NEW THIS WEEK (2/6) IN THEATERS, VOD AND/OR ON HOME VIDEO
DRACULA--Luc ("La Femme Nikita," "The Fifth Element") Besson’s latest film arrives with the usual baggage accompanying any new screen iteration of Bram Stoker’s immortal tale. What distinguishes Besson's version is a renewed sincerity and willingness to treat the Count less as a monster than a wound that refuses to heal. As Dracula, Caleb Landry Jones’ nervy physicality and spectral gaze give the character a fragile volatility. He's a vampire who seems to be throbbing with centuries of unresolved longing. Christoph Waltz brings dry wit to the Count's priest nemesis, grounding his florid gestures with a wry sense of human proportion. Together they anchor a narrative that might otherwise drift into purely decorative excess. The plot cleaves broadly to tradition. Dracula, cursed with immortality and bound to the memory of a lost love, emerges from his Carpathian isolation and sets his sights on a woman in 19th century France who appears to be the reincarnation of his former bride. Blood is spilled, alliances are formed and the machinery of pursuit grinds forward. Besson, more interested in atmosphere than mythological housekeeping, efficiently streamlines the narrative and it moves with an unhurried, nocturnal logic. Gothic arches loom, candlelight glows with painterly intensity and digital effects are deployed less for shock than a kind of melancholic pageantry. At times, the aesthetic threatens to overwhelm the drama. Yet when it works, it does so by embracing its own romantic excess, trusting that sincerity can still pass for daring. “Dracula” isn't a radical reinvention, but a handsomely mounted, intermittently affecting meditation on love, memory and eternal damnation. (B.) https://youtu.be/aXPLA-kuIPs?si=OO3lDHrtVjHf0dQw
THE MECHANIC--One of the more elegant curiosities of early-’70s genre cinema, this lean, melancholic thriller also serves as a fulcrum in director Michael ("The Nightcomers," "Chato's Land") Winner’s creative partnership with Charles Bronson. In many ways, it’s the movie that best shows what their collaborations could be: stylish without being garish, contemplative without losing their pulp bona fides and rooted in an atmosphere of moral exhaustion rather than the blunt vigilante ethos that defined their later work. Two years before Winner's "Death Wish" would cement Bronson's superstardom, "The Mechanic" revealed his talent for quiet craft and psychological shadings, traits that gradually faded as the duo churned out two mediocre sequels and a disposable actioner (1973's "The Stone Killer"). What remains most intriguing about this pairing is its paradoxical tone. Winner frames the story of Arthur Bishop--an aging, solitary hitman played by Bronson with weary precision--as something close to a chamber piece. The violence is never triumphant, it’s procedural and almost ascetic. Bishop constructs and destroys worlds in miniature, and Winner mirrors that with filmmaking that favors slow pans, architectural compositions and a patient accumulation of detail. Jan-Michael Vincent’s arrival as the protégé whose curiosity curdles into something more predatory gives the film its destabilizing power, but Winner resists easy catharsis. Their dynamic becomes a kind of existential puzzle, dramatizing the ways professional intimacy can hollow out whatever remains of a soul. Seen today, especially after the 2011 Jason Statham remake which reframed the material into a sleeker, more conventionally adrenalized package, Winner’s version feels positively anomalous. It’s a thriller built on negative space: on silence, loneliness and the dread of being very good at something that offers no meaningful reward. The reboot has its popcorn pleasures, but the contrast only sharpens the original’s commitment to mood and fatalism. Within Winner and Bronson's oeuvres, it stands closer to a high-water mark than the grimmer, more cynical vehicles that followed. It’s not only more controlled than most of their later output but also more emotionally complex, revealing a director and star attuned to the melancholy at the heart of violence. In that sense, it remains one of Winner and Bronson's most compelling achievements. The KL Studio Classics' new set includes 4K and Blu-Ray copies of the film; three separate audio commentary tracks with, respectively, Paul Talbot, author of the "Bronson's Loose!" books, cinematographer Richard H. Kline and historians Troy Howarth and Steve Mitchell; an interview with screenwriter Lewis John Carlino; and the original theatrical trailer. (A MINUS.) https://youtu.be/Nj1rONaGLgY?si=HjdoJikvgDMwz-gX
SOLO MIO--Kevin James takes a welcome vacation from the broad physical comedy of his Paul Bart franchise into subtler dynamics of the human heart. Directed with a light touch by brothers Chuck and Dan Kinnane, it's an unlikely romance set against Italy's sun-drenched backdrops that transforms a familiar rom-com premise into something quietly reflective. James plays Matt, a well-intentioned Everyman whose meticulously planned destination wedding collapses when his fiancée strands him at the altar. Instead of scurrying home, Matt decides to press forward with his prepaid honeymoon, turning his grief into a scenic odyssey through Rome, Florence and Tuscany. Along the way he encounters an ensemble of vividly drawn companions: Nicole Grimaudo’s Gia, whose easy confidence and local insight nudge him out of his self-pity; Alyson Hannigan and Kim Coates as fellow American tourists whose misadventures mirror his own; and Jonathan Roumie who helps Matt rediscover joy in small gestures. The Kinnanes frame these encounters with a gentle visual rhythm, allowing the Italian vistas to act as more than postcards--they become metaphors for Matt’s emotional thaw. James, who also co-wrote the screenplay, balances his natural comic instincts with a surprising vulnerability that keeps Matt from seeming like a caricature. Without reinventing the genre, it reminds us why stories of second chances remain so darn irresistible. (B.) https://youtu.be/qC-2Kkz7ia8?si=fxAQ7OAHbLLK_Wk5
THE STRANGERS: CHAPTER THREE--The third and concluding installment of Renny ("Die Hard II," "The Long Kiss Goodnight") Harlin’s rebooted horror trilogy once again trades the claustrophobic terror of its 2008 forebear for increasingly calculated sequences of violence. At the center is Maya, played once again with steely resolve by Madelaine Petsch whose transformation from victim to avenger anchors the emotional through-line. Maya is once again pitted against the enigmatic masked trio that's dogged her since the first film--the culmination of a relentlessly brutal odyssey that sees her literal and psychological wounds brought to the surface. The plot moves briskly enough: isolated settings and desperate gambits blur into one another as the film pursues a full-circle reckoning between prey and predator. While delivering the predictable visceral beats, Harlin too frequently sacrifices depth for shock, and his attempts at mythologizing the killers is more perfunctory than revelatory. Petsch’s performance remains the series' highlight, lending the material a somber gravity that its thin narrative fails to sustain. (C.) https://youtu.be/XrdeKOxCV3Y?si=6fSyWbKT4v8sw8KF
WHISTLE--The titular Aztec artifact at the center of this British teen horror flick emits an eerie shriek that precipitates the whistler's imminent doom. Balancing tenacity and vulnerability, Dafne Keen plays "Last Girl Standing" Chrys, and funnyman Nick ("Hot Fuzz," "Shaun of the Dead") Frost injects surprising, welcome depth as a beleaguered high school teacher. Owen Egerton's screenplay is taut in its mechanics and fairly audacious in concept: blow the whistle and your future death becomes inevitable, carried out with a "Final Destination"-style precision. As the body count rises, the teenagers' quest to unravel the whistle's origins becomes a study of fate and fear with an emotional undertow that suggests an incipient humanism beneath the gruesome carnage. While flirting with teen angst and cursed object cliches, "The Nun" director Corin Hardy’s visual inventiveness help elevates this into an intermittently gripping, morally charged rite of passage. (B MINUS.)
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AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH--In a saga that has grown increasingly ambitious, visually extravagant and thematically dense, "Fire and Ash" pivots from physiological explorations of ecosystems to a more mythic framing of its conflicts. Where "Avatar" (2009) introduced the lush alien wonder of Pandora and 2022's "The Way of Water" immersed viewers in its maritime cultures, this iteration pushes the narrative toward darker, more volatile terrain. The result is a mixed but fitfully engaging continuation: grand in intention, occasionally overwrought in execution and undeniably shaped by the legacy of the previous entries. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) remain central, but the story increasingly focuses on their children whose competing instincts of loyalty, rebellion and self-discovery mirror Pandora’s own shifting tensions. This generational expansion succeeds in theory, yet the film sometimes struggles to distribute its weight emotionally. Some character arcs resonate, especially those tied to grief and responsibility, while others feel truncated amid the sprawling structure. Visually, director James Cameron continues to set technical benchmarks. The volcanic regions introduced are stunningly realized, contrasting sharply with the aquatic serenity of the previous installment. Action sequences are suitably massive, intricately choreographed and frequently overwhelming although the sensory overload sometimes overshadows character arcs that needed more room to breathe. One of the movie’s strengths is how it reframes the trilogy’s ongoing conflict between the Na’vi and human invaders. Rather than repeating earlier dynamics, "Fire and Ash" complicates them by emphasizing the fractures within both societies. However, some thematic threads--particularly those relating to spiritual communion and ecological trauma--repeat ideas the first two chapters handled with greater clarity. The cumulative effect is a sense of narrative transition that feels less like a standalone chapter and more like connective tissue toward the franchise’s endgame. Still, there's a compelling through-line anchored by the cast’s motion-captured performances and Cameron’s unwavering sincerity. Without matching the elegant simplicity of "Avatar" or the immersive novelty of "The Way of Water," it pushes the series into new emotional and visual terrain. (B.)
THE BREAKFAST CLUB--With 1985's "The Breakfast Club," John Hughes wasn’t merely chronicling the woes of high school detention; he was defining the emotional terrain of adolescence for an entire generation. Nearly four decades later, the film endures not just as an artifact of Reagan-era teen culture, but as a strikingly perceptive human study: funny, tender and unflinchingly honest about the fragile boundaries between identity and stereotype. Set almost entirely within the sterile walls of a suburban high school library, the story follows five students sentenced to spend a Saturday in detention. Each represents a familiar high school archetype: the brain (Anthony Michael Hall’s Brian), the athlete (Emilio Estevez’s Andrew), the princess (Molly Ringwald’s Claire), the criminal (Judd Nelson’s Bender), and the basket case (Ally Sheedy’s Allison). Under the watchful but indifferent eye of assistant principal Richard Vernon (Paul Gleason), these kids are expected to sit silently and “think about what they’ve done.” Instead, they slowly dismantle the labels that confine them and, in doing so, discover unexpected truths about themselves and one another. The movie’s genius lies in its simplicity. Hughes confines his characters to a single location, allowing the drama to unfold through talk rather than action. The setup, deceptively straightforward, becomes a pressure cooker in which defenses erode and emotions rise. The dialogue feels spontaneous and raw, yet it is meticulously crafted to reveal layers of fear, insecurity and longing beneath the surface bravado. Hughes captures the rhythms of adolescent speech without resorting to caricature, and his actors respond with performances that feel lived-in. Nelson, with Bender's swaggering defiance and glimpses of wounded pride, anchors the emotional center while Ringwald’s Claire brings poise and vulnerability to a role that could have been one-note. Hall delivers a quietly devastating portrait of intellectual anxiety and Sheedy’s Allison, initially mute and inscrutable, blossoms into the film’s biggest surprise. Estevez gives token jock Andrew an earnestness that makes his own reckoning with expectation and masculinity particularly affecting. Their chemistry feels organic as a group of disparate souls learn how listen to each other over the course of one long afternoon. Hughes’s direction is invisible in the best sense. He lets the camera linger, observes his characters in moments of awkward silence and trusts the audience to engage with their vulnerabilities. The soundtrack, anchored by Simple Minds’ now-iconic “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” captures the movie’s spirit of yearning and defiance. The music isn’t just background, it’s a statement of connection between viewer and character; a plea not to let adolescence, in all its confusion and hope, fade into irrelevance. A master class in empathy, its power comes from Hughes' refusal to trivialize teenage pain or to offer neat resolutions. When the characters leave the library, they do so changed, though perhaps only slightly, and that modest transformation feels utterly real. Hughes reminds us that the struggle to be understood, to escape the boxes others build around us, never truly ends. The film’s enduring resonance lies in that recognition: that every adult, however far removed from high school, carries within them the echo of that long Saturday spent trying to figure out who they are. The new Criterion Collection release includes both 4K and Blu-Ray copies of the movie as well as myriad bonus features. There's an audio commentary track with Nelson and Hall; standalone interviews featuring cast/crew members including Ringwald and Sheedy; a video essay featuring Hughes' production notes read by Nelson; fifty minutes of deleted and extended scenes; promotional/archival interviews; excerpts from a 1985 American Film Institute seminar with Hughes; Ringwald's audio interview from an episode of "This American Life;" a Hughes radio interview; and author/critic David Kamp's essay, "Smells Like Teen Realness." (A.)
HAMNET--Oscar-winning director Chloe ("Nomadland") Zhao's adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's 2020 best-seller is a raw-boned, affecting exploration of grief, love and the creative process. Focusing on the tragic death of William Shakespeare's young son, Hamnet, and how it reverberates through his parents' lives, Zhao explores the tenderness of family life and the devastating weight of loss. As Agnes Shakespeare, Buckley delivers a performance of elemental force, summoning both fragility and ferocity in equal measure. Mescal's Will offers a quieter but complementary portrait, his anguish tethered to Shakespeare's creative restlessness as his pain inexorably fuels his art. Their chemistry helps give the movie a grounded realism. Cinematographer Łukasz Żal's lush, tactile lensing frames forest and home in a way that feels both timeless and immediate. And Zhao balances poetic stillness with emotional urgency, giving space for small moments--a touch, a glance, the way light falls on fabric--that carry as much emotional weight as the big dramatic scenes. While the elegiac pacing can feel overly deliberate at times, it ultimately serves the meditative tone. The payoff, especially in the devastating final scenes, is deeply cathartic as Zhao transforms personal sorrow into universal resonance. In mourning her child, Agnes becomes a vessel for something larger than herself and a reminder of how art and love emerge from human vulnerability. (A MINUS.)
THE HOUSEMAID--This glossy adaptation of Freida McFadden's best-selling novel marks an assured segue into psychological thrillers for director Paul Feig. Known primarily for raucous comedies (including "Bridesmaids" and "Spy"), Feig shows an assured grasp of mood, favoring restraint and atmosphere over easy shocks while letting the story's simmering tensions and sense of dread percolate. Sydney Sweeney plays Millie, a young woman who accepts a live-in housekeeping position at an upscale home that quickly proves too good to be true. Sweeney confidently balances vulnerability and watchfulness, making Millie’s cautious optimism feel earned rather than naïve. Amanda Seyfried delivers another knockout turn as Nina, her wealthy employer whose brittle charm and erratic behavior keep both Millie and the audience constantly off balance. Their dynamic is the movie's engine, a carefully calibrated push-and-pull of power, class and unspoken resentment. Rounding out the central trio is Nina's husband Andrew (Brandon Sklenar from "It Ends With Us" and "1923") whose genial exterior masks an unsettling ambiguity. Sklenar brings just enough warmth to remain plausible while subtle shifts in tone hint at deeper, er, complications. Sweeney, Seyfried and Sklenar expertly create a triangle of suspicion that neatly mirrors the novel’s slow-burn construction. The pacing allows unease to accumulate scene by scene, smartly preserving McFadden’s key plot reversals without tipping its hand too early. While it may not be reinventing the domestic thriller, Feig and his superb cast execute its familiar elements with laudable flair and conviction. (A MINUS.)
I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING--Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1945 masterpiece occupies a singular position within their extraordinary oeuvre, a film seemingly modest in scale yet profound in emotional resonance. Nestled chronologically between the wartime grandeur of "A Canterbury Tale" and the operatic intensity of "Black Narcissus," it stands as a transitional work that shows the filmmaking duo at their most playful, humane and deceptively daring. What begins as a romantic fable becomes a meditation on fate, desire and the subtle magic of place. The Archers were always fascinated by the interplay between inner longing and external environment, and "I Know" distills that theme with exquisite clarity. Rather than the stylization they'd later embrace, Powell and Pressburger craft a narrative built on wind, sea, mist and the rugged rhythms of the Hebrides. Yet their stylistic signatures--unexpected moments of fantasy, symbolic visual motifs and wry humor--appear in fully formed miniature. Both grounded and enchanted, it confirms that their artistry derived from the acute sensitivity with which they observed human nature. At the center of this enchantment stands Wendy Hiller whose performance is essential to the magic of the film. Playing Joan Webster, a fiercely determined young woman convinced she knows exactly what she wants, Hiller brings not only fierce intelligence but an emotional transparency that allows us to see Joan’s inner shift long before she consciously senses it herself. Hiller’s radiant presence anchors the movie’s spiritual and romantic journey. Her Joan is not merely an archetype of modern ambition, she's a woman discovering that certainty can be a trap and that deeper forms of happiness require vulnerability, humility and an openness to forces beyond one’s control. Hiller’s chemistry with Roger Livesey helps enrich this transformation, but it's her gradual surrender to the allure of landscape and community that gives the film its beating heart. Powell’s camera regards Hiller with admiration, never objectifying her but instead capturing the quick flashes of doubt and wonder that mark Joan’s awakening. In the broader context of Powell and Pressburger’s collaborations, this is a crucial work precisely because of its hushed intimacy. It demonstrates their ability to craft movies as emotionally expansive as their more visually lavish efforts while encapsulating the thematic concerns (romantic destiny, cultural collision, the mystical property of locations) that would echo throughout their latter pairings. Effortlessly charming yet deeply affecting, this remains one of The Archers’ most enduring achievements, a testament to their storytelling brilliance and to Wendy Hiller’s unforgettable luminosity. The Criterion Collection set features both 4K UHD and Blu-Ray copies as well as myriad extras including a demonstration of the painstaking restoration process by Powell enthusiast Martin Scorsese; an audio commentary featuring historian Ian Christie; Mark ("The History of Film") Cousins' 1994 documentary, "'I Know Where I'm Going' Revisited;" behind the scenes stills narrated by Powell's widow, editor Thelma Schoonmaker; Nancy Franklin's photo essay exploring locations used in the film; home movies from one of Powell's Scottish expeditions; and an essay by author/critic Imogen Sara Smith. (A PLUS.)
IRON LUNG--The YouTube-to-cinema migration has produced curiosities before, but "Iron Lung" suggests the particular perils of translating a minimalist video game into a feature-length film. Directed by Mark Fischbach--who also stars under his online moniker Markiplier--it approaches a claustrophobic premise with sincerity and technical skill, yet emerges curiously airless. Adapted from David Szymanski’s stark indie game, the story strands a lone prisoner (Fischbach) inside a rusting submersible tasked with charting a vast ocean of blood on a distant moon. The vessel can't see outside, and navigation is conducted by instruments, grainy photographs and the dull terror of metal stressed past its limits. As missions accumulate, the submarine descends deeper while hints of something vast and sentient press against the hull. As director, Fischbach shows an evident command of sound design and production detail. The submarine set is tactile and convincingly grimy, and the best moments rely on noise, vibration and sudden silence rather than visual spectacle. Yet what works in short, player-driven YouTube bursts proves exhausting over two-plus hours. The script leans heavily on repetition, mistaking sustained tension for narrative development and the metaphysical gestures arrive with a thud of portentousness rather than dread.
Fischbach’s performance is earnest but limited, pinned to a narrow band of anxiety that rarely modulates. While aiming for cosmic horror, it lands closer to industrial malaise: an admirable experiment whose ambitions exceed its expressive range. (C.)
MARTY SUPREME--A dizzying, electrifying joy ride throbbing with ambition, madness and unexpected poignancy, Josh ("Uncut Gems," "Good Time") Safdie's staggering achievement is nothing short of a full-throttle masterpiece. From its very first frame, Safdie throws you into a world out of time: a 1950's New York City that feels mythic, vaguely surreal and charged with possibility and desperation. The film’s stylistically heightened aesthetic is blazingly original, gritty and immersive, making the period setting seem both familiar and vaguely haunted. Playing Marty Mauser, a down‑on‑his‑luck shoe store clerk turned obsessive ping‑pong hustler, Timothee Chalamet delivers what may be the defining performance of his career: raw, unfiltered ambition and desperation wrapped in nervous energy and hubristic bravado. Marty is magnetic precisely because he’s so damn infuriating. He believes he’s destined for greatness even while sabotaging relationships, dreams and maybe even himself in the process. His journey is simultaneously wrenching, hilarious, tragic and absurd. As retired movie star Kay Stone whose elegance and fading glamour make her as fascinating as she is touchingly vulnerable, Gwyneth Paltrow radiates longing and a messy tenderness. The wonderful Odessa A'zion brings heart and a touching vulnerability to the unhappily married housewife Marty unwittingly impregnates. Her fealty to Marty is rooted not just in attraction, but in memory (they were childhood sweethearts), disillusionment and fragile loyalty. Indelible supporting turns from, among others, "Shark Tank"'s Kevin O'Leary, Tyler the Creator, indie auteur Abel Ferrara, and Fran Drescher bring added textures to the madcap, unpredictable world that Marty inhabits. Darius Khondji's cinematography practically vibrates with nervous energy; the editing jangles with urgency; and the deliberately anachronistic musical choices--at times dissonant, at times elegiac--
root you in Marty’s inner turbulence. As the narrative hurtles towards its climax--a ping‑pong match, yes, but also a moral reckoning--you understand that Marty’s real opponent is himself. More than just a sports dramedy, it’s a blistering portrait of ambition, self‑destruction and the warped, destructive allure of "The American Dream." Marty Mauser is an unforgettable protagonist, and so is the world Safdie has crafted around him. A marvel of controlled chaos crackling with danger, defiance, desire and despair, it shows what it's like to desperately want to win--even when the cost is, well, pretty much everything. (A PLUS.)
MERCY--Timur Bekmambetov’s movie arrives burdened by its high-concept premise, a sci-fi procedural that feels as engineered as the AI that presides over the narrative. Bekmambetov, the Kazakh-born director whose credits include the kinetic, stylized "Wanted" (2008) and whatzit? genre-bender "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" (2012), seems intent on pivoting into philosophical territory here. The result, alas, more closely resembles a studio-mandated thought experiment heavy on gestural futurism and light on substantive drama. In the near future, Los Angeles has outsourced justice to an advanced artificial intelligence courtroom, and Detective Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) finds himself trapped physically and narratively in a 90-minute trial to prove he didn't murder his wife. The twist lies in the fact that Raven once championed the Mercy AI he must now convince of his innocence. As the inscrutable digital arbiter, Rebecca Ferguson is denied the chance to transcend her role of "ambient antagonist." The tension Bekmambetov strives for never quite coalesces into urgency; prolonged sequences of exposition and technocratic jargon dilute what should have been an acute psychological drama. While gesturing at the dangers of algorithmic justice and the fallibility of legal systems designed to be objective, its speculative potential has been reduced to bleak sterility: an earnest conceit as rigid and unyielding as the future it depicts. (C.)
SEND HELP--Sam ("The Evil Dead," "Spider-Man") Raimi’s stripped-down survival thriller arrives with the deceptive modesty of a two-hander and the mischievous assurance of a director who knows exactly how much tension he can wring from a palm tree, a broken ankle or a stray glance held a beat too long. it’s a wryly humane study of how people behave when there’s no one left to impress but the sea. The premise is elegantly simple. After their small plane goes down in the Pacific, two coworkers wash up on a remote island: a mousy office worker (Rachel McAdams) and her arrogant corporate fixer boss (Dylan O’Brien). With no hope of immediate rescue, they must ration supplies, tend to injuries and learn how to coexist in a place that offers neither privacy nor mercy. Raimi wastes no time on spectacle. The crash is over almost as soon as it begins; what matters is the aftermath and the slow, grinding work of staying alive. Raimi, returning to leaner productions after years of studio maximalism, stages the island as both physical trap and psychological arena. His camera finds unease in the ordinary mechanics of survival: opening a coconut, stitching a wound, deciding who gets the last mouthful of water. His predilection for jump-scares is still evident, but it’s tempered with patience. Suspense accumulates through character, not contrivance. McAdams gives a performance of flinty intelligence, letting control escalate in increments so small they’re almost imperceptible. O’Brien, playing against his usual affability, reveals a talent for quiet desperation, his toxic braggadocio slowly eroded by hunger and fear. Their chemistry is less romantic than adversarial, a chess match conducted under a merciless sun. “Send Help” is ultimately less about rescue than reckoning--about the stories people tell themselves to survive, and the harder truths they’re forced to confront when stories no longer suffice. (B PLUS.)
SHELTER--The indomitable Jason Statham returns to the cinematic turf he's long made his own: the weather-beaten fringes of action filmmaking where existential solitude meets procedural danger. Directed by Ric Roman Waugh ("Greenland: Migration"), an old hand at muscular thrillers, trades mostly on his leading man's star wattage for something marginally more contemplative if still cozily familiar. Statham plays Mason, a former operative exiled to a windswept coastal outpost, as hermetic in temperament as he is isolated in geography. When he rescues a young girl from a tempestuous sea, the act of compassion becomes the catalyst for a chain of violence that insinuates Mason back into his carefully sequestered life, forcing him to reckon with ghosts he hoped were long buried. Waugh favors grounded, tactile action over the digital gloss that defines most contemporary thrillers and stages sequences with an eye for physicality that reflects his background in stunt work. The pacing--deliberate in its early stretches and building toward escalating confrontation--suggests an ambition to balance character development with plot propulsion. Supporting Statham is a cast that provides ballast to his weathered archetype. As the young girl whose fate becomes entwined with Mason's, Bodhi Rae Breathnach offers an emotive counterpoint to his taciturn survivalism. Seasoned actors Billy Nighy and Naomi Ackie imbue the material with intermittent depth although the script’s minimalism insures that their roles merely orbit Mason’s arc rather than fully inhabiting it. Trading in familiar thriller tropes (the reclusive anti-hero, a reluctant paternal bond and the inexorable return of a violent past), it displays the unshowy craftsmanship of Waugh’s previous work and Statham's reliable charisma. Visually the film leans into the austere beauty of its remote settings, and the thematic thrust--redemption through connection, isolation pierced by obligation--aspires to lend an emotional spine to the inevitable action scenes. Despite those ambitions, it rarely escapes the gravitational pull of genre cliches. It’s a movie where the pleasures are incremental rather than revelatory: the satisfying execution of a setpiece here, a moment of vulnerability there, all wrapped up in the assurance that Statham remains a reliable vessel for stories predicated on resilience and grit. (C PLUS.)
YI YI--Edward Yang’s "Yi Yi" (2000) is not only the crowning achievement of his tragically curtailed career, but also one of the clearest articulations of Yang's worldview--an approach to cinema in which the textures of ordinary life are allowed to accumulate into profound insight. Its recent appearance near the very top of the New York Times survey of the best movies of the first quarter-century of the 2000's simply formalizes what cinephiles have long recognized: "Yi Yi" is a masterwork of modern humanist filmmaking. Yang had already established himself as a central architect of the Taiwanese New Wave before "Yi Yi," and it synthesizes many of the thematic concerns that run through his previous works. From "Taipei Story"’s anxiety about a rapidly globalizing urban landscape to "The Terrorizers"’ intricate, multi-perspective narrative design, Yang consistently probed the friction between private aspiration and social constraint. Yet it was with A Brighter Summer Day "(1991) that he demonstrated the full breadth of his ambition. That expansive, nearly four-hour portrait of 1960s youth steeped in political unrest, cultural hybridity and generational conflict revealed Yang’s fascination with the forces that sculpt identity across time and space. "Yi Yi" distills that scope into a more focused, intimate register: the life of a single Taipei family across a year marked by births, deaths and ethical reckonings. What makes the film so extraordinary is its balance of narrative precision and philosophical openness. Yang structures it around the perspectives of three family members (NJ, the middle-aged father reconnecting with a lost love; Ting-Ting, the teenage daughter navigating first heartbreak; and Yang-Yang, the young son whose photographs of the backs of people’s heads become emblematic of Yang's epistemological curiosity). Each character’s storyline could function independently, yet Yang interlaces them with such emotional coherence that the mosaic structure feels inevitable. The result is a cinematic world that radiates empathy, acknowledging that every life contains its own rhythms, secrets and disappointments. In this sense, the movie converses deeply with Yang’s oeuvre: the emphasis on personal responsibility, the difficulty of communication and the subtle but persistent encroachments of modernity are all motifs carried forward from his earlier work. But "Yi Yi" tempers the often-adversarial social environments of those films with a gentler, more contemplative sensibility. Even moments of pain are handled with an unhurried delicacy, inviting viewers not to judge but to observe. Its enduring legacy can be attributed to this profound generosity. Yang’s refusal to sensationalize struggle or simplify emotion produces a rare cinematic experience: a work that grows over time, offering new insights with each return. Not merely a summation of Yang’s career, it's a testament to what cinema can achieve when it treats human experience with patience, clarity and profound respect. The Criterion Collection release includes both 4K UHD and Blu-Ray copies of the film; Yang and critic Tony Rayns' audio commentary; a featurette with Rayns discussing Yang's career and his pivotal role in the New Taiwan Cinema movement; critic/director Kent Jones' essay, "Time and Space;" and Yang's posthumous notes about his filmmaking process. (A PLUS.)
ZOOTOPIA 2--Nearly a decade after the original Disney blockbuster, "Zootopia 2" arrives with ambition, heart and a brand new mystery that lives up to its predecessor's legacy. Directors Jared Bush and Byron Howard--who also helmed the first movie--reunite the iconic duo of Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) for a layered, emotionally resonant sequel that delivers both laughs and substance. The story revolves around a new character (sly, enigmatic snake Gary voiced by Ke Huy Quan) whose arrival in Zootopia disrupts the status quo, sending Judy and Nick in uncharted parts of the city. This set-up allows Bush and Howard to explore new terrain, literally and thematically, introducing reptilian districts that expand the world-building of the 2016 incarnation. Along the way, the movie challenges its protagonists’ relationship and forces them to confront not only external danger but internal doubts. The humor is playful and fast-paced, leaning into clever wordplay and animal puns while never undercutting the gravity of its deeper themes. Yet Bush and Howard don’t shy away from social commentary either, offering reflections on inclusion, prejudice and community in a way that feels organic without being preachy. Vibrant, richly detailed animation helps immerse us in the sprawling metropolis of Zootopia as well as some exotic new settings. The emotional payoff satisfies by tying together character growth and thematic arcs in a way that reaffirms the values of partnership, trust and acceptance. Entertaining, thoughtful and bold in its expansion of a beloved franchise, it stands as a worthy sequel that should have no trouble appealing to fans and novitiates alike. (B PLUS.)
---Milan Paurich
