New movies to watch this weekend: See 'Weapons' in theaters, rent 'Jurassic World Rebirth,' stream 'The Pickup'

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4 days ago

Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis are back to body swapping in "Freakier Friday," this time with a new wrinkle.
Hello, Yahoo readers! My name is Brett Arnold, film critic and longtime Yahoo editor, and I'm back with another edition of Trust Me, I Watch Everything. The best horror movie in ages and one of the best movies of the year, period, is here: Zach Cregger's Weapons hits theaters nationwide, including IMAX screens. It has company at the box office: The 22-year-later Disney legacy sequel Freakier Friday also opens wide, as does Sketch, an indie gem worth seeking out that kids and adults will both enjoy.
At home, the blockbuster Jurassic World Rebirth is newly available, as is The Pickup, a new action-comedy with Eddie Murphy and Pete Davidson, which is streaming on Prime Video. The Stephen King adaptation The Monkey comes to Hulu, as well as a few more new options on streaming services you might already be paying for.
Read on, because there's something here for everyone!
What to watch in theaters
Movies newly available to rent or buy
Movies newly available on streaming services you may already have
🎥 What to watch in theaters
My recommendation: Weapons
Why you should watch it: Zach Cregger's highly anticipated follow-up to his sleeper hit debut, Barbarian, sparked such a bidding war that Deadline reported Jordan Peele fired his managers after Universal and Peele's Monkeypaw Productions failed to secure the film. The script ultimately sold to New Line for a whopping $38 million. Cut to years later, the finished product is here. Its creepy trailer went viral upon debut, and its aggressive marketing campaign turned it into the horror movie of the moment.
Does it live up to the hype? It does and then some; the film exceeded my already lofty expectations. It's a stunningly confident sophomore effort from Cregger, the latest in a line of comedians-turned-horror-maestros.
The premise is chilling: When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, 2:17 a.m., a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance. The movie opens with the kids already missing. A child narrator prefaces the story, immediately setting the tone of a creepy campfire tale. The rest of the movie unfolds from the perspective of several different characters, each getting their own chapter.
The movie had been described as a "horror epic" in the vein of Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia, and that billing sets the stage well for what it is in terms of its form, without giving too much away. Its structure allows for Cregger to show off his skills as a director, constantly building up suspense and ratcheting up tension only to pull the rug out and reset, just as the audience is catching their breath. It's masterful and assured work; he's got the audience in the palm of his hands.
Every jump scare in this movie made me leap out of my seat, a rare feat for a seasoned genre vet, but the biggest surprise is how funny it is too, with all the laughs stemming naturally out of the horrors. To say this film has a crowd-pleasing final act is an understatement — the audience I saw it with was hooting and hollering, myself included.
In addition to delivering as a purely satisfying and entertaining horror movie, it's also got a lot of subtext to parse. The haunting imagery, the missing children and the focus on a community's varying responses to the tragedy can't help but evoke school shootings, and there's a single dreamlike image in the film that makes it clear that these parallels are intentional.
Maybe it's because I'm a recent father of an almost 2-year-old, but I found it surprisingly affecting and thought-provoking by the end, when it becomes a different kind of tragic and haunting story. It feels like a movie that's channeling modern anxieties through horror the old-fashioned way and eschewing the more modern mode of letting the subtext become the text. Barbarian's commentary on the #MeToo movement felt hard to miss, for example, but someone could watch Weapons, solely focus on the horror elements, and maybe never even pick up on the real-life terror it mirrors.
I haven't stopped thinking about Weapons since the credits rolled, and I can't wait to catch it again. Zach Cregger just made an instant horror classic.
What other critics are saying: It's got a rare 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, as of this writing. Variety's Peter Debruge nails it, writing, "Cregger has achieved something remarkable here, crafting a cruel and twisted bedtime story of the sort the Brothers Grimm might have spun." Mark Kennedy at the Associated Press says, "It will, at the very least, make you feel a little dread when the clock hits 2:17 a.m."
How to watch: Weapons is in theaters nationwide on Aug. 8.
Get tickets
Bonus recommendation: Sketch
Why you should watch it: This live-action fantasy adventure movie for kids is a breath of fresh air as far as family-friendly flicks are concerned. It's an original idea, though it sports a premise that's essentially "what if Harold and the Purple Crayon was Jumanji?"
When a young girl's sketchbook falls into a strange pond, her drawings come to life — chaotic, real and on the loose. As the town descends into chaos, her family must reunite and stop the monsters they never meant to unleash. Staples of comedy television D'Arcy Carden and Tony Hale star as the adults, but the kids steal the show. Young lead Bianca Berry is terrific in a tough role, and the other young actors surrounding her are hilarious.
The movie is at its best when the kids are just being kids. It's honest about how children would behave around one another, and there are tons of great gags mined from that. Sketch gets the little details just as right as it does its high-concept sci-fi "drawings come to life" stuff. The emotional beats work too, as the "dead mom" storyline that normally serves as background fodder in a Pixar movie is actually woven deftly into the concept and narrative.
Sketch harkens back to an era of children's movies that actually starred kids instead of animated blobs — think The Goonies — and the kids being so charming and laugh-out-loud funny takes it far. It's a real gem the whole family can enjoy.
What other critics are saying: It's beloved! Kristy Puchko at Mashable calls it "terrific" and writes that it's a "fantastically fun and heartwarming movie with a slathering of weird that makes it a real treat." The Daily Beast's Nick Schager calls it the family film of the summer and says "it's a full-bodied triumph bursting with humor, tenderness, and imagination."
How to watch: Sketch is now in theaters nationwide.
Get tickets
🤔 But that's not all!
If you are in any way nostalgic for 2003's Freaky Friday starring Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis, you will find a lot to love about Freakier Friday, the legacy sequel that reunites that duo and throws even more body swaps into the mix. While the movie is definitely messier and clunkier than the original — when it gets bogged down by plot details, it feels endless — it's much funnier than its predecessor. Jamie Lee Curtis more than lives up to her terrific performance from the first film. Vanessa Bayer of Saturday Night Live fame absolutely steals the show any time she's onscreen, earning big laughs with every line. It's also nice to see Lohan in a real movie again that's not debuting on a streaming service. Millennial superfans should keep an eye out for Mean Girls and The Parent Trap references. Get tickets.
💸 Movies newly available to rent or buy
My recommendation: Jurassic World Rebirth
Why you should watch it: The latest entry in the long-running franchise was another box-office smash, and it's now available to watch without leaving the comfort of your couch (that's hopefully equipped with some killer surround sound).
Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey and Mahershala Ali replace previous Jurassic World stars Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, playing a group of mercenaries hired by a pharmaceutical company to infiltrate an island full of dinosaurs and obtain DNA that could lead to medical breakthroughs.
If that all sounds very familiar, that's because it is, and the movie makes no bones (pun intended) about the fact that there's a formula being followed here. Filmmaker Gareth Edwards knows he's making a dinosaur set piece delivery vehicle and colors within those lines expertly.
Edwards is a great fit for the material since he's a visual effects maestro, and the CGI dinos look better here than they ever have, even if that practical animatronic touch is largely missed. You can also see and feel inspiration from a bunch of other non-Jurassic films, from Spielberg classics like Jaws and Indiana Jones to other genre staples like King Kong.
Jurassic World Rebirth doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it doesn't have to. If you're looking for a fresh helping of dinosaur-based mayhem, it hits the spot.
What other critics are saying: It's an even split! Kennedy from the AP praises it as "superb," writing that the filmmakers, like the film's mercenaries, have the same mission: "Going back to the source code to recapture the magic of Steven Spielberg's 1993 blockbuster original. They've thrillingly succeeded." Amy Nicholson at the Los Angeles Times, however, was not a fan, writing, "The series itself has gotten so bored with the beasties that it continues to invent new ugly mutants."
How to watch: Jurassic World Rebirth is now available to rent or buy on Amazon, Apple TV and other VOD platforms.
Rent or buy 'Jurrasic World Rebirth'
But that's not all!
This debut feature from Eva Victor was beloved at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and is now available to all. In it, something bad happened to Agnes. But life goes on … for everyone around her, at least. It's a very personal and emotional film, using comedy to make a tough subject go down easier. What could be more honest than that? It's a heartfelt and surprisingly funny watch that announces the arrival of Victor as a new voice. Rent or buy.
📺 Movies newly available on streaming services you may have
My sort-of recommendation: The Pickup
Why you should watch it: The Pickup is an action-comedy that's way more focused on the action than mining as many laughs as possible out of its trio of comic leads, which is a real shame considering how funny we know these performers can be.
In the film, a routine cash pickup takes a wild turn when mismatched armored truck drivers Russell (Eddie Murphy) and Travis (Pete Davidson) are ambushed by ruthless criminals led by savvy mastermind Zoe (Keke Palmer). In this straight-to-streaming heist, the main takeaway is that it should be illegal to put Murphy in your movie and force him to be the straight man.
It's a better-than-average action flick as far as streaming-era fare goes — you can tell they actually did real stunts with real people vs. doing it digitally, which can go a long way — but when you factor in that it pretty much wastes a terrific cast, it's hard to muster much excitement for it.
Somebody must spring Murphy from his streaming-era prison, and they could break out Adam Sandler too if they're already doing the crime. Comedies deserve to be seen in theaters with others, laughing in a room full of strangers, not alone on your couch! But they should also strive to be better than this.
What other critics are saying: Sadly, most agree it's a dud. Andrew Lawrence, writing for the Guardian, eviscerated it, writing that it's "worse than Norbit." Though Lovia Gyarkye at the Hollywood Reporter liked it well enough, arguing that the chemistry between Murphy and Davidson works.
How to watch: The Pickup is now streaming on Prime Video.
Stream 'The Pickup'
Bonus recommendation: The Monkey
Why you should watch it: If Final Destination: Bloodlines left you craving more disgusting bodily destruction that hits in a horrific yet silly manner, The Monkey also scratches that very specific itch. It's based on a Stephen King short story and written and directed by Osgood Perkins, the man behind Longlegs and son of horror legend Anthony Perkins of Psycho fame.
When twin brothers find a mysterious wind-up monkey, a series of outrageous deaths tear their family apart. Twenty-five years later, the monkey begins a new killing spree, forcing the estranged brothers to confront the cursed toy.
When I recommended it previously, I wrote that despite its comic tone, The Monkey is poignant. The filmmaker's own history of personal tragedies, including that his mother died in the 9/11 attacks, makes him the ideal candidate for a movie about how one deals with the randomness of death. It's equal parts a send-up of the 'this horror movie is actually about grief' trend and an earnest take on one. What is there left to do in the face of death but laugh?
What other critics are saying: Reviews are mostly positive, like William Bibbiani's take from TheWrap, which calls it "a sick and twisted work of comic genius where the punchlines punch so hard you'll explode." Frank Scheck at the Hollywood Reporter, however, called it "aggravating," writing that "the problem is that the deaths are so cartoonish that they become neither horrific nor funny."
How to watch: The Monkey starts streaming on Hulu Thursday.
Stream 'The Monkey'
But that's not all!
: This endearing crowd-pleaser is about the unexpectedly moving relationship between characters played by John Leguizamo and Euphoria star Barbie Ferreira. It's a true story about a young woman with a father who neglects her. She connects with a stranger on Facebook who just so happens to have the same name, first and last, as her dad. As I wrote when it hit VOD, there's plenty of sadness here, but it's a tearjerker more in an inspiring way rather than a tragic one. Also, there's a reveal in the credits likely to make you well up all over again. Now streaming on Hulu.
This movie depicts four interconnected stories taking place at real locations and during real historical events in Oakland, Calif., in 1987. It plays like an inside joke that maybe you'll be privy to, but I personally was not. Freaky Tales starts streaming Aug. 8 on HBO Max.
This beautifully shot folk horror film starring Caleb Landry Jones is set in Scotland during the Middle Ages. In a time of economic turmoil, local villagers scapegoat three strangers. It functions as a parable for the modern world, as this genre is wont to do. Harvest starts streaming Aug. 8 on Mubi.
That's all for this week — we'll see you next week at the movies!