Tom Hardy’s contract comes to an end.
‘Venom: The Last Dance’
This trilogy wraps up with a final installment directed by Kelly Marcel in which Eddie and the alien parasite he shares a body with, Venom (both played by Tom Hardy), must work together against common enemies.
From our review:
Honestly, I’d rather watch Eddie and Venom dicker over pizza toppings than team up for something as banal as saving the planet. Yet, this film prefers the latter and the bombastic battle scenes that come with it. Marcel, making her directorial debut, claws toward a strong emotional climax that’s undercut by a post-credits sequence which implies that everything our heroes just endured didn’t matter at all. The mechanics of the Marvel Machine must keep on cranking.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Critic’s Pick
Preposterous papal pleasures.
‘Conclave’
After the pope dies, a cardinal in crisis (Ralph Fiennes) must organize the election for his successor while facing mysteries and controversies along the way in this thriller from Edward Berger.
From our review:
With pomp and circumstance, miles of scarlet cloth and first-rate scene-stealers, the movie snakes through the marbled corridors of Vatican City, pauses in bedchambers as cold as mausoleums and tunnels into the deepest secrets of the human heart. It’s quite the journey, and as unpersuasive as it is entertaining.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Hardships told with humor (and clay).
‘Memoir of a Snail’
Grace, a shy woman with a fondness for snails, narrates her life’s series of misfortunes in this animated tragicomedy from writer-director Adam Elliot.
From our review:
Animation is the right medium for the tale: Everyone’s features and foibles are exaggerated, and, most importantly, the bleak comedy of the story is funnier when these caricatured figures, with their wild hairdos, big teeth and floppy facial expressions, play out the action. … But the litany of Grace’s troubles, told without relief, wears thin after a while, especially because the point of the whole story doesn’t really emerge until the end.
In theaters. Read the full review.
A stagy kitchen drama.
‘La Cocina’
In a bustling Times Square diner, employees experience love, heartbreak and the tumultuous pursuit of the American dream in this black-and-white drama directed by Alonso Ruizpalacios.
From our review:
In one scene, the soda machine breaks, flooding the kitchen during a lunchtime rush; the workers look like sailors on a sinking boat. Hellish moments like this help explain why everyone’s a bit cruel and calloused at work. Imagine such pressure — and, for many undocumented workers, the knowledge that you won’t be hired anywhere better. But Ruizpalacios diminishes these hard truths with flashy bids at profundity. The film’s epic finale feels stagy — while these real-life frustrations are anything but.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Subtlety is dead. Her husband might be next.
‘Magpie’
Daisy Ridley plays Anette, a housewife whose repressed rage threatens to boil over in this revenge thriller directed by Sam Yates.
From our review:
A movie about female rage and the imprisoning loneliness of motherhood … “Magpie” is flimsy and unsubtle, yet oddly gripping. Scattering small signs of marital trauma — Anette’s newly shorn hair, the way she grimly trashes an uneaten, perfectly cooked dinner — the script (by Ridley’s husband, Tom Bateman) urges us to scrutinize Anette’s eerily menacing composure. Is she dangerous, or just dotty?
In theaters. Read the full review.
It’s based on a game, but it’s no fun.
‘Family Pack’
In this action comedy directed by François Uzan, a family is transported into the world of a card game where players must sniff out the murderous werewolves that hide among them.
From our review:
The beauty of a game of Werewolf lies in the treachery: Friends lie, betray, blindside and backstab one another, and it’s glorious. “Family Pack” expresses little interest in these mechanics. Uzan focuses instead on mild comedy and tedious action. … The game itself is so good. I’m not sure the movie understands why.
Watch on Netflix. Read the full review.
A monster of a metaphor.
‘Your Monster’
After a devastating breakup with Jacob, a theater director, Lindy (Melissa Barrera) encounters a monster in her closet who teaches her how to be a bit more ferocious.
From our review:
Repressed trauma, inner anger, watchful protector: Lindy’s monster won’t win points for metaphorical coherence. But “Your Monster,” while falling short of the Critic’s Pick status that Jacob explicitly covets, has charms in other departments, namely the backstage intrigue, onstage songs by the Lazours (of the musical “We Live in Cairo”), and a disarming lead in Barrera.
In theaters. Read the full review.
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