Liam Neeson will find you and make you laugh.
‘The Naked Gun’
In this reboot directed by Akiva Schaffer, Liam Neeson stars as a bumbling cop.
From our review:
Schaffer throws a lot at the screen (he smartly toggles back and forth between verbal humor and physical comedy), and tosses everything out at a rapid-enough clip that you don’t have time to groan at the softer, weaker material. Taken individually, a lot of the jokes might not work, but when you’re in a blizzard you don’t notice each snowflake.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Not up to par.
‘Happy Gilmore 2’
Adam Sandler reprises his role as the grumpy but lovable golfer in this sequel directed by Kyle Newacheck.
From our review:
The early and largely easy fun begins to curdle into inanity that simply drags (there is, oddly enough, way too much actual golf in this movie), before devolving into an overextended fever dream of celebrity cameos.
Watch on Netflix. Read the full review.
Folk horror meets dreamy drama.
‘Harvest’
This drama directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari follows Walter (Caleb Landry Jones), a resident of a small medieval village in a time of change and unrest.
From our review:
“Harvest” is about the way that whole groups of people are displaced, their lives ruined, in the name of efficiency and profit. That description makes it sound cold, clinical and didactic, though. It’s not. It is dreamy, hazy and phantasmic, vacillating between extreme beauty and something approaching folk horror.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Clever concept, silly execution.
‘Together’
Alison Brie and Dave Franco star as a codependent couple whose bodies start fusing together in this horror movie directed by Michael Shanks.
From our review:
In its best moments, the comedy veterans Brie and Franco pull the film in the direction of full-blown absurdist satire. The icy color palette and relatively grounded feel of the relationship drama, however, feels at odds with the film’s loonier elements. To induce both laughs and jitters is a marker of quality in the world of horror, but “Together” ultimately doesn’t strike either chord to its fullest potential.
In theaters. Read the full review.
A good time with bad guys.
‘The Bad Guys 2’
A group of animal bank robbers try their hand at doing good for a change in this animated movie.
From our review:
The directors Pierre Perifel and JP Sans put the narrative across with a blithe bounciness, and the all-star voice actors play along nicely. … “The Bad Guys 2” is no masterpiece — the filmmakers are more enamored with fart-in-a-spacesuit gags than even most kids are likely to be — but it is goofy fun.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Critic’s Pick
Seeking asylum, finding community.
‘Souleymane’s Story’
This naturalistic drama directed by Boris Lojkine centers on an immigrant from Guinea who works as a food delivery courier in Paris while preparing for his asylum interview.
From our review:
With a constantly moving, mostly hand-held shooting style, Lojkine tells his story in the key of subtlety and raw feeling. He steers clear of sentimentality, instead showing the indispensability of mutual support in quotidian interactions.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Low marks for an academic romance.
‘My Oxford Year’
During her year abroad at Oxford, Anna (Sofia Carson) fights with and falls for her professor (Corey Mylchreest) in this romance directed by Iain Morris.
From our review:
Their relationship plays out mostly to set up the film’s second half, but even when things get juicier, Mylchreest and Carson can’t seem to find much chemistry through the flat writing and direction.
Watch on Netflix. Read the full review.
Compiled by Kellina Moore.
The post 7 New Movies Our Critics Are Talking About This Week appeared first on New York Times.
