Special screenings
Bill
4/11, comedic film about William Shakespeare, plus behind-the-scenes footage, 7 p.m., $13-$15. Theaters: SP, ST, VS. Info: fathomevents.com.
Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema
4/10, Don Quixote, 12:55 p.m., $16-$18. Theaters: COL, SF, SP, ST, VS. Info: fathomevents.com.
Cinemark Classic Series
Sun, 2 p.m.; Wed, 2 & 7 p.m., $5. 4/10, 4/13, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Theaters: ORL, ST, SF, SP, SC
GI Film Festival
4/7, short films and celebrity interviews paying tribute to military veterans, 7 p.m., $13-$15. Theaters: COL, SP, ST, VS. Info: fathomevents.com.
Midnight Brewvies
Mon, movie plus popcorn, midnight, free. Elixir, 2920 N. Green Valley Parkway, Henderson, 702-272-0000.
Saturday Movie Matinee
4/9, Spectre, 2 p.m., free. Clark County Library, 1401 E. Flamingo Road, 702-507-3400.
Sci Fi Center
Mon, Cinemondays, 8 p.m., free. 4/9, The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues, The Rocky Horror Picture Show with live shadow cast, 8 p.m., $10. 5077 Arville St., 855-501-4335, thescificenter.com.
Tuesday Afternoon at the Bijou
Tue, 1 p.m., free. 4/12, The Hitch-Hiker (1953). Clark County Library, 1401 E. Flamingo Road, 702-507-3400.
New this week
Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Bell, Peter Dinklage. Directed by Ben Falcone. 99 minutes. Rated R. A disgraced business mogul (McCarthy) has to team up with her former assistant (Bell). McCarthy nearly exhausts herself carrying the movie on her own. There are a handful of funny moments, but they’re few and far between in a movie that never quite figures out what kind of joke it’s trying to make. —JB
Theaters: AL, CAN, CH, DI, DTS, FH, GVL, GVR, ORL, PAL, RP, SF, SHO, SP, SS, ST, TS, TX, VS
Chongqing Hot Pot (Not reviewed)
Baihe Bai, Kun Chen, Hao Qin. Directed by Qing Yang. 94 minutes. Not rated. In Mandarin with English subtitles. Three restaurateurs accidentally tunnel into a neighboring bank vault and decide to take advantage of the opportunity.
Theaters: TS
Demolition 
Jake Gyllenhaal, Naomi Watts, Chris Cooper. Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée. 100 minutes. Rated R. This drama about a wealthy widower (Gyllenhaal) connecting with a melancholy single mother (Watts) features solid performances but is far too contrived and self-important. The movie loses sight of its characters’ unique emotions in its strained efforts to turn one man’s grief into a grand statement about human existence. —JB
Theaters: AL, COL, RR, ST, TS, VS
Haley Bennett, Sharlto Copley, Danila Kozlovsky. Directed by Ilya Naishuller. 96 minutes. Rated R. See what it’s like to execute dozens of faceless bad guys in this hyperactive action flick, which duplicates the restricted point of view (and the body count) of a first-person-shooter video game. Director Naishuller started out making music videos, and his style is exhilarating—for about five minutes. Then it gets exhausting. —MD
Theaters: AL, CAN, CH, COL, DI, FH, ORL, PAL, RP, RR, SF, SHO, SP, SS, ST, TS, TX, VS
High Strung 
Keenan Kampa, Nicholas Galitzine, Sonoya Mizuno. Directed by Michael Damian. 96 minutes. Rated PG. There’s some impressive dancing but not much else worthwhile in this Step Up-style teen drama about a naive ballet dancer falling in love with a bad-boy violinist. The conflicts are all ridiculously simplistic and easily resolved, and the characters are wholesome, one-dimensional bores. —JB
Theaters: TS
Michael Shannon, Jaeden Lieberher, Joel Edgerton. Directed by Jeff Nichols. 112 minutes. Rated PG-13. The first half of Special, starring Shannon as a man trying to protect his mysteriously powered son, is like a Hollywood sci-fi thriller with the exposition taken out. Eventually, writer-director Nichols fills in enough details to make for a satisfying climax, while leaving things vague enough not to undermine the earlier ambiguity. —JB
Theaters: CAN, COL, PAL, RR, SC, SP, TS
Now playing
Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman, John Gallagher Jr. Directed by Dan Trachtenberg. 105 minutes. Rated PG-13. A woman is held captive by a survivalist following a serious accident.
Theaters: AL, DI, FH, GVR, PAL, RP, RR, SF, SP, SS, ST, TX, VS
Charlotte Rampling, Tom Courtenay, Geraldine James. Directed by Andrew Haigh. 95 minutes. Rated R. Rampling’s Oscar-nominated performance anchors a movie that is sometimes too understated for its own good. She plays one half of a married couple whose relationship is rocked by unexpected news on the eve of their 45th anniversary. Rampling’s reactions tell the story beautifully even when the filmmaking is a bit opaque.
Theaters: SC
Chloë Grace Moretz, Alex Roe, Nick Robinson. Directed by J Blakeson. 112 minutes. Rated PG-13. Teenager Cassie (Moretz) fights off an alien invasion and gets caught in a love triangle in the latest adaptation of a young-adult sci-fi novel series. The 5th Wave starts out as a rote survival narrative before taking a turn for the absurd with its central romance and the aliens’ nonsensical endgame. —JB
Theaters: Theaters: TC, TX
Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Jeff Daniels. Directed by Robert Schwentke. 121 minutes. Rated PG-13. The third installment in the dystopian sci-fi Divergent series, based on Veronica Roth’s YA novels, throws in a ton of new convoluted plot elements to justify continuing the story, but it never succeeds. Woodley remains a solid actor, but she’s defeated by the incoherent script and the surprisingly terrible special effects. —JB
Theaters: AL, BS, COL, DI, FH, ORL, PAL, RP, RR, SC, SF, SHO, SP, SS, TS, TX
Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice
Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Jesse Eisenberg. Directed by Zack Snyder. 151 minutes. Rated PG-13. Starting with its ridiculous title, this superhero epic is bursting with overwrought self-importance, crammed with so many characters and incidents that it ends up horribly disjointed. All the empty bluster obscures how little actually happens in the power struggle among heroes Batman (Affleck) and Superman (Cavill) and villain Lex Luthor (Eisenberg). —JB
Theaters: AL, CAN, CH, DI, FH, GVL, GVR, ORL, PAL, RP, RR, SF, SHO, SP, SS, ST, TS, TX, VS
The Boy (Not reviewed)
Lauren Cohan, Rupert Evans, James Russell. Directed by William Brent Bell. 98 minutes. Rated PG-13. An American nanny is disturbed by her English employers’ “son”—a life-sized doll.
Theaters: TC
Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark Strong, Penelope Cruz. Directed by Louis Leterrier. 83 minutes. Rated R. Baron Cohen and Strong play brothers—not named Grimsby, oddly—who were separated during childhood; one grew up to be a lower-class cretin, while the other works as a top government assassin. Gross-out humor abounds, and sometimes goes too far, but the less repulsive sequences are often quite funny. —MD
Theaters: TC
Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Linda Cardellini. Directed by Sean Anders. 96 minutes. Rated PG-13. This reunion between Ferrell and Wahlberg (The Other Guys) finds both stars on autopilot, with Ferrell as a milquetoast, eager-to-please stepdad who feels threatened when his wife’s bad-boy ex (Wahlberg) comes to town. Their subsequent feud is predictable and unfunny, combining painful slapstick with uncomfortable gross-out jokes. —JB
Theaters: TC
Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, Ed Skrein. Directed by Tim Miller. 108 minutes. Rated R. The long-in-the-works movie starring sarcastic, ultraviolent Marvel Comics anti-hero Deadpool (Reynolds) is vulgar, gory and self-aware. In between his dirty jokes and self-referential insults, Deadpool participates in a fairly familiar superhero origin story. Only about half the jokes land, but the enthusiasm of the production makes up for the rest. —JB
Theaters: COL, DI, RR, SHO, SP, SS, ST, TX, VS
Taron Egerton, Hugh Jackman, Jo Hartley. Directed by Dexter Fletcher. 105 minutes. Rated PG-13. The creators of this heavily fictionalized biopic have molded the underdog sports story of unlikely Olympic ski jumper Michael “Eddie” Edwards (Egerton) into a sappy, contrived, self-consciously wacky family comedy. It’s phonier and more manipulative than the prefab backstory video packages that air during the actual Olympics. —JB
Theaters: SC
Eye in the Sky
Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, Alan Rickman. Directed by Gavin Hood. 102 minutes. Rated R. This military thriller aims to be a complex examination of the moral consequences of drone warfare, but its stakes (with a cute little girl put in the crosshairs of a British-American military operation targeting a terrorist cell) are so lopsided that it might as well be examining the moral consequences of puppy-kicking. —JB
Theaters: AL, BS, CAN, CH, DTS, FH, GVR, ORL, RP, SC, SF, SP, TS
God’s Not Dead 2 (Not reviewed)
Melissa Joan Hart, Jesse Metcalfe, David A.R. White. Directed by Harold Cronk. 121 minutes. Rated PG. A high school teacher become the center of controversy after discussing Jesus in her classroom.
Theaters: AL, BS, COL, FH, ORL, RP, RR, SC, SF, SP, TS, TX
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Brenton Thwaites, Gerard Butler. Directed by Alex Proyas. 127 minutes. Rated PG-13. The gods in Gods of Egypt might as well be superheroes or cyborgs for all their connection to actual mythology, and the movie itself is a cacophony of garish special effects and loud, blustery action. It’s a simple quest story that gets muddled with various side missions and a thoroughly confusing climax. —JB
Theaters: ST, TC, TX
Voices of Raymond Ochoa, Jack Bright, Frances McDormand. Directed by Peter Sohn. 100 minutes. Rated PG. Pixar’s long-in-the-works animated movie is gorgeous to look at, and it’s solid, pleasurable entertainment for kids. But it’s only slightly more sophisticated than the similarly themed Ice Age movies, with a straightforward story about a young dinosaur conquering his fears while on a quest through the wilderness. —JB
Theaters: TC
Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich. Directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen. 100 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Theaters: SC
Sally Field, Max Greenfield, Tyne Daly. Directed by Michael Showalter. 94 minutes. Rated R. Although the scenario of a lonely older woman (Field) awkwardly crushing on her much younger co-worker (Greenfield) could be played for cruel laughs, the filmmakers don’t mock Doris even when she’s thoroughly embarrassing herself. The movie ends up part cringe comedy, part melancholy meditation on aging. —JB
Theaters: BS, CH, COL, ORL, SC, SP
Dakota Johnson, Rebel Wilson, Leslie Mann, Alison Brie. Directed by Christian Ditter. 110 minutes. Rated R. How to Be Single mashes several mediocre romantic comedies into one movie as it chronicles the dating lives of various single New Yorkers. The cast (especially Wilson) is up for anything, but the story arcs are formulaic, and the dialogue is full of clichés, with only occasional funny lines. —JB
Theaters: TC
I Saw the Light
Tom Hiddleston, Elizabeth Olsen, Cherry Jones. Directed by Marc Abraham. 123 minutes. Rated R. Hiddleston is in fine form as legendary country musician Hank Williams, but this rote, tiresome biopic places too much emphasis on its subject’s boozing and womanizing and shows virtually no interest in his singular talent. Olsen is a highlight as Williams’ ambitious, long-suffering first wife. —MD
Theaters: VS
Ki & Ka (Not reviewed)
Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Kapoor, Swaroop Sampat. Directed by R. Balki. 126 minutes. Not rated. In Hindi with English subtitles. A young married couple defies accepted gender roles in Indian culture.
Theaters: VS
Voices of Jack Black, Bryan Cranston, J.K. Simmons. Directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson and Alessandro Carloni. 95 minutes. Rated PG. This time around, kung fu panda Po (Black) must master the traditional Chinese concept of ch’i in order to take down a mystically powered bad guy. At this point, there’s really nothing new to discover in a KFP movie, but it’s still nice to see old friends every so often. —JB
Theaters: BS, SC
Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman. Directed by Babak Najafi. 99 minutes. Rated PG-13. As the lone badass protecting the president from a massive terrorist attack, Butler isn’t funny enough to handle the screenplay’s lame quips, and isn’t relatable in any other way. Otherwise, there’s bad CGI explosions and Oscar-nominated actors with barely any dialogue, as well as Freeman as the vice president. —JMA
Theaters: AL, BS, GVR, PAL, SC, SHO, SP
Marguerite (Not reviewed)
Catherine Frot, André Marcon, Michel Fau. Directed by Xavier Giannoli. 129 minutes. Rated R. In French with English subtitles. In 1920s Paris, a wealthy woman decides to become an opera star despite having no musical talent whatsoever.
Theaters: VS
Meet the Blacks (Not reviewed)
Mike Epps, Gary Owen, Zulay Henao. Directed by Deon Taylor. 90 minutes. Rated R. A parody of The Purge movies, with an African-American family targeted after moving to the suburbs.
Theaters: BS, CAN, COL, DI, ORL, PAL, RR, SC, TS, TX
Miracles From Heaven (Not reviewed)
Jennifer Garner, Martin Henderson, Kylie Rogers. Directed by Patricia Riggen. 109 minutes. Rated PG. A young girl is miraculously cured of a chronic disease following an accident.
Theaters: BS, CAN, CH, COL, ORL, PAL, RP, RR, SC, SP, SS, TS, TX
Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Elena Kampouris. Directed by Kirk Jones. 94 minutes. Rated PG-13. Fourteen years after the original surprise hit, Toula (Vardalos) and her overbearing, stereotypical Greek-American family return for more cheesy, predictable sitcom-level hijinks. What once had a certain unique perspective has become just another tired brand extension with no reason to exist other than to exploit its audience’s nostalgia and goodwill. —JB
Theaters: AL, CAN, CH, COL, DTS, FH, GVL, ORL, PAL, RP, SF, SHO, SP, SS, ST, TS, TX, VS
Oopiri (Not reviewed)
Nagarjuna Akkineni, Karthi, Tammanah. Directed by Vamsi Paidipally. 158 minutes. Not rated. In Telugu with English subtitles. A wealthy quadriplegic hires an ex-con to be his caretaker.
Theaters: VS
Stephan James, Jason Sudeikis, Jeremy Irons. Directed by Stephen Hopkins. 134 minutes. Rated PG-13. Biopics don’t come much more conventional than this rote, formulaic account of the early life and career of Olympic track and field star Jesse Owens (James), most famous for winning four gold medals in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Director Hopkins renders it all in broad strokes, with a bland, TV-movie flatness. —JB
Theaters: SC
Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson. Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu. 156 minutes. Rated R. DiCaprio makes his bid for Oscar glory as Hugh Glass, a real-life fur trapper and frontier guide who trekked 200 miles across unforgiving terrain when he was left for dead after being mauled by a bear. As a survival tale, it’s gripping entertainment; as a revenge saga, it’s largely empty. —MD
Theaters: BS, GVR, SC
Kevin Hart, Ice Cube, Olivia Munn. Directed by Tim Story. 100 minutes. Rated PG-13. Hart tries not to be annoying and Cube tries to look like he wants to be there, and they actually partially succeed, but not all the time. The major laughs are at the expense of Hart, and the action/chase scenes, courtesy of director Story, are a choppy, lazy mess. —JMA
Theaters: TC
Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams. Directed by Tom McCarthy. 128 minutes. Rated R. Director and co-writer McCarthy’s drama about the Boston Globe reporting on the Catholic Church molestation scandal applies the same meticulous attention to detail as the Globe writers did in their reporting. The stars manage to turn sitting and listening into riveting drama, and the acting is powerful in how subdued it is. —JB
Theaters: SC
Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Adam Driver. Directed by J.J. Abrams. 135 minutes. Rated PG-13. The long-awaited seventh movie in the space-opera series is a carefully crafted brand extension with a familiar story and some appealing new characters. Everything about it seems calculated to entertain the widest audience possible, and for the most part, it succeeds. —JB
Theaters: BS, COL
Chiwetel Ejiofor, Casey Affleck, Anthony Mackie. Directed by John Hillcoat. 115 minutes. Rated R. This thriller begins with an exciting, superbly crafted heist sequence, setting up expectations that the rest of the movie mostly fails to meet. There are a lot of shifting alliances and double-crosses among the movie’s cops and criminals, but following the opening sequence, mild interest is the best the movie can manage. —JB
Theaters: ST
Tina Fey, Margot Robbie, Martin Freeman. Directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. 105 minutes. Rated R. Fey finds a perfect middle ground between sarcasm and vulnerability as war correspondent Kim Baker, reporting from Afghanistan in the early ’00s. WTF isn’t a political movie, and it smartly balances its wider concerns with Kim’s personal journey, which never comes across as phony or self-important. —JB
Theaters: COL, SC
Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie. Directed by Robert Eggers. 90 minutes. Rated R. Set in 1630, Eggers’ Sundance sensation turns the 17th century itself into a place of horror, using archaic dialogue lifted verbatim from historical documents. The film terrifies not with hackneyed jump scares, but with a dark vision of a world so divorced from our own that it might as well be another planet. —MD
Theaters: ST
Voices of Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba. Directed by Byron Howard and Rich Moore. 108 minutes. Rated PG. Disney’s latest animated feature is a winning, gorgeously animated story about anthropomorphic animals living in relative harmony in a bustling metropolis. The team-up between a police officer rabbit and a small-time criminal fox provides a thoroughly engaging mystery with some satisfying twists and turns. —JB
Theaters: AL, CAN, CH, COL, DI, FH, GVL, ORL, PAL, RP, RR, SF, SP, SS, ST, TS, TX, VS
JMA Jeffrey M. Anderson; JB Josh Bell; MD Mike D’Angelo
Theaters
(AL) Regal Aliante
7300 Aliante Parkway, North Las Vegas, 844-462-7342 ext. 4011
(BS) Regal Boulder Station
4111 Boulder Highway, 844-462-7342 ext. 269
(PAL) Brenden Theatres at the Palms
4321 W. Flamingo Road, 702-507-4849
(CAN) Galaxy Cannery
2121 E. Craig Road, North Las Vegas, 702-639-9779
(CH) Cinedome Henderson
851 S. Boulder Highway, Henderson, 702-566-1570
(COL) Regal Colonnade
8880 S. Eastern Ave., 844-462-7342 ext. 270
(DI) Las Vegas Drive-In
4150 W. Carey Ave., North Las Vegas, 702-646-3565
(DTS) Regal Downtown Summerlin
2070 Park Center Drive, 844-462-7342 ext. 4063
(FH) Regal Fiesta Henderson
777 W. Lake Mead Parkway, Henderson, 844-462-7342 ext. 1772
(GVR) Regal Green Valley Ranch
2300 Paseo Verde Parkway, Henderson, 844-462-7342 ext. 267
(GVL) Galaxy Green Valley Luxury+
4500 E. Sunset Road, Henderson, 702-442-0244
(ORL) Century Orleans
4500 W. Tropicana Ave., 702-889-1220
(RP) AMC Rainbow Promenade
2321 N. Rainbow Blvd., 888-262-4386
(RR) Regal Red Rock
11011 W. Charleston Blvd., 844-462-7342 ext. 1756
(ST) Century Sam’s Town
5111 Boulder Highway, 702-547-1732
(SF) Century Santa Fe Station
4949 N. Rancho Drive, 702-655-8178
(SHO) United Artists Showcase
3769 Las Vegas Blvd. S., 844-462-7342 ext. 522
(SP) Century South Point
9777 Las Vegas Blvd. S., 702-260-4061
(SC) Century Suncoast
9090 Alta Drive, 702-869-1880
(SS) Regal Sunset Station
1301-A W. Sunset Road, Henderson, 844-462-7342 ext. 268
(TX) Regal Texas Station
2101 Texas Star Lane, North Las Vegas, 844-462-7342 ext. 271
(TS) AMC Town Square
6587 Las Vegas Blvd. S., 702-362-7283
(TC) Regency Tropicana Cinemas
3330 E. Tropicana Ave., 702-438-3456
(VS) Regal Village Square
9400 W. Sahara Ave., 844-462-7342 ext. 272
