Welcome to Trust Me, I Watch Everything, a weekly guide to all the new movies out each Friday and where to find them. This week’s buzziest release is the first Star Wars movie in nearly seven years: The Mandalorian and Grogu, Disney’s first-ever attempt to adapt a Disney+ series into a movie. But if space antics aren’t your thing, the cheap thrills horror flick Passenger delivers what it needs to.
If you’d rather have a movie night at home, you can rent or buy Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, an upsetting and nasty horror film, or the tense prison drama Wasteman.
And on streaming services you’re likely already paying for, Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair is now on Peacock after its theatrical run. It’s director Quentin Tarantino’s original vision, uniting both volumes into one epic film.
Intrigued? Let’s get into it!
🎥 What to watch in theaters
The biggest release: Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu
Why you should skip it: The Mandalorian and Grogu is easily the worst Star Wars movie, but even calling it a movie feels like giving it more credit than it deserves. It’s a feature-length episode of streaming-era television, and boy, does it look and feel like it. It’s uncinematic in pretty much every way, from the drab visuals to its repetitive structure that lacks the storytelling heft needed to make the jump from TV to film. Say what you will about The Rise of Skywalker or the prequel trilogy; at least they’re movies!
An extension of the Disney+ streaming series The Mandalorian, The Mandalorian and Grogu takes place between the original and sequel trilogies. Onscreen text, although not in the iconic crawl you may be expecting, indicates that the evil Empire has fallen, and Imperial warlords remain scattered throughout the galaxy. As the fledgling New Republic works to protect everything the Rebellion fought for, they have enlisted the help of legendary Mandalorian bounty hunter Din Djarin and his young apprentice Grogu.
The “Mandalorian” distinction means that the lead character is masked, and Pedro Pascal’s flat vocal performance doesn’t do much to make up for that fact. And although his co-lead is a puppet, a great throwback to the way these kinds of movies used to be made, there are even more entirely-CGI creations throughout. This may be in the grand Lucasian tradition, but still not as effective as, say, a tall guy in a hairy dog suit. This movie’s Chewbacca is some purple CGI guy!
There’s no real work done to upgrade the material for the big screen, so it just plays like binge-watching a few episodes of the show, with no real driving narrative force to keep you engaged. One of the plots — it’s not the plot because, remember, this movie is really just TV — revolves around Jabba the Hutt’s muscular outcast son, who actually utters something along the lines of, “Do you know how hard it is to be Jabba the Hutt’s son?” and talks about how he’s his own man in spite of his upbringing. The character is played by The Bear star and current hunk of the moment, Jeremy Allen White. Who is this for? Instead of leaning into the Andor direction that won praise, Lucasfilm has circled back to the safe space of “cute puppet antics” and nostalgic nudges.
Composer and three-time Oscar winner Ludwig Goransson is the only one to come out of this unscathed, as his terrific score does all the heavy lifting, giving the movie gravitas and energy at key moments when it otherwise has none.
When award-winning creatives like Steven Soderbergh and Damon Lindelof are openly discussing Star Wars projects falling apart, and the actual output at Disney is The Mandalorian and Grogu, a nothing movie with low stakes more concerned with selling plush dolls than appealing to newcomers or casual fans, something has gone wrong. What was once a can’t-miss theatrical event every time, as recently as 11 years ago — The Force Awakens is the highest-grossing movie ever in this country to this day — is now debuting with a collective shrug. This isn’t the way.
What other critics are saying: They’re split right down the middle, although even the positive ones aren’t super effusive or enthusiastic. Slate’s Sam Adams writes: “If The Mandalorian and Grogu isn’t the worst Star Wars movie — and it might be — it’s certainly the least: the least essential, the least engaging, the least necessary.” Robert Abele at the Los Angeles Times was kinder, writing: “One of the movie’s strong points, absent its story deficiencies, is that, across its many wordless scenes, it’s at heart a solidly rousing, delightfully icky creature feature, in the vein of a supercharged Ray Harryhausen-meets-Guillermo del Toro joint.”
How to watch: Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is now playing in theaters nationwide.
Another fun option: Passenger
Why you should see it: It’s January in May with the release of Passenger, an extremely silly horror movie that nevertheless does exactly what it says on the tin and delivers the scary goods.
After a young couple witnesses a gruesome highway accident, they soon realize they did not leave the crash scene alone. A demonic presence that won’t stop until it claims them both turns their #VanLife adventure into a nightmare. In short, it’s a haunted house movie, but set in a van.
The opening scene in particular is incredibly effective in setting the stage for what will follow; I was most impressed with how casually funny it was right off the bat, making you laugh immediately with characters you’ve only just met. The scene that unfolds is tense, and the cut-to-title had the crowd I saw it with screaming with delight.
You’ll be checking your watch, however, any time the movie slows down to let the characters talk about their inner lives. It’s not the kind of movie that requires much relationship backstory, and whenever the boyfriend gets earnest about his ambitions for his van, it’s hard not to laugh at their thinly drawn nature. But all the spooky set pieces are well-constructed enough and will make you jump, so it’s worth enduring the boring bits.
Norwegian filmmaker André Øvredal has yet to top his debut feature, The Autopsy of Jane Doe, but Passenger is his most fun work since that truly great horror film, after the duds that were The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and Umma, which nobody saw.
Passenger is best experienced in a packed house with a game audience. You’ll have a blast, but it’s not something you’ll still be thinking about on Monday. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
What other critics are saying: Not everyone is as kind to genre flicks as I am, so it’s more of a mixed bag. Alison Foreman at IndieWire is on my side, however, writing that it “may lack the interpersonal and mythological complexities required of a proper, obsession-worthy classic. But Øvredal is nevertheless skilled at trapping his audience inside a disorienting, semi-liminal space where anything can happen.” The Guardian’s Benjamin Lee was not wowed, writing: “We’re never really thrust onto the road with the film, occupying a seat alongside them. Instead, we’re stuck half-watching from afar, dozing our way through a journey that takes us, and the horror genre at large, back rather than forward.”
How to watch: Passenger is now playing in theaters nationwide.
But that’s not all…
Naomi Ackie, Taylour Paige and Keke Palmer in I Love Boosters.
My colleague Kelsey Weekman caught another new film she recommends:
I Love Boosters: Director Boots Riley is also a musician, activist and fashion icon, and it shows in I Love Boosters. The film follows a merry gang of thieves who steal from high-fashion stores and sell their goods at a discount, like multicolored, live-action Robin Hoods. Corvette (Keke Palmer), Sade (Naomi Ackie) and Mariah (Taylour Paige) make up the Velvet Gang, who get into Looney Tunes-esque antics as they rob stores and try to survive in a purposefully overpriced world. Designer and maniacal rich person Christie Smith (Demi Moore) insults them and steals one of Corvette’s designs, leading them to concoct a scheme to get back at her that gets more absurd and sci-fi at every turn. It’s best you don’t learn any more of the plot, because it’s so ridiculous, I was howling and mouthing “what on earth” to the stranger sitting next to me every few minutes. The visual gags, like a skyscraper apartment that leans at a 45-degree angle and a boulder-like ball of bills constantly hurtling toward Corvette, heighten the absurdity of a bleak situation. It’s hard to afford to be alive unless you are born lucky or get lucky. In real life, it’s not fun to look around at everything that’s wrong with the world and muse about how it could be made better. It feels hopeless. The physical comedy and maximalist visuals of Boosters make that conversation a little more palatable. It’s not a playbook for a revolution, but a moment of levity that makes taking action seem more possible.
💸 Movies newly available to rent or buy
The biggest release: Lee Cronin’s The Mummy
Why you should maybe skip it: If you’re wondering why a director you’ve never heard of is getting title billing, consider how many times Blumhouse has tweeted recently, reminding people that Brendan Fraser isn’t in this one. When you add in the fact that The Mummy 4 with Fraser was, in fact, recently greenlighted, it’s easy to see why the marketing team went all in on Cronin.
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is an attempt for the filmmaker behind Evil Dead Rise to make a name for himself by utilizing “IP” we all know and ostensibly making it his own. Unfortunately, by the end of its unforgivable two-hour, 15-minute runtime, all that’s revealed is that he made a bog-standard possessed-child movie, wrapped in some Egyptian trappings.
In the film, the young daughter of a journalist disappears into the desert without a trace. Eight years later, her broken family is shocked when she’s returned to them. What should be a joyful reunion soon turns into a living nightmare as she starts to transform into something truly horrifying.
The set-up is upsetting and harrowing in a visceral way, especially for me, a father of a young daughter: We witness a woman put a curse on a young girl and whisk her away, and then are left to sit in that family’s trauma as they must attempt to move on with their lives, despite this devastating unsolved kidnapping. What’s most disappointing is that this premise is actually really scary, as is the “reveal” about exactly why this mummification process took place, but the movie’s shift from scares to laughs doesn’t work, nor does its pivot to becoming an extremely familiar, derivative possession flick.
The problem with the movie, largely, is one of tone management; it’s simply too traumatic a situation for the gross-out fest that it ultimately becomes. There’s a sequence that feels ripped out of Scary Movie 3, a jarring energy shift that worked for me less and less as the film went on. Every time it goes for a laugh, something feels off. It’s the second time in a row Cronin has thoroughly convinced me that he’s no Sam Raimi, despite really trying. By the time what is essentially a Raimian Deadite shows up, it’s clear that, despite turning down another Evil Dead movie, Cronin has sort of made one anyway.
It’s not all bad, however, as the gore does deliver on occasion in ways you likely haven’t seen before, including a particularly nasty sequence involving a toenail. The movie is impressively mean, which I normally appreciate in a big studio movie, but it rubbed me the wrong way because of the tonal whiplash. Despite a promising start, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy might’ve been better off staying buried.
What other critics are saying: Reviews are generally not very kind. Benjamin Lee at the Guardian writes: “Cronin, an Irish filmmaker who has made just two films to date, is an undeniable visual talent but his Mummy is also absurdly, watch-checkingly overlong, tonally unsure and, fatally, not all that scary.” TheWrap’s William Bibbiani, however, dug it, writing: “Cronin has an uncanny knack for human mutilation, which would probably be a bad thing in any other context, but if you’re making gross-out horror movies, it’s practically a requirement.”
How to watch: The Mummy is now available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Prime Video and other VOD platforms.
Another option: Wasteman
Why you should watch it: This unbelievably tense and upsetting prison drama is a two-hander in which both performances really elevate the lurid material.
Taylor’s hopes for a fresh start post-parole are jeopardized by the arrival of his new cellmate, Dee. As Dee takes Taylor under his wing, a vicious attack tests their bond, forcing Taylor to choose between protecting Dee and his own chances at freedom.
It’s a movie about the prison system and how it can corrupt even those trying to do the right thing within it, and what redemption looks like. David Jonsson, who you may recognize from scene-stealing turns in Alien: Romulus and The Long Walk, and Tom Blyth, of the most recent Hunger Games flick and the Netflix rom-com The People We Meet on Vacation, are both sensational here.
Wasteman is a suffocating and tragic film that really makes you understand how violence begets violence. It’s a terrific actors’ showcase for its two stars.
What other critics are saying: It sports a rare 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. The Los Angeles Times’ Tim Grierson agrees on the performances, writing: “Like Jonsson, Blyth hints at a whole universe inside his character simply by the way he quietly listens and observes.” Clarisse Loughrey at the Independent echoes this by saying that “it feels like Jonsson is on the precipice of something major.”
How to watch: Wasteman is now available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Prime Video and other VOD platforms.
But that’s not all…
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie heads to home screens.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie: This sequel to 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which coasted on the success of the iconic Nintendo video game name brand to the tune of $1.3 billion, is actually an improvement on the first film, despite making a lot of the same mistakes. It’s a fool’s errand to try to review The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, as there’s simply not much to it. It’s grossed nearly a billion dollars thus far, and your kids will probably watch it that many times. It also not-so-slyly introduces the concept of the Nintendo Cinematic Universe, so get used to seeing IP from your childhood on the big screen. Next up? A live-action Legend of Zelda! Let’s hope that those games’ more cinematic nature leads to better adaptations than these.
📺 Movies newly available on streaming services you may already have
The biggest release: Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair
Why you should watch it: It took well over 20 years, but Quentin Tarantino fans across the nation can finally see Kill Bill the way it was always meant to be seen: as a single, nearly four-and-a-half-hour experience.
Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006, but has been a rare object of obsession for cinephiles ever since Harvey Weinstein persuaded Tarantino to split it into two parts, for commercial reasons.
That print from the Cannes festival, complete with French subtitles, already plays fairly regularly at one of Tarantino’s movie theaters in Los Angeles, but now is the first time that the filmmaker’s original vision is available to the masses. And it’s every bit as glorious as fans of the film have hoped for, and a perfect way for a new generation of moviegoers to discover it.
In the film, Tarantino’s fourth feature, a former assassin (Uma Thurman) wakes up from a coma after her former boss and lover, Bill (David Carradine), shoots her in the head and steals her unborn child during her wedding rehearsal. She soon embarks on a bloody quest for revenge, hunting down members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad before confronting Bill himself.
The differences in this version are minuscule but deeply impactful. The moment it would have transitioned from Vol. 1 to Vol. 2 includes some extended dialogue and has an entire scene — and another limb — excised. And a major reveal meant to entice audiences to return is now saved for the climactic final act, which is certainly way more effective.
The legendary “House of Blue Leaves” sequence, in which the Bride faces off against the Crazy 88, famously rendered in black and white to secure an R-rating due to its over-the-top, bloody violence, is now in full color and extended, including some of the goriest bits that were previously cut. The animated sequence depicting O-Ren Ishii’s past now has an extra scene — and it’s killer.
The most striking thing about watching the film in one sitting is Thurman’s outstanding performance, which was completely ignored by the Academy both years the films were eligible. Had they been released as one, as originally intended, it’s hard to imagine Thurman not earning a nomination. It’s such a commanding movie-making turn that the lack of a nomination and the trajectory of her career post-Kill Bill really smarts; had Oscar voters seen it uninterrupted, it might’ve been a different story.
In the context of his filmography, Kill Bill stands out as possibly the most quintessentially Tarantino film, as it feels most steeped in his various influences, synthesizing them into something new, entirely unique and exhilarating. It’s the total package as far as cinematic experiences go, complete with one of the most memorable and brilliantly curated soundtracks of all time and some of the most electric filmmaking of his entire career.
What other critics are saying: They say: Go see it! Sean Burns at WBUR sums it up nicely: “Kill Bill is electrifying, frustrating, revealing, impeccably crafted and about as thrillingly, embarrassingly self-indulgent as one might expect from a prodigiously gifted, grown adult man given seemingly limitless resources to make a four-and-a-half-hour movie about a team of sexy female assassins named after poisonous snakes.” And Mark Dujsik of MarkReviewsMovies.com says it took 22 years, but it was worth the wait.
How to watch: Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair is now streaming on Peacock.
Another option: The Bride
Why you should skip it: Maggie Gylenhaal’s primal scream of a film, The Bride!, really earns that exclamation point, although it ultimately leaves you with the impression that a question mark would’ve been more fitting. It’s one of those films critics talk about as “ambitious” or a “big swing,” which is code for “it cost a ton of money and is an absolute mess in every way.”
This reimagining of Bride of Frankenstein opens with newly minted Oscar winner Jessie Buckley portraying Mary Shelley, the long-deceased author of Frankenstein, as a sort of vengeful ghost here to introduce a sequel that’s worthy of her. It then sets up the convoluted actual story, which involves Shelley inhabiting, by way of possession, a 1930s flapper/gangster’s moll named Ida, who is dead a scene after she’s introduced. The dynamic here is best described as “Ida is Gollum, and Mary Shelley is Smeagol,” which is a sentence I can’t believe I’m typing, and a concept I can’t believe made it from script to screen in this mega-budget movie. It’s a big choice that doesn’t work, and Buckley’s overacting is off-putting. It’s not all her fault, however, as the role was doomed on a script level, and nobody could’ve made those histrionics palatable.
We are soon introduced to Christian Bale’s Frankenstein’s monster, aka Frank, as he seeks out a new doctor to help make him a companion. He’s spent many years as a lonely drifter and would like to have “intercourse.” Bale gives the best and perhaps only grounded performance in the film, really making you feel that loneliness and yearning for a partner in crime. That sentiment becomes literal when the pair become lovers on the lam in a Bonnie and Clyde subplot that leads to a half-assed detective yarn featuring Gylenhaal’s real-life husband, Peter Sarsgaard, as a crime-solving buffoon and Penélope Cruz playing the tired cliché of the secretary who proves to be a more competent detective than he is.
All of this nonsense is meant to serve the feminist ideals at its center, which may be well-meaning but come off as completely dated and first-thought. The messaging often manifests in very literal ways, like when Buckley shouts “Me too!” over and over, or when their crime spree inspires women across the country to don the Bride’s ink-splotched look, for reasons that are never explained and are never mentioned again. There’s no shortage of ideas presented here; the problem is that none of them are fleshed out in any meaningful way, so the movie doesn’t seem to know what it’s actually trying to say beyond sneaking in some buzzwords.
No matter how badly you want to support risky big-budget filmmaking and/or feminist reinterpretations of iconic texts, The Bride! shows the limits of conceiving a project messaging-first and figuring out the rest afterward. It’s a mess, no matter how impressive it may be on a visual and aesthetic level.
What other critics are saying: It’s getting universally panned. Time magazine’s Stephanie Zacharek calls it “an intellectual joyride without the joy.” Rolling Stone’s David Fear, however, has a more forgiving take, writing: “The more you watch the actors give life to the central idea of a meeting of scarred bodies and equal minds, the more you feel like you’re watching something not just perversely over-the-top but personal.”
How to watch: The Bride is now streaming on HBO Max.
But that’s not all…
Olivia Holt in This Is Not A Test.
This Is Not a Test: Teen angst goes up against the undead in director Adam MacDonald’s gory indie horror based on Courtney Summers’s novel of the same name. Like a hodgepodge of The Breakfast Club and Degrassi, but in the style of The Walking Dead, the film follows a group of teenagers from a small town as they attempt to survive a zombie outbreak by barricading themselves in their local high school. It’s told through the lens of Sloane (Olivia Holt), who tries to navigate the outbreak while introspecting on her abusive family’s past and the intense apocalyptic present. The film, despite decent performances from its cast — Luke Macfarlane being the standout as a creepy teacher — arrives like a remnant of the post-Twilight YA movie boom of the 2010s: melodramatic, angsty, packed with a hot young cast, but with enough gore and swears to earn an R rating. Although there are moments of effective horror, the concept’s potential is hampered by disorienting pacing and frequent melodramatic beats. Now streaming on Shudder
Jack Ryan: Ghost War: This new straight-to-streaming movie starring John Krasinski is based on characters from the fictional Jack Ryan-verse created by Tom Clancy and a continuation of the Amazon Prime Video television series Jack Ryan. He’s reluctantly pulled back into espionage when an international covert mission unravels a deadly conspiracy. Racing against time, he joins CIA allies Mike November and James Greer and sharp MI6 officer Emma Marlowe to battle a rogue black-ops unit in a high-stakes, deeply personal fight. I never watched the show, so I didn’t make time for this one, but fans of the series should take note that it’s out now. Now streaming on Prime Video
That’s all for this week — we’ll see you next week at the movies!
Looking for more recs? Find your next watch on the Yahoo 100, our daily list of the most popular movies of the year.
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