openingnight

new movies this week

CHAMPIONS

★★ 1/2

PG-13, 123 minutes. Starts tonight at Waterford, Westbrook, Lisbon, Madison.

In “Champions,” a group of actors with intellectual disabilities do their best playing a team of basketball players with intellectual disabilities who are also doing their best. Unfortunately, most of the other people involved in the making of this forgettable movie perform at something less than the top of their game. The central figure is Marcus (Woody Harrelson), a basketball coach stuck in the minor leagues (specifically, Des Moines) because he’s self-centered and hot-tempered. Marcus is fired after he assaults his boss (Ghostbuster Ernie Hudson) during a midgame tussle over which play to call next. So he gets drunk and accidentally slams his car into a police cruiser. His sentence is a community-service gig coaching a team called the Friends at a facility run by Julio (Cheech Marin). Marcus spends time with local Shakespearean actress Alex (Kaitlin Olson), who is the sister of Johnny (Kevin Iannucci), a man with Down syndrome who’s a Friends player, so Marcus’s feelings are likely to get more complicated. It appears possible — okay, inevitable — that Marcus will end up becoming a nicer guy. “Champions” is billed as a comedy, and while it is amiable, it doesn’t even take a shot at being hilarious. Adapted from a 2018 Spanish film, the movie is the first to be directed solo by Bobby Farrelly, who made such hits as “Dumb and Dumber” and “There’s Something About Mary” with his brother Peter. Without seeing the Spanish film, it’s impossible to know whether Mark Rizzo’s screenplay is better or worse than the original. But the script is barely functional, and several key developments are remarkably feeble.

— Mark Jenkins, Washington Post

SCREAM VI

★★ 1/2

R, 122 minutes. Starts tonight at Mystic, Waterford, Lisbon. Starts Friday at Westbrook.

In “Scream VI,” the psychotic, knife-wielding serial killer known as Ghostface is set loose on the streets of New York City. Yawn. The former terror of the fictional California town of Woodsboro has made the cross-country trip to the City That Never Sleeps, bringing his creepy mask, black cloak and impressive supply of daggers. But he’s lost in the big city, a slasher made small in his new playground. Despite the change of scenery, “Scream VI” is less a sequel and more a stutter-step, a half-movie with some very satisfying stabbings but no real progress or even movement. It’s like treading water in gore. And to fully enjoy this “sequel to the requel,” you need to have watched most of the others. The four main survivors from the fifth “Scream” are all here a year later — the Carpenter sisters, Sam and Tara (Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega) and the smug brother-and-sister duo played by Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown. The same directing team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett return, as well as the writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick, who this time layer in some critiques of social media and fame. Courteney Cox is back, too.

— Mark Kennedy, Associated Press

65

PG-13, 93 minutes. Starts tonight at Mystic, Waterford, Lisbon.

A pilot (Adam Driver) crashes on an unknown planet and realizes he’s actually stranded on Earth — 65 million years ago. A review wasn’t available.