Dystopias don't come more different than the two that open this week. One has a huge budget and sees dinosaurs lurking behind every jungle frond; the other was made on a shoestring and envisions a family farm holding out in a world where most people have already starved. And then there's a striking thriller about an intersex sex worker. Never a dull moment at the multiplex.
Jurassic World Rebirth
In theaters now
Enlivened by a fresh human cast (Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, Mahershala Ali) and freshly minted dino-stars (Titanosaurus, Mosasaurus, Quetzalcoatlus — don't worry, there won't be a quiz), this installment isn't nearly as inept as the last few. I mean, that's hardly high praise — it's still ludicrous, with an intrepid group heading, for reasons that make next to no sense, to jungle-y spots no sane person would venture near. In this case, it's because dino-blood may help cure heart disease, at least according to a slick Big Pharma guy who might as well have "dino-kibble" scrawled on his forehead. And the jungle-y spot is a fictional island off the coast of you-don't-really-care-right? Still, a good cast can make you pay attention. Johansson is reassuring ("I can guarantee your safety, more or less") as the team's mercenary muscle, and Ali is heroic as the sea captain who gets them to the island.
Screenwriter David Koepp, who penned the original Jurassic Park script 32 years ago, still has a way with an unexpected line — as when Bailey's nerdy scientist says he wants to "die in a shallow sea and get covered by silt" because that's the best way to create fossils. Because dinosaurs need snacks, the team has a few other members, and they go out on the high seas to rescue a family. And that Spielbergian bit where someone who's doing something with fierce intensity senses he or she is being watched and pivots verrrry slowly to discover that a critter the size of a small apartment building has somehow crept up mere inches away? That still works well enough that director Gareth Edwards can repeat it with pretty much all his stars, providing a bit of summer fun for the Cenozoic Era.
40 Acres
In theaters now
Fourteen years after a pandemic wiped out 98% of the planet's animals and 12 years after disrupted food chains led to a civil war and famine, farmland is the most valuable property anywhere. In the opening scene of R.T. Thorne's dystopian thriller, heavily armed intruders have penetrated the perimeter of the Freeman commune in rural Canada. A flurry of knives and hatchets later, none of the intruders makes it back out … but more are coming.
The Freeman family, headed by former Marine Hailey (Danielle Deadwyler) and Galen (Michael Greyeyes) is close-knit, well trained, self-sufficient and schooled in texts like The Proletarian's Pocketbook. Unlike most of their fellow survivors, they eat regularly, but teenage Manny (Kataem O'Connor) chafes at the family's insularity and wonders whether the sacrifice they make by being so cut off from the world is worth the safety it protects.
When he stumbles upon an enclave nearby and meets a young nurse (Milcania Diaz-Rojas), he gets a more complicated answer to that question than he expected. Thorne keeps the film both tense and surprising — he gets a big laugh by cutting short an emotional monologue at one point, and he stokes terror by lighting one action sequence exclusively with gunfire. It is, put bluntly, a striking feature directing debut.
Ponyboi
In select theaters now
This trailer includes instances of vulgar language.
A star-making calling card for intersex writer/producer/performer/queer activist River Gallo, this neon-lit New Jersey crime flick is at once a genre exercise and a nonbinary departure from crime-movie convention. It starts on Valentine's Day at a Fluff'n'Stuff laundromat where the title character is sweeping up as his pregnant best pal Angel (Victoria Pedretti) heads off for a romantic dinner with her boyfriend, laundromat boss Vinnie (Dylan O'Brien), but not before Vinnie takes Ponyboi into the back room for a quick roll in the hay. Vinnie, a pimp and a drug dealer, will shortly be in trouble with the mob in a thriller that heads off in a few too many directions for its own good.
But as a vehicle for a character who's male-identifying, female-presenting, nonbinary and constantly being pressed to make entirely binary choices, it's both provocative and entertaining. Gallo (who uses they/them pronouns) is an actor/writer who has strong feelings about all of those issues — expressed in the 2023 documentary Every Body. Here, the message is conveyed through glittering eye shadow and long raven hair by a star who's tough, sweet, sexy and vulnerable. Director Esteban Arango keeps the fever dream atmospheric and the noir steamy.
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