Hello, Yahoo readers! Film critic Brett Arnold here, and I’m back with another edition of Trust Me, I Watch Everything. With the holiday weekend approaching, it’s a big week for movies, and I watched them all so you can plan your screen time wisely because the sun is calling! If you’re looking to escape the summer heat by heading to the local cineplex where the air-conditioning is always on blast, consider catching Jurassic World Rebirth (F1, which I previously recommended and is dominating the global box office, is a great option too).
For the homebodies, or those needing a flick to help drown out the sound of fireworks, there’s plenty to choose from, including streaming debuts like Heads of State with John Cena and Idris Elba on Prime Video and The Old Guard 2 with Charlize Theron and Uma Thurman.
Exciting recent releases like Marvel’s Thunderbolts* and From the World of John Wick: Ballerina become available to rent or buy and vampire drama Sinners premieres on HBO Max. Phew, that’s a lot — and I’m just getting started. Read on because there’s something here for everyone.
🎥 What to watch in theaters
My recommendation: Jurassic World Rebirth
Why you should watch it: Jurassic World Rebirth is a fresh start for the franchise, ditching the Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard characters and swapping in Scarlett Johansson and a slew of other fresh faces, including Wicked’s Jonathan Bailey, Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali and Rupert Friend. Johansson plays a mercenary hired by a pharmaceutical company to infiltrate an island full of prehistoric creatures and obtain DNA that could lead to medical breakthroughs. Sound familiar?
David Koepp, the screenwriter of the original Jurassic Park film and its best and first sequel, The Lost World, returns to scripting duties here, and the movie harkens back to the adventure movie energy of the original trilogy. It also sneaks in some meta-commentary about how audiences may be tiring of these movies: there’s a whole thread here about society moving on from dinosaurs, once a special thing that became less and less exciting the more prevalent they became in the world.
As the characters traverse the island, the movie cycles through set pieces as fast as it does its obvious influences: a little Jaws here, some King Kong Skull Island antics there, sprinkle in some Temple of Doom for good measure. Director Gareth Edwards (2014’s Godzilla, Rogue One) is known for his visual effects, and they look great here, even if you do ultimately feel the lack of the practical element that even the lame last movie, Jurassic World: Dominion, made sure to include.
It’s good fun, though, even if it never really makes a case for returning to this world other than “these movies all make a billion dollars each, easy.” There’s something nice about the fact that it has no grander ambitions than delivering a summer blockbuster that features exciting and tense sequences where humans must outrun and outsmart huge, monstrous dinosaurs, some of which are genetically modified to be even scarier! In short, Jurassic World Rebirth provides what you came for.
🍿 What critics are saying: It’s an even split! Mark Kennedy from the Associated Press 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 in theaters nationwide.
💸 Movies newly available to rent or buy
My recommendation: Thunderbolts*
Why you should watch it: If you’ve managed to avoid the meaning of the asterisk until now, congratulations, I won’t ruin it for you here. I previously recommended Thunderbolts* when it hit theaters, writing at the time that “I couldn’t believe the level of ambition I was seeing in a Marvel movie in 2025.”
🍿 What critics are saying: With a 93% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences love it, calling it a return to form for Marvel and the best film from the studio in a while.
👀 How to watch: Thunderbolts* is now available to rent or buy and will likely hit Disney+ in late August or early September.
🤔 But that’s not all!
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Ballerina: From the World of John Wick: I previously wrote of Ballerina, “whenever the movie is in hyper-violent action mode, it’s a lot of fun. The problem is, that awesome action is almost entirely relegated to the final 45 minutes, which leaves about an hour and 15 minutes of laborious setup.” It’s still worth a watch for fans of John Wick, and the man himself does appear in the film, courtesy of pretty obvious reshoots. Rent or buy.
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Ice Road: Vengeance: This sequel to a straight-to-Netflix Liam Neeson vehicle from 2021 is not on Netflix but is available to rent or buy at home after a brief theatrical run. It’s better than the average late-period Liam Neeson action flick yet very strange as a sequel to The Ice Road; it may as well be any old Neeson flick, the connection is so tenuous. Rent or buy.
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Bring Her Back: The filmmakers behind A24’s hit horror film Talk to Me are back with another unsettling genre flick about a foster mother with a terrifying secret. The Philippou brothers again prove their ability to craft genuinely shocking moments, but this is pretty familiar stuff. Rent or buy.
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Tornado: This Scottish samurai-western, which I recommended when it was in theaters, is riveting and efficient. Actress Kōki stars as Tornado, a Japanese puppeteer’s daughter who gets caught up with criminals when their traveling circus show crosses paths with an infamous gang of criminals. Rent or buy.
📺 Movies newly available on streaming services you may have
My recommendation: Sinners
Why you should watch it: With Sinners, Ryan Coogler took a huge swing — and knocked it out of the park, with a $364.5 million worldwide box office haul so far, making it one of the top-performing films of the year. Based on an original idea and starring Michael B. Jordan as twins, which he believably portrays as two distinct people, the movie is a period-piece gangster movie that patiently sets up the stakes of its story. The stakes, as I previously pointed out, just so happen to be that this is really a vampire movie, but disguised as a metaphor about the director’s feelings on making art as a Black man in an industry that’s eager to exploit his perspective.
🍿 What critics are saying: Sinners is one of the most popular films of the year, according to Rotten Tomatoes, scoring high with critics and audiences alike. As Michael Phillips at the Chicago Tribune said, this isn’t your average vampire movie.
👀 How to watch: Sinners is now streaming on HBO Max.
➕ Bonus recommendation: Heads of State
Why you should watch it: Thank you, Amazon Prime, for keeping the big-budget comedy alive. Last month we had Deep Cover, which was unexpectedly funny and entertaining, and now we have Heads of State, another action-comedy with a super fun premise and A-list talent attached. Idris Elba plays the U.K. prime minister and John Cena plays the action-star-turned-U.S.-president, and the two men have a public rivalry that jeopardizes their countries’ “special relationship.” But when they become targets of a ruthless foreign adversary, they must set aside their differences and begrudgingly rely on each other.
It’s typical mismatched buddy action-comedy fare elevated by the high-concept nature of its premise and the commitment to the bit by its leads, as well as co-star Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and a cavalcade of others including Paddy Considine, Jack Quaid and Carla Gugino. Director Ilya Naishuller (Nobody) does a great job with the action, usually a low point of movies like this, and the set-pieces are all exciting and inventive and laced with comedy in that Jackie Chan-esque way we all love, for lack of a better term.
It’s a shame we have to settle for watching this at home, as it would surely be a riot in a theater with a packed house, but it’ll have to do!
🍿 What critics are saying: Critics are more split than I am. Deadline’s Pete Hammond laments that the movie lets “the explosions and gunplay take center stage in a movie where action-to-the-max is our filmmaker’s mantra.” The Hollywood Reporter’s Caryn James calls it “sporadically diverting.”
👀 How to watch: Heads of State starts is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video
🤔 But that’s not all!
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The Old Guard 2: Charlize Theron returns in this sequel to Netflix’s 2020 movie The Old Guard, and Uma Thurman joins the fun this time, though you may be surprised by how little she’s actually in the movie despite being the main villain. Now streaming on Netflix.
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Riff Raff: “Wannabe Coen Brothers” is its own thriving subgenre, and this is a perfectly OK one! A retired hitman’s life is turned upside down when his ex-wife and son arrive unannounced during the holidays because they are on the run from his former mob associates. It’s impressive that newcomer Miles J. Harvey stands out most among the A-list cast, which is absolutely stacked: Bill Murray, Pete Davidson, Jennifer Coolidge, Ed Harris, Gabrielle Union and Lewis Pullman. Now streaming on Hulu.
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The Luckiest Man in America: A dramatization of the real-life 1984 Press Your Luck game show scandal, in which a man went on a hot streak on the show but may not have been playing fairly. The movie is at its best before it reveals how he did it, frankly, and it runs out of steam from there. Paul Walter Hauser is great in the lead. Now streaming on AMC+
That’s all for now — we’ll see you next week at the movies.
