ robustly entertaining, real-life drama definitely has the makings of one. It’s far and away the most likable film released so far this year.There’s a starry cast led by Matt Damon, Viola Davis, Jason Bateman and Ben Affleck, who also directs his best movie since “Argo” 11 years ago. Running time: 112 minutes.

Netflix has padded its catalog of cinematic background noise some more with “Murder Mystery 2,” the instantly forgettable sequel to its rancid whodunit comedy starring Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler as married crime solvers. Running time: 89 minutes. Rated PG-13 (violence, bloody images, strong language, suggestive material and smoking).

awarded the first film zero stars — few people saw and even fewer remember. Running time: 134 minutes. Rated PG-13 (fantasy action/violence and some language.) In theaters.And the source material, the role-playing game “Dungeons & Dragons,” is famously confusing and impenetrable to outsiders.

had Keanu Reeves gallop on a horse through Brooklyn? Four tremendous films and nine years into the adrenaline-fueled, Reeves-led action series, director Chad Stahelski has yet to let his franchise noticeably dip in quality. “Wick” wields an assured identity and fireworks style with the same confidence of its main character carrying a deadly pistol.

the world saw “Black Adam” and was fully convinced that the movie was as low as DC Comics could possibly go, here comes “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” to outdo it in the limbo line of awfulness.We’re talking about a film in which the sentence “The most powerful thing about you… is you!” is uttered twice.A film with a character named Steve, who is an all-knowing, enchanted pen.Zero stars. Running time: 130 minutes.

on a New York City subway platform.  Who cares if it’s Ghostface or not? Is this lunatic gonna push her onto the tracks?It’s a fleeting, ripped-from-the-headlines thrill in what’s otherwise a snooze-fest that mechanically rips off what came before it. Running time: 123 minutes. Rated R (strong bloody violence and language throughout, and brief drug use).Not to mention that this first “Scream” movie to be set in the city is a total waste of NYC. Don’t spend any mental energy trying to figure out what street the characters are running down, what park they’re hiding out in, or what borough it is.

decades-old film franchises out there to which I say: Keep making more, please.The pulse-pounding “Creed III” is the ninth movie in the series. And although there is nary a mention of Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa in this one, the indomitable spirit, grit and heart that made the 1976 original a surprise hit is still alive — 47 years later.Running time: 116 minutes. Rated PG-13 (intense sports action, violence and some strong language).

2019’s “The Gentlemen,” he’d have the usually dapper Hugh Grant play a sleazy journalist who refers to England only as “Angleterre” in an East End accent, and in 2021’s “Wrath of Man” he showcased frequent collaborator Jason Statham’s ability to switch from hilarious to killing machine.With this director, we’re never so much watching an espionage or crime movie as enjoying another off-the-rails Guy Ritchie attraction. That is, until “Operation Fortune,” the co-writer and director’s most uninspired movie in a minute. Lazily bopping around to exotic locales like Cannes, France, Antalya, Turkey, and Doha, Qatar, it’s a generic collage of mega-yachts, luxe hotels, fancy parties, disguised identities and tame fights that add up to a big nothing.Worry not about your blood pressure at “Ruse de guerre.” One chase scene in sunny Antalya, with actor Max Beesley on a vespa, is downright soothing.

director Elizabeth Banks keeps the powder gags fresh throughout, as the mammal maims her way through a Southern forest preserve. The movie about blow never blows.Running time: 95 minutes. Rated R (bloody violence and gore, drug content and language throughout.) In theaters.The hysterical film is based on a true story in the loosest possible sense.

brutally murder 11 people … is a sentence I never thought I’d write.But that’s what goes down in the sicko indie horror film “Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey,” which played theaters for one night only on Wednesday. And, believe you me, one night is enough.How has the 100 Acre Wood legally been turned into a barbaric onscreen hunting ground that slashes the throat of childhood nostalgia? Running time: 84 minutes.