<\/p>\n
Welcome to another edition of Trust Me, I Watch Everything<\/strong><\/a>, a weekly guide to all the new movies released on Friday. I’m Brett Arnold<\/a>, film critic and host of At the Movies Again<\/em><\/a>, a weekly Siskel & Ebert<\/em>-style movie review show.<\/p>\n In theaters this week are a fresh take on The Mummy<\/em> and a new action flick starring Bob Odenkirk called Normal.<\/em><\/p>\n At home, you can rent or buy Alpha, <\/em>the latest from French provocateur Julia Ducournau, as well as Reminders of Him, <\/em>adapted from the Colleen Hoover novel.<\/p>\n And on streaming services you’re likely already paying for, the action sci-fi fantasy fairy tale Dust Bunny <\/em>hits HBO Max, among several other new options.<\/p>\n Read on, as there’s a lot more, and there’s always something for everyone.<\/p>\n Why you should maybe skip it:<\/strong> If you’re wondering why a director you’ve never heard of is getting title billing, consider how many times Blumhouse has tweeted recently,<\/a> reminding people that Brendan Fraser isn’t in this one. When you add in the fact that The Mummy 4<\/em><\/a> with Fraser was, in fact, recently greenlighted, it’s easy to see why the marketing team went all in on Cronin.<\/p>\n Lee Cronin’s The Mummy <\/em>is an attempt for the filmmaker behind Evil Dead Rise <\/em>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 2-hour, 15-minute runtime, all that’s revealed is that he made a bog-standard possessed-child movie, wrapped in some Egyptian trappings.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The set-up is incredibly 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.<\/p>\n 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, <\/em>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\u2019s 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<\/a>, Cronin has sort of made one anyway.<\/p>\n It’s not all bad, though, 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 <\/em>might’ve been better off staying buried.<\/p>\n What other critics are saying: <\/strong>Reviews are generally not very kind. Benjamin Lee at the Guardian<\/a> writes: “Cronin, an Irish filmmaker who has made just two films to date, is an undeniable visual talent but his Mummy <\/em>is also absurdly, watch-checkingly overlong, tonally unsure and, fatally, not all that scary.” TheWrap’s William Bibbiani<\/a>, 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\u2019re making gross-out horror movies, it\u2019s practically a requirement.”<\/p>\n How to watch:<\/strong> Lee Cronin’s The Mummy <\/em>is now playing in theaters nationwide<\/a>.<\/p>\n Get tickets<\/a><\/p>\n Why you should see it: <\/strong>Bob Odenkirk continues his budding action hero trajectory with Normal, <\/em>another film in which the actor takes down deserving bad guys. Unlike Nobody <\/em>and its sequel, he’s just an everyday normal guy here, instead of some ex-violent badass. It’s less John Wick <\/em>and more, “What if Hot Fuzz <\/em>took place in Fargo,<\/em> and also Japanese Yakuza members are involved?”<\/p>\n In the film, Odenkirk plays the new sheriff of a small town in Minnesota, who uncovers a dark secret while investigating a botched bank robbery. What makes the role interesting is that, as the character starts to discover something is wrong, he tries his hardest to keep his nose out of it and ignore it. But the bad news persists, and he must eventually go into action-hero mode.<\/p>\n The gunfights are well-staged, and the action is largely a lot of fun, a reminder that director Ben Wheatley’s best movie was 2016’s Free Fire,<\/em> essentially a feature-length gun fight in a single location. Normal <\/em>doesn’t quite reach those highs \u2014 it’s hard to beat an 85ish-minute movie, in which 80 of those minutes are action \u2014 but it’s a fun enough twist on the relatively newly formulated “Bob Odenkirk kicks some ass” subgenre. Henry Winkler is in it too!<\/p>\n What other critics are saying: <\/strong>Reviews are pretty mixed. Katie Rife at IndieWire <\/a>writes: “Like a firecracker with a long fuse, Normal<\/em> builds up, burns fast, makes a big noise and then it\u2019s gone.” The AP’s Jake Coyle <\/a>writes: “Many of its twists aren\u2019t hard to see coming, and the movie sometimes lacks the scale needed for a sprawling battle. But a mustachioed Odenkirk with a shotgun is, by most metrics, more than enough firepower for any movie.”<\/p>\n How to watch:<\/strong> Normal <\/em>is now playing in theaters nationwide<\/a>.<\/p>\n Get tickets<\/a><\/p>\n Why you should see it: <\/strong>The latest film from French filmmaker Julia Ducournau is less of a ribald provocation than her previous body-horror efforts (Titane, Raw) <\/em>and more a tragic coming-of-age tale and family drama, which is maybe why it received such a lukewarm reception upon its debut at Cannes, the very same festival in which Titane <\/em>took the top prize.<\/p>\n Alpha, a troubled 13-year-old, lives with her single mom. Their world collapses the day she returns from school with a tattoo on her arm, as she is feared to have contracted a new lethal bloodborne disease. Her mother (Golshifteh Farahani) is particularly aware of the risks, as she’s a doctor, and also the sister of a drug addict whose habit puts him at risk of exposure to the virus.<\/p>\n People who get this disease start to look like marble statues you’d see in a museum. The movie plays like a big metaphor for the AIDS crisis and how people responded to it with paranoia and stigmatization. It also recalls the COVID-19 pandemic and evokes how a kid might come of age in the aftermath of a devastating viral disease outbreak.<\/p>\n Alpha <\/em>hasn’t left my mind, mostly due to the striking imagery of marbled humans; Ducournau has said in interviews that she “wanted to implement some sacredness, and give back dignity to the people who are in my film,” as well as those who were shunned for being HIV-infected. “I wanted to elevate their lives and build a monument to their memory through marble.\u201d If you find that sentiment deeply moving, the film will likely work for you.<\/p>\n What other critics are saying:<\/strong> They do not like it! Tomris Laffly at the AV Club<\/a> calls it “an inexplicably shallow AIDS allegory” and writes that “the disease\u2019s desiccated metaphor is so tortured that it also makes the uninviting movie that surrounds it crumble in real time.” But Jesse Hassenger at Polygon<\/a> dug it, writing: “Unlike so many horror filmmakers, Ducourneau doesn\u2019t seem fixated on inherited trauma, so much as the ongoing trauma of living in an imperfect world with a deeply fallible body.”<\/p>\n How to watch: <\/strong>Alpha<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>is\u00a0<\/em>now available to rent or buy on Apple TV<\/a>, Prime Video<\/a> and other VOD platforms.<\/p>\n Rent or buy<\/a><\/p>\n Why you might want to skip it: <\/strong>Hollywood is speedrunning Colleen Hoover adaptations, and it’s easy to see how we got here. Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s It Ends With Us<\/em> was a box-office smash hit, in spite of (or maybe because of?) all the wild headlines<\/a> and legal issues surrounding the film, which opened the floodgates for every other Hoover book to get a film adaptation.<\/p>\n Regretting You, <\/em>the one with McKenna Grace and Mason Thames, was released just months ago, and yet here we are with another one, starring It Follows\/Longlegs <\/em>lead,\u00a0<\/em>Maika Monroe, and Tyriq Withers, who was recently in Him <\/em>and the tepid I Know What You Did Last Summer <\/em>reboot.<\/p>\n But I’m getting ahead of myself, partly because I found this one rather unremarkable and more suited to the Lifetime channel than a movie theater. Reminders of Him <\/em>centers on Kenna (Monroe), a woman recently released from prison.<\/p>\n After serving five years for a tragic mistake that killed her then-boyfriend, she returns to her hometown hoping to reconnect with the young daughter she left behind after giving birth while incarcerated. Rejected by nearly everyone in her daughter\u2019s life, Kenna struggles to rebuild trust and prove she deserves a second chance, until a local bar owner becomes the only person willing to look beyond her past. As their connection deepens, both must confront whether love can survive the weight of grief and judgment.<\/p>\n The melodrama is boilerplate stuff, and I found the romance a bit off-putting: The man she meets at the bar is her deceased ex’s best friend! Thankfully, though, Monroe and Withers are both attractive and good enough actors that you actually root for them to work things out and be happy together, despite everything, including the fact that Monroe isn’t particularly convincing here as this doomed, tragic figure.<\/p>\n It’s all meant to be very complicated and emotional, but the movie doesn’t offer enough perspectives to make it work. Her dead ex-boyfriend’s parents are evil until the story demands they won’t be any more, and the movie feels like it’s slightly cheating with regard to the explanation of the accident. Frankly, it works well enough as an earnest weepie, but it’s nothing I’ll remember in a week (ironic, given the title).<\/p>\n If this one doesn’t sound like it’s for you, not to worry: Another Hoover fic, Verity<\/em>, is on deck for this October and\u00a0<\/em>has a bit of a higher profile, thanks to stars Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett. Here’s hoping the characters continue to have insane names like Diem and Ledger.<\/p>\n What other critics are saying: <\/strong>It’s currently got a 57% Rotten Tomatoes score<\/a>, and some liked it more than I did. TheWrap’s William Bibbiani writes<\/a>: “It\u2019s a whole lot of pretty good and not a lot of amazing.” IndieWire’s Kate Erbland<\/a> calls it “easily the best Hoover film adaptation yet, bolstered by strong performances and an emotional center that does not primarily rely on some kind of tortured romance (though, that\u2019s there too!).”<\/p>\n How to watch:<\/strong> Reminders of Him <\/em>is\u00a0<\/em>now available to rent or buy on Apple TV<\/a>, Prime Video<\/a> and other VOD platforms.<\/p>\n Rent or buy<\/a><\/p>\n But that’s not all…<\/strong><\/p>\n\ud83c\udfa5 What to watch in theaters<\/strong><\/h2>\n
My not-quite-a-recommendation: <\/strong>Lee Cronin’s The Mummy<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
My bonus recommendation: <\/strong>Normal<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n
\ud83d\udcb8 Movies newly available to rent or buy<\/h2>\n
My recommendation: <\/strong>Alpha<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
My bonus not-a-recommendation:<\/strong> Reminders of Him<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n