Clockwise from top left: Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (Image: Paramount Pictures), The Northman (Photo: Focus Features), The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent (Photo: Lionsgate), Apollo 10 1/2 (Image: Netflix)Graphic: Libby McGuire
It’s springtime at the cineplex, also known as that uncertain stretch between the end of Oscar season and the return of summer blockbusters. That doesn’t mean moviegoers don’t have plenty of releases to look forward to, though. Horror fans will be satiated with You Won’t Be Alone, We’re All Going To The World’s Fair, and even the latest Sony-Marvel superhero entry Morbius. Those pining for Chris Pine have back-to-back offerings to check out, whether they’re in the mood for an action-thriller or a spy-thriller. Meanwhile, Better Nate Than Ever, the Sonic The Hedgehog sequel, and The Bad Guys have family-friendly audiences covered. Oh, and how could we forget: Nicolas Cage is playing himself in a movie called The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. Need we say more? Read on for the must-see films—appearing at the theater and in your living room—that belong on your radar this April.
Apollo 10 1/2
Following in the footsteps of Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, Richard Linklater returns to animated filmmaking with Apollo 10½, a positively precious tale about a Houston man (Jack Black) recalling stories from his life, including a trip to the moon in a craft that NASA somehow failed to build for the proportions of an adult astronaut. Linklater’s skill at weaving character studies and an ephemeral sense of nostalgia—for more innocent, less responsible, wilder and more impactful times—is virtually unparalleled. And telling this story within the context of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing, a pivotal time for our country as well as a flashpoint for kids dreaming impossible dreams, hints that one man’s daydreams may speak to many viewers’ abandoned fantasies. [Todd Gilchrist]
The Bubble
Judd Apatow co-writes and directs this pandemic-era comedy about the production of the sci-fi sequel Cliff Beasts 6, which must go on, per the studio, despite the worldwide shutdown of, well, everything due to COVID. Karen Gillan plays Carol Cobb, reluctantly returning to the imaginary franchise after abandoning it for more ambitious projects, while Leslie Mann, David Duchovny, and Keegan-Michael Key are her different-degrees of disgruntled costars who leap back into the series despite the exasperating protocols and demoralizing loneliness of isolating in a hotel where Cliff Beasts is being shot. Whether or not you want to watch a bunch of overprivileged movie stars complaining about their overprivileged COVID experiences, there’s much to mine from the pressure-cooker containment of so much comedic talent in one place. [Todd Gilchrist]
You need both leading-man energy and action-hero bona fides to pull off a twisty, shoot-’em-up thriller like director Tarik Saleh’s . Luckily, Chris Pine has both in spades; he’s the kind of actor who becomes more riveting as the odds are increasingly stacked against him. Ben Foster, Gillian Jacobs, and an intense Kiefer Sutherland round out this story of a discharged Special Forces officer whose work for a mysterious private contracting company devolves into a high-octane, bullet-riddled thrill ride. [Jack Smart]
Morbius
Sony’s Marvel Cinematic Universe-adjacent franchise adds another layer with Morbius, the story of a scientist who accidentally turns himself into a vampire while seeking a cure for the rare blood disease from which he suffers. There’s no word on whether star Jared Leto drank real blood or otherwise pestered costars Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, Jared Harris, Al Madrigal, and Tyrese Gibson with his method-acting behavior while on set. But if superheroes are going to save the box office, as did in December, then Morbius has the scale to keep audiences engaged while they wait for Marvel-proper adventures like Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, which arrives in May. [Todd Gilchrist]
Even Sundance Film Festival audiences—an eclectic, horror-friendly bunch—were blown away by Goran Stolevski’s directorial debut . The Australian-Macedonian filmmaker combines body horror with ethereal spirituality in this tale of a young woods-witch haunting a 19th-century Macedonian mountain village. continues to expand her catalog of windswept mystery-horror stories after , and is joined by Alice Englert, Carloto Cotta, and Sara Klimoska all as the different “skins” that said witch is trying on. [Jack Smart]
Better Nate Than Ever
Theater kids young and old, assemble! Your people need you! The long-overdue screen adaptation of Tim Federle’s hit YA novel Better Nate Than Ever arrives on Disney+ to make its musical theater–centric story literally sing. Directed and adapted by the author, the musical comedy stars newcomer Rueby Wood as the titular middle schooler whose dreams of a star-studded life on Broadway take him on a wild adventure in the Big Apple. The brilliant Lisa Kudrow co-stars as his Queens-dwelling Aunt Heidi. This movie figures to be so heartwarming that it’ll count as great cardio. [Jack Smart]
Sonic The Hedgehog 2
No, the first Sonic The Hedgehog movie was . And no, we’re not—strictly speaking—“looking forward” to the sequel. But the little blue dude, voiced by Ben Schwartz, is indeed reaching theaters this April—and if that isn’t an oddly comforting sign that the world is back in some way, then we don’t know what is. Jim Carrey and James Marsden reprise their live-action roles from the original, while Idris Elba joins the formulaic fun as the voice of animated character Knuckles. [Alison Foreman]
Aline
Aline doesn’t look that unusual from afar, but trust us when we say that this unauthorized French-language biopic of pop singer Celine Dion is one of the strangertitles out this spring. In the oddity, writer-director-star Valérie Lemercier plays Canadian singer “Aline” (again, unauthorized!) at multiple ages, including just 5- and 12-years-old. We haven’t witnessed Aline yet, but we’re eager to get in on the magic/madness that comes with flagrant disregard for audience expectations. [Alison Foreman]
Ambulance
Michael Bay never does anything small, but in comparison to the five Transformers movies he made between 2007 and 2017, this story of a heist gone wrong seems like an intimate character study. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as a veteran who enlists his adoptive brother (played by star Yahya Abdul-Mateen) to rob a bank to get the money for his wife’s life-saving surgery. What ensues is nothing less than a citywide chase after a cop gets shot during the heist, and an ambulance EMT (played by costar Eiza Gonzalez) becomes their getaway driver—with an injured cop riding along as a passenger. It’s probably too much to ask for a substantial degree of plausibility from a Michael Bay movie, but on the big screen nobody blows stuff up better, so this should provide a welcome reason to return to the theater. [Todd Gilchrist]
Cow
First First Cow and now Cow: Cattle are finally getting the movie-star treatment they deserve. Oscar-winning visionary Andrea Arnold delivers a cinematic venture as beautiful as it is simple, a documentarian depiction of a single cow’s life that seeks to illuminate their vital role in agriculture. Based on the trailer, the film looks to be dialogue-free, using only music to underscore this animal’s nobility; it feels like Arnold is testing herself as a filmmaker, stripping the process down to only herself and one wordless protagonist. If her goal is to make us cry while watching a cow in a field, it’s working. [Jack Smart]
All The Old Knives
If you’re in that Venn diagram overlap between espionage thriller and Chris Pine fan, April is a good time for you. More haunting—and sultry—than Pine’s other offering this month, The Contractor, this Amazon feature from Danish director Janus Metz Pedersen is a tantalizing tale of long-buried suspicions. All The Old Knives finds Pine and the always-excellent Thandiwe Newton navigating their bond as former lovers, displaying their shrewdness as fellow spies and, as memories of a CIA job gone bad resurface, facing the possibility that one might assassinate the other. [Jack Smart]
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore
Who’s ready to check in on Jude Law’s hunky Dumbledore? Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore invites us back to the Harry Potter-verse in the latest expansion of J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world. This title picks up where 2018’s The Crimes Of Grindelwald left off, with Hogwarts professor Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), his CGI-powered magizoological menagerie, and a gaggle of heroic misfits (Dan Fogler, Jessica Williams, William Nadylam, Victoria Yeates) all in tow. The gang is charged with taking down the sinister Gellert Grindelwald (now played by Mads Mikkelsen, after Colin Farrell and Johnny Depp—it’s complicated) as World War II approaches. [Jack Smart]
Father Stu
There are so many twists in the life of Father Stuart Long that even the trailer for producer-star Mark Wahlberg’s adaptation feels like four or five biopics instead of one. Football player, boxer, actor, motorcycle accident victim, born-again Catholic and, finally, priest—the guy’s trajectory seems predestined for Hollywood. Co-starring and Mel Gibson as Stu’s parents, and written and directed by Gibson’s partner Rosalind Ross in her feature film debut, Father Stu seems to walk the line between edgy and feel-good, like the best depictions of extraordinary everymen do. [Jack Smart]
The Northman
First witches in Puritan-era New England, then lighthouse-keepers somewhere in the middle of the ocean, and now Vikings; director Robert Eggers has proven he’s one of today’s most ambitious historical globetrotters with The Witch, The Lighthouse, and The Northman. Viking warrior prince Amleth’s tale of familial revenge first inspired Shakespeare to pen Hamlet, and now brings the intense(ly ripped) Alexander Skarsgård to the big screen. The supporting cast—Nicole Kidman, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, and Björk (yes, Björk)—is reason enough to take in this action-packed epic. [Jack Smart]
The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent
In this unconventional buddy comedy, Nicolas Cage plays himself opposite Pedro Pascal as a Cage-obsessed billionaire. When this uber-wealthy fanboy offers to pay Cage $1 million to attend his birthday party in Spain, the Face/Off actor agrees. But it’s not long before the seemingly reasonable adventure spins totally out of control—y’know, like Nicolas Cage adventures do. Sharon Horgan, Ike Barinholtz, Alessandra Mastronardi, Jacob Scipio, Lily Sheen, Neil Patrick Harris, Tiffany Haddish, and more also appear. [Alison Foreman]
We’re All Going To The World’s Fair
Fans of indie horror have been champing at the bit for Jane Schoenbrun’s narrative feature debut since it dazzled at Sundance last February. Now,arrives in theaters at last. The utterly electric Anna Cobb leads this chilling coming-of-age story as Casey, a lonely teenager who decides to participate in a scary online “game” born of creepypasta and Candyman-like incantations. The result is an intimate low-budget gem as unsettling as it is insightful, and one that’s sure to be a cult favorite. [Alison Foreman]
The Bad Guys
Australian author Aaron Blabey began writing his children’s book series The Bad Guys because he was bored by the goody-goody characters in his son’s books. Now Hollywood is ready to challenge the notion that cutesy talking animals are always heroic with this animated romp from Dreamworks primed to appeal to kids and parents alike. The adaptation’s gang of carnivorous criminals is voiced by Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Craig Robinson, Anthony Ramos, and Awkwafina. [Jack Smart]
