We last encountered a production that did away with dialogue in the 2023 John Woo picture, “Silent Night.” The concept is revived for the most part for “Motor City,” which has just a sprinkling of verbal exchanges, preferring to dish out its revenge story in a more visual manner, giving the audience a break from exposition to provide a visceral viewing experience. Director Potsy Ponciroli (“Old Henry,” “Greedy People”) is up to the storytelling challenge, putting in the effort to transform the endeavor into a mean machine, and while language isn’t the focus of the offering, pain certainly is, with screenwriter Chad St. John cooking up ways for the characters to experience devastating emotions and horrific physical encounters. “Motor City” isn’t the tightest feature around, but it packs a punch when necessary, trading words for deeds in a movie that enjoys taking on a dramatic challenge to bring something a little different to viewers. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Pickleball comedies have been popping up in 2026, with producers attempting to cash in on a sport that’s long past its initial trendy phase. Unfortunately, these endeavors have elected to hire actors such as Kevin Farley (“Pickleball”) and Kevin Sorbo and Dean Cain (“Pickleball Pete”) to bring the funny, and don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of these movies. Screenwriter Sean Clements and director Josh Greenbaum (“Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar”) hope to go a little bigger with pickleball exploration in “The Dink,” which puts actor Jake Johnson to work portraying an accident-prone tennis pro forced to find his way back to glory via a sport he doesn’t respect. There’s actually not a lot of pickleball in the feature, but there’s a decent amount of charm, as Greenbaum has a fine cast eager to play with one another, while co-star Mary Steenburgen manages to steal the whole thing with her special presence, giving the film some heart to go with its silliness. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 1984, when David Lynch’s “Dune” was released in theaters, Universal Pictures panicked at the last minute, ordering the distribution of terminology sheets for ticket-buyers, giving those new to author Frank Herbert’s world a chance to learn more about weapons, vehicles, and planets while settling into their seats. There’s no such help with “Kill Code,” with writer/director Justin Price electing to create a complicated sci-fi actioner, yet he refuses to explain much of anything he introduces. The endeavor is not just confusing, but willfully bewildering, hitting viewers with all kinds of world-building and multiple characters, forgoing the usual in introductions and explanations. Such a puzzling approach could work in an offering that encouraged deeper inspection, but “Kill Code” (which was shot four years ago) is bottom of the barrel moviemaking, with Price hoping complexity will help to obscure dismal performances and AI-shellacked visuals. It doesn’t, and, good heavens, it’s quite a challenge to sit through this terrible film. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Christopher Nolan surprised a lot of people with his 2023 release, “Oppenheimer.” It was a three-hour-long study of a deeply troubled man, mostly avoiding the scale of previous Nolan endeavors, and it connected with audiences in a huge way. The success of “Oppenheimer” helped to secure the helmer’s name as a selling point for ticket-buyers, and he returns with a major flex of power with “The Odyssey,” taking on the adaptation challenge of Homer’s epic tale of danger and survival. Bigness is back in the picture, which looks to hypnotize audiences with its IMAX-approved visuals and ear-splitting sound design. Such overwhelming technical achievements end up the most impressive elements of the feature, with “The Odyssey” occasionally struggling with casting and screenwriting, putting Nolan once again in charge of a three-hour tour that might’ve found greater dramatic impact in a more concise cut. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The deadpan comedy spirit of Wes Anderson and Jared Hess appears to be the main influence on “The Kidnapping of Arabella,” an Italian production from writer/director Carolina Cavalli. She’s not necessarily out to make something uproarious with the endeavor, offering an askew sense of humor while examining the troubled life of a young woman trying to process past mistakes by making a fresh one, accepting the company of a feisty girl who lives to torment her father. “The Kidnapping of Arabella” has moments of hilarity, and Cavalli attempts to give the feature a healthy dose of idiosyncrasy to keep it unexpected. More dramatic intentions are less compelling, but still register with intended sincerity, allowing the movie to reach some personal areas of pain without fully losing viewers to slower pacing and a gradual loss of narrative drive. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2018, director Andrew Renzi released “They Fight,” a documentary inspecting the efforts of trainer Walter Manigan and his battle to teach young kids about the ways of boxing and discipline while dealing with his own tortured past as an ex-con. Renzi returns to the story with “They Fight” sharing a co-writing credit with Sheldon Candis, who also directs this dramatization of Manigan’s experience in southeast Washington D.C. after being released from prison. There’s a define underdog atmosphere to the endeavor, with “Creed” references replacing the usual “Rocky” ones, and Candis pays careful attention to the discipline and contest of boxing. But there’s a lot more to “They Fight,” which strives to be as human as possible, tracking the development of characters attempting to put their lives back together after experiencing tremendous upheaval, learning the value of communication, support, and persistence during a difficult time. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Nick Moorcroft has found his way into the business of feel-good English movies, joined by collaborator Meg Leonard to script 2019’s “Fisherman’s Friends,” which managed to appeal to a smaller audience with its softer ways. Moorcroft and Leonard raised their responsibilities by helming the 2022 sequel, “Fisherman’s Friends: One and All,” which didn’t attract much attention from ticket-buyers. Moorcroft reteams with Leonard for “Mother’s Pride,” though he goes solo behind the camera for this easygoing tale of a financially ruined pub in a small village in England looking to make a major comeback with a special brew shepherded by a troubled young man. There are no surprises in the picture, but these films tend to coast on charm, and “Mother’s Pride” has its moments of personality and feeling, playing simple games of broad conflict to entertain audiences. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Author Richard Matheson originally created “The Shrinking Man” in 1956, quickly turning around a screenplay for a 1957 movie adaptation. The concept has gone on to inspire many film, television, and literary offerings that explore the fantasy elements of the premise, but co-writer/director Jan Kounen (“Blueberry,” “Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky”) hopes to return to Matheson’s quiet intensity of thought with “The Shrinking Man.” A French production, the endeavor is prepared to sell the visual highlights of a small man fighting for his life after he’s forgotten in his own home, with star Jean Dujardin contributing excellent work while handling the demands of visual effects. “The Shrinking Man” intends to remain existential with its examination of life at many sizes, and the austere atmosphere of the feature is interesting to experience, balancing the wonders of the mind with the urgency of Smurf-sized survival demands. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

We’re currently living in an age when movie studios and video game corporations are looking to eliminate physical media, preferring to live a digital download/streaming life to best profit from the art they sell. Writer/director Joseph Scrimshaw makes his feature-length helming debut with “Dead Media,” and he’s hoping to revive that nostalgic spark for discs, using the power and mystery of DVD navigation to inspire a horror tale that highlights zombie-like enemies, but mostly wants to play with acts of disorientation. “Dead Media” is a low-budget endeavor, but Scrimshaw works hard to make something lively and unique, finding an interesting way to approach the usual in stalk-and-kill cinema, giving his fright film special inspiration to help it through a few mismanaged ideas. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The “Evil Dead” film series took a bit of a break after the success of a 2013 remake, raring back after a decade of inactivity with 2023’s “Evil Dead Rise.” While franchise connections were limited, the production captured the spirit of director Sam Raimi’s original creation, successfully reviving the Deadite massacre for another installment of big screen hellraising. Three years later, there’s “Evil Dead Burn,” which offers a different tale of torment from screenwriter Florent Bernard and Sebastien Vanicek (who also directs) while firmly committing to the “Evil Dead” way. Wonderfully menacing, gory, and visceral, “Evil Dead Burn” sustains the momentum of “Evil Dead Rise,” launching a new descent into torturous encounters and horror exploding in contained settings. It’s a post-Ash universe now, but the brand name still packs a punch as a new group of characters are exposed to absolute danger and bodily destruction. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Of course, one fully understands why the Disney corporation continues on a mission to produce live-action remakes of their animated classics. Even with a few financial stumbles, the features make a lot of money for the company, and they carry built-in brand recognition, easing the pain of marketing movies to the masses. The last offering, 2025’s “Lilo and Stitch,” was a massive box office success, and represented a relatively recent release to reheat, redoing the 2002 original. Now “Moana” cuts even closer, with the first film in theaters only a decade ago, enjoying many years of home entertainment domination as audiences warmed to an absolutely wonderful picture. The new “Moana” (which was intended to be released last year, only to be bumped from the schedule to make way for 2024’s animated “Moana 2”) is looking to coast on such popularity and viewer love, but of all the live-action endeavors, this is arguably the most pointless. Director Thomas Kail has technology and casting, but he doesn’t have heart and originality, with “Moana” a cold-blooded copy of the 2016 effort. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The Asylum is a movie studio that specializes in low-budget entertainment, often taking advantage of major studio releases to submit a poorly constructed knockoff (“Transformers” vs. “Transmorphers”) to make a few bucks off the curious and the confused. They’ve built an entire library of pictures, with most barely making a buck, but remaining just profitable enough to keep the entire machine running for another round of movies. To quote the “Hellraiser” tagline, the company is “demon to some, angel to others,” and for Australian corporate video director Anthony Frith, The Asylum is just the place to get his start in the film business. “Mockbuster” is a documentary about Frith’s experience helming the 2025 feature, “The Land That Time Forgot,” putting him in the middle of a potential production disaster, hiring a crew to capture the insanity of the opportunity and the inner workings of Asylum life. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com