MOVIE STARS
New releases
★★½ The Beast Imagine mixing Henry James, David Lynch, and visions of AI. That’s what director Bertrand Bonello’s done here. The title nods to James’s “The Beast in the Jungle,” but “Mulholland Drive” looms much larger. The movie is challenging, ambitious, and often engaging, though less so the longer it lasts. Léa Seydoux and George MacKay star. In French and English, with subtitles. (146 min., R) (Mark Feeney)
★★½ Civil War The title conflict is American, and not the one fought in the 1860s. Writer-director Alex Garland’s assured, unnerving, and ultimately superficial film is even more character study than political commentary. Kirsten Dunst and Wagner Moura, both good, play photojournalists trying to get to a besieged Washington. Nick Offerman, inspired casting, plays the president. (109 min., R) (Mark Feeney)
Previously released
★½ Dune: Part Two Instantly forgettable second chapter in Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” franchise has some great sandworm action sequences and little else to recommend. Timothée Chalamet returns as the rumored savior of Arrakis, along with most of the cast from Part One. Christopher Walken does a walkon as the Emperor, but even he can’t liven up a movie with endless desert scenes and dialogue about the Messiah. Will be an enormous hit. (166 min., PG13) (Odie Henderson)
★★ Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire The old and new Ghostbusters teams are back in this over-plotted installment of the franchise that began in 1984. The cast from 2021’s “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” have taken over ghostbusting duties in NYC, but original Ghostbuster Egon Spengler’s granddaughter Phoebe (McKenna Grace) spends most of the movie in a stupid teenage-angst plot straight out of John Hughes’s playbook. Meanwhile, the film’s icy villain is defined by an uninteresting and overcomplicated backstory. Despite the joy of seeing Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, and especially Dan Aykroyd re-creating their roles, this movie is far less fun than it could have been. Patton Oswalt uses his cameo to walk off with the film. (115 min., PG-13) (Odie Henderson)
★½ Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire The fifth installment in the Monstercharged
Verse brings Godzilla and King Kong back together again to fight for a common cause — saving the Earth. So loaded with CGI fights that the film becomes a monotonous bore, though the King Kong segments benefit from the expressive rendering of Kong’s face. He becomes a great silent film star while Godzilla battles his way through the usual monsters and makes us wish we were watching the far superior “Godzilla Minus One.” Rebecca Hall and Brian Tyree Henry show up as dull humans
with rendering exposition while all hell breaks loose around them. For MonsterVerse fans only. (115 min., PG-13) (Odie Henderson)
★★ Kung Fu Panda 4 The beloved series featuring Jack Black’s Po the Dragon Warrior has finally run out of steam. Despite the best efforts of Viola Davis as shape-shifting villain The Chameleon, and the vocal gusto Black brings to Po, this is a pale imitation of the prior installments. Part of the problem is Zhen (Awkwafina), a character who seems poised to take over the franchise as the new Dragon Warrior. She’s obnoxious and far less charismatic than Po. Additionally, the filmmakers bring back villains and characters from the first three films, reminding us of how good they were and how limp this installment is. (94 min., PG) (Odie Henderson)
★★ Love Lies Bleeding Director Rose Glass’s follow-up to 2019’s “Saint Maud” is another tale of obsession and madness. This time, the ultra-violent, sexfilled plot involves elements of neo-noir and body horror as gym worker Lou (Kristen Stewart) falls hard for bodybuilder-drifter Jackie (Katy O’Brian) while living in the middle of nowhere. Ed Harris and Dave Franco round out the cast as very bad, violent men who underestimate the women they think they control. The squeamish need not apply once the viscera starts flying. Should be more satisfying than it is, but the film becomes bogged down by references to other, better films it keeps citing. (104 min., R) (Odie Henderson)
★★ Monkey Man In his feature-directing debut, Dev Patel, who also stars and co-wrote the script, draws on Hindu mythology and contemporary Indian politics (don’t expect a thumbs-up from Narendra Modhi) for this brutally violent action movie. Mostly, though, it’s just brutally violent. Patel’s character, Bobby, a UFC-style fighter, seeks to avenge a murder. And when Bobby avenges, he really avenges. In English and Hindi, with subtitles. (121 min., R) (Mark Feeney)
★★ Wicked Little Letters In an English seaside town in the 1920s, a spinster (Olivia Colman) is receiving poison-pen letters. Is the culprit her foul-mouthed neighbor (Jessie Buckley)? The answer isn’t obvious — until it is. When the humor isn’t forced, the moral lessons are. Buckley is a joy to watch — no surprise there — as is Eileen Atkins in a cameo. (100 min., R) (Mark Feeney)