“Project Hail Mary” is the first film from directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller since 2014’s “22 Jump Street,” not counting their hands-on approach to overseeing production on the two animated “Spider-Verse” movies. It’s been quite some time since “The Lego Movie” and “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” filmmakers have been in control of a production, and their latest certainly plays like a purging of ideas build up over the years. They’re put in command of an adaptation of Andy Weir’s 2021 “hard science” novel, with “The Martian” writer cooking up another tale of desperation in space and all the intellect required to solve problems. Screenwriter Drew Goddard handles the literary translation (returning to duty after work on 2015’s “The Martian”), and the production team is clearly out to make an epic with “Project Hail Mary,” which offers space exploration, a complicated mission to save Earth, and contact with a helpful alien. Lord and Miller attempt to go very big with the offering, which remains engaging enough, but the directors are definitely out to win hearts with the feature, getting a little too pushy with sentimentality as the story unfolds. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Amy Wang makes her feature-length directorial debut with “Slanted,” and she takes on an interesting storytelling challenge with her screenplay. It’s a teen-friendly introduction to body horror, examining the emotional struggles of a young Chinese woman hoping to find a way to fit in with the white society that surrounds her. There’s satire in play, but the picture is mostly sincere in its concern for a fragile mind taking a big health risk to alter her identity, which only manages to create even more complications. “Slanted” has an angle on low self-esteem and acceptance issues that’s worth examining, and Wang offers an appealing cultural perspective to help support dramatic entanglements. The movie isn’t razor sharp and doesn’t get weird enough, but Wang’s creative voice remains clear in this thought-provoking offering. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

2009’s “Paranormal Activity” was the surprise hit of the year, launching a haunted house-style viewing experience created with extraordinarily little money and story. The whole event was made up of loud noises and the occasional offering of threatening imagery, managing to win its audience over by trying to rattle nerves. The same concept for minimalist horror returns in “Undertone,” with writer/director Ian Tuason endeavoring to create a brain-melter with a severely limited budget, keeping the tale of a podcaster experiencing a week of torment to the confines of a single house. It’s not a found-footage effort, but more of a psychological chiller, putting Tuason to work building a sound design capable of carrying an entire feature, placing the main character in the middle of an aural hell. And sound is basically all “Undertone” has, unable to cook up a more dynamic haunting to follow as everything in the movie goes crash, bang, boom. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The “V/H/S” series of anthology films has been going strong in recent years, and just last year welcomed the release of the franchise’s eighth installment. The features focus solely on found-footage/POV horror, giving viewers a sense of immediacy as wicked things happen to hapless characters. “Bodycam” isn’t a lost chapter of the “V/H/S” saga or even a spin-off title, though it basically offers the same viewing experience. Co-writer/director Brandon Christensen (“Superhost,” “Night of the Reaper”) return to the chaos of gradually building insanity facing personalities who don’t understand what they’re up against, with two police officers involved in trouble, recording their night of terror on body-worn cameras. “Bodycam” isn’t anything genre fans haven’t seen before, and there are long stretches of the endeavor where little is happening, but Christensen gives minimalist horror a try, coming up with a few involving points of pressure and a decently hellacious conclusion. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Stephen Lang plays tough guys. He’s been doing it throughout most of his career, and he’s done it very recently, keeping up a villainous presence in “Avatar: Fire and Ash” and doing B-movie duty in the recent “Hellfire.” For “The Optimist,” Lang offers a welcome change of pace, tasked with portraying Herbert Heller, a Holocaust survivor who decided late in life in begin sharing the story of his experiences during World War II, with hopes to reach others carrying considerable pain. Writer/director Finn Taylor (“Dream with the Fishes”) looks to make an intense but sensitive drama from the tale, creating a study of unexpected connection found during troubling times, and Lang is there to hold the picture together with his sturdy, gentle performance. “The Optimist” runs into storytelling issues late in the film, but it remains a powerful understanding of endurance, providing intimacy with crisis and compassion. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

For her second feature-length directorial effort, Maggie Gyllenhaal goes from the smallness of the psychological thriller “The Lost Daughter” to the bigness of “The Bride.” Armed with a massive budget and her own screenplay, Gyllenhaal sets out to redefine 1935’s “Bride of Frankenstein” with help from the ghost of author Mary Shelley and the pumping heart of cinema, submitting a significant effort to transform the endeavor into a lawless, anarchic overview of monster love. “The Bride” goes for broke with its tone and character creations, putting Gyllenhaal to work transforming the idea into a meditation on feminism and askew empowerment. It’s hard to fault her intentions, but sitting through the picture is an exceptional endurance test at times, finding the helmer showing little interest in telling a viable story while the rest of the offering becomes an overacting convention from performers left alone to do anything they please. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While co-writer/director Patrick Hughes came on the scene with the grittiness of 2010’s “Red Hill,” the helmer has largely abandoned reality for most of his career. Hughes favors the world of action/comedy, looking to charm and pummel audiences with endeavors such as “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” (along with its 2021 sequel) and “The Man from Toronto.” He’s not the most inspired architect of entertainment, but Hughes finally puts his funny bone to rest for “War Machine,” which hopes to become a more destructive sci-fi/thriller, pitting U.S. Army Ranger hopefuls against a heavily armed alien menace. It’s a straightforward tale of survival from Hughes and co-writer James Beaufort, and they mostly deliver an exciting ride with the picture, investing in heated scenes of confusion and defense, giving star Alan Ritchson plenty of panic to play as he carries the periodic intensity of the offering, which is always most confident in battle situations. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It hasn’t been easy to sell a Milla Jovovich action picture that doesn’t have “Resident Evil” in the title. The actress has been struggling to maintain an audience in recent years, with features such as “In the Lost Lands,” “Breathe,” and “Monster Hunter” mostly ignored by paying audiences. Her latest, “Protector,” is probably going to join the box office bomb club, but to the film’s credit, it goes down swinging. Screenwriter Bong-Seob Mun has an idea to do something slightly sneakier with the one-person-army concept, and director Adrian Grunberg (“Get the Gringo,” “Rambo: Last Blood”) has a fondness for viciousness, trying to deliver a hard-hitting tale of revenge that celebrates Jovovich’s commitment to physical acting. “Protector” is harsh at times, but also exceedingly ridiculous overall, and while dumbness isn’t always a problem when it comes to the highlights of B-movie entertainment, it definitely doesn’t help this loony offering. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Hoppers” is the first Pixar Animation production for director Daniel Chong, who’s been with the company on a story development level for the last 15 years. Chong is perhaps best known as the creator of the delightful animated series, “We Bare Bears,” even helming 2020’s “We Bare Bears: The Movie.” He returns to this special sense of humor and love of animal shenanigans in “Hoppers,” which is Pixar’s first endeavor since 2025’s criminally underrated “Elio.” Screenwriter Jesse Andrews is tasked with bringing a sci-fi edge to a mostly wacky comedy about a teenager’s incredible effort to save nature, also working in Pixar’s usual fondness for tenderness and dramatic impact. They score a major success with the wonderful feature, with Chong overseeing rich animation and flavorful voice work, while Andrews manages to find a plot and a message worth following. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Who will survive and what will be left of them?” was the famous tagline for 1974’s horror classic, “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” and such a question of survival also applies to “Dolly.” Co-writers Brandon Weavil and Rod Blackhurst (who also directs) are obviously huffing “Chain Saw” fumes with the endeavor, which follows a collection of characters spending time in the middle of nowhere coming into contact with a special, brutal kind of evil. Blackhurst isn’t messing around with the picture, which is incredibly violent and often gross, hoping to bring viewers back to the wilder days of exploitation cinema from the 1970s with its displays of bodily harm and functions, coming pretty close to fetish film territory. “Dolly” is often caught trying to fill a short run time (77 minutes before end credits), but it’s vividly sold with all kinds of gruesomeness, putting on a big display of nastiness for those who really enjoy such extremity. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The director of “Corpus Christi,” Jan Komasa returned to screens last year with “Anniversary,” taking a timely look at American troubles and the stranglehold of family ties. He’s right back in the thick of distress with “Heel,” which provides an unnerving view of a specialized rehabilitation situation involving a young man chained to a wall and the guardians looking to bring out the potential for good from within him. “Heel” has moments where it plays exactly like an early Yorgos Lanthimos production, hunting for disturbing situations within a seemingly functional setting, but Komasa and screenwriters Bartek Bartosik and Naqqash Khalid endeavor to find a more askew emotionality to the offering, looking for some heart to go with all the darkness. It’s an unsettling movie at times, but also one that enjoys playing with perspective and performance, creating a memorable understanding of imprisonment that’s meant to benefit both the captive and the captor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Youngblood” was originally released in 1986. Do you remember it? Probably not, but the feature did some business at the box office before becoming a pay cable staple for viewers of a certain age. The picture starred Rob Lowe and Patrick Swayze (Keanu Reeves appeared as well), and provided a capable take on the “Rocky” formula, bringing sporting action to the world of hockey, tracking all the team interactions and game conflicts involved in the underdog story. “Youngblood” has now returned, with director Hubert Davis overseeing a remake that recycles some of the characters and behavioral issues from the earlier film, but peels off most of the 1980s from the production. Davis supplies a cooler, more internalized “Youngblood” for younger audiences, and he hits a few spots of dramatic authority along the way, also delivering plenty of rough hockey action as the endeavor tries to get steelier with basically the same plot. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com