A worldwide box-office juggernaut arrives in the U.S. in Ne Zha II, Margaret Qualley plays a private eye in Honey Don't! and a story of social striving takes a turn in Lurker. They're all in cineplexes this weekend.
Ne Zha II
In theaters Friday
Head-spinningly gorgeous in every frame, if also head-scratchingly impenetrable in many scenes (at least for some Western audiences), this mix of a 16th century novel, Chinese mythology and breathtaking digital imagery is already a worldwide box-office juggernaut. It's taken in about $2 billion worldwide (more than Inside Out 2, Hollywood's top-grossing animated film). And the film is likely to win new fans, as it's only now being released in the U.S. with an English voice cast. The story centers on best buds — Ne Zha, a demonic, literally flaming tyke, and ethereal, water-based do-gooder Ao Bing — who were born from two halves of the same celestial pearl.
As the film begins, they are rebuilding their physical forms after whatever happened in the first Ne Zha film. But before the rebuilding can happen, events conspire to trap them both in a single body. Complications, adventures (involving lava falling from the sky and dragons rising from the sea) and enough character-introducing to fuel an Avengers trilogy ensue. There's perhaps seven movies' worth of plot, none of it terribly crucial if what you're intent on is absorbing the astonishing visuals from an animation team of thousands. Otherworldly, and consistently surprising — it had never occurred to me that a cherry blossom tree could look so threatening — they are reason enough to see the film, though their gorgeousness is undercut slightly by character animation and an English voice cast that are less-than-subtle. (Disney/Pixar do those aspects better). – Bob Mondello
Honey Don't!
In theaters Friday
This middle film in what Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke are calling a "lesbian B-movie trilogy" centers on Honey (Margaret Qualley), an improbably glamorous private eye in dry and dusty Bakersfield, Calif. Honey investigates philandering spouses and assorted other miscreants, her heels clicking as her wisecracks keep a flirty local cop (who refuses to accept that Honey prefers girls) at bay. A suspicious traffic fatality has her looking at randy reverend Drew Devlin (Chris Evans) whose cultish prosperity-gospel church supports itself by dealing drugs, even as she pursues romance with emotionally taciturn, but hot-to-trot policewoman MG Falcone (Aubrey Plaza). As in Coen and Cooke's Drive-Away Dolls, which also starred Qualley, this film's rapid-fire patter and often raunchy sight gags are amusing for a while. But as they pile up pointlessly, and the plot thins, it gets harder to know why we should care. – Bob Mondello
Lurker
In theaters Friday
Matthew (Théodore Pellerin) begins Lurker as a gawky, colorless 20-something working in an L.A. clothing store, the kind of boutique establishment where there's more visible open space than there is merchandise for sale. During a shift he catches the attention of Oliver (Archie Madekwe), a mid-tier pop star who makes lo-fi R&B-adjacent music but who has outsized aspirations of channeling the legendary Nile Rodgers with his next project. The next thing Matthew knows, he's invited backstage for one of Oliver's shows, peering directly into his inner-circle from just outside.
The pop star and his new barnacle are two very different people aligned in their baseline desire to carve out an identity, any identity, for themselves. As the best movies about obsession and/or parasocial relationships often go, the lines are blurry all over. Who gives vs. extracts, who's got the upper hand, who's reaping the most benefits — in any given scene, it can and does tilt in either direction.
Lurker's writer and director Alex Russell has written for the high-stress restaurant "comedy" The Bear and the bleak road-rage showdown Beef, and the essence of Russell's storytelling remains true — the insatiable desire to be noticed in the way you want is a hell of a drug. – Aisha Harris
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