Civil War, The Crow, Netflix’s Uglies, and Every New Movie to Stream This Week
Every week at Polygon, we round up the most notable new releases for streaming and VOD, and highlight the biggest and best new movies to watch at home.
This week, Civil warthe new dystopian thriller from Ex-machine directed by Alex Garland and starring Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla, Alien: Romulus), is finally available to stream on Max. That’s not all, because the new reboot of The Crow starring Bill Skarsgård and FKA Twigs comes to VOD this week alongside Robot Dreams and the Irish comedy Kneecaptwo of our favorites of the year. And those are just a few of the exciting new releases you can watch at home this week!
Here’s everything new to check out this weekend!
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Genre: Sci-fi adventure
Playing time: 1h 40m
Director: McG
Form: Joey King, Chase Stokes, Laverne Cox
Based on the 2005 novel of the same name by Scott Westerfeld, Ugly arrives a full decade after the first YA dystopia boom. It’s set in a world where everyone gets mandatory plastic surgery at 16 and then lives glamorous but frivolous lives. A feisty teen (played by Joey King) is denied her surgery until she follows in the footsteps of her rebellious friend and takes down a renegade group. But she soon learns that getting pretty comes at a price.
Visual, Ugly is utterly uninspired. The nameless futuristic city is so generic it feels like a standard Windows XP screensaver, and the wilderness where the rebel group hides out is also deeply uninteresting. Nothing about the costume design stands out, not even the high fashion the Prettys are supposedly wearing. The only unique set piece is the rusted remains of an amusement park where Shay and Tally sneak off to ride their hoverboards, but it’s only used briefly. (And while the Ugly book did it first, a destroyed ferris wheel was a big set piece in Deviant.)
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Genre: Action comedy
Playing time: 1h 40m
Director: Jason Kim
Form: Kim Woo-bin, Kim Sung-kyun
This Korean buddy cop film follows Lee Jung-do (Kim Woo-bin), a justice-minded martial artist with black belts in taekwondo, kendo, and judo who is recruited to become a “martial arts officer” by Kim Sun-min (Kim Sung-kyun), an overworked parole officer. Tasked with tracking down criminals wearing electronic ankle bracelets, Jung-do has fun and kicks ass while learning what it means to help people within the boundaries of the law.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu
Image: Roadside Attractions/Everett Collection
Genre: Dystopian action comedy
Playing time: 1h 51m
Director: Moritz Mohr
Form: Bill Skarsgård, Jessica Rothe, Michelle Dockery
A young man in a grim dystopian future who loves video games is sent on a mission to destroy the city’s totalitarian ruler. From our review:
The film is largely tailored to a specific breed of video game movie fan: it’s a checklist of retro beat-’em-up references and meta-comedic elements that some viewers will inevitably find broad, overdone, and off-putting, while other viewers will find the film playful and energetic.
The feeling that the time to do something is over
Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu
Image: Magnolia Pictures/Everett Collection
Genre: Comedy
Playing time: 1h 28m
Director: Joanna Arnow
Form: Joanna Arnow, Scott Cohen, Babak Tafti
50 shades of grey takes a more mundane turn. A listless young woman drifts through life, searching for a more satisfying sexual connection when her on-off-on BDSM relationship no longer suits her.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Max
Image: A24
Genre: Dystopian thriller
Playing time: 1h 49m
Director: Alex Garland
Form: Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny
Alex Garland’s thriller stays away from contemporary political themes, focusing instead on war correspondents and journalism.
The entire film is paced and planned with that dynamic. It is a particularly beautiful drama, shot with a loving warmth that reflects the point of view, through the eyes of two photographers accustomed to seeing everything around them in terms of vivid, compelling images. A late-film sequence shot as the group drives through a forest fire is particularly beautiful, but the film as a whole seems designed to impress viewers on a visual level.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Shudder
Photo: Pierce Derks/IFC Films
Genre: Horror
Playing time: 1h 34m
Director: Chris Nash
Form: Ry Barrett, Andrea Pavlovic, Cameron Love
What if there was a slasher film where everything was seen from the perspective of the killer? Wonder no more, because that’s exactly what director Chris Nash’s new film delivers. In a violent nature is without a doubt one of the most gruesome horror films of the year, with enough gruesome horror to keep your eyes glued to the screen and your hands firmly on your seat.
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Arcadia Motion Pictures
Genre: Tragicomedy
Playing time: 1h 43m
Director: Pablo Berger
The surprise entry for Best Animated Feature at this year’s Oscars is a bittersweet ode to old friends. Director Pablo Berger was so moved by Sara Varon’s graphic novel that he founded an animation studio to adapt it for the screen. Completely without dialogue, it follows a lonely dog who befriends a robot, the blissful summer they share, and what happens when outside forces separate them. Robot Dreams is beautifully animated and highly evocative – and will make you sob the next time you hear Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September.”
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Photo: Larry Horricks/Lionsgate
Genre: Superhero drama
Playing time: 1h 51m
Director: Rupert Sanders
Form: Bill Skarsgård, FKA Twigs, Danny Huston
Director Rupert Sanders (2017’s Ghost in the shell) is back with a reboot of the 1994 film The Crow. Aren’t you excited?
Bill Skarsgård (Barbarian) stars as Eric, a young addict who meets and falls in love with Shelly (FKA Twigs), a troubled musician also struggling with addiction. When the pair are gunned down by the henchmen of a powerful crime lord (Danny Huston) who has made a pact with the devil to ensure his own immortality, Eric is resurrected as a vengeful supernatural warrior tasked with killing the crime lord and reuniting with his lost love.
Polygon spoke with Sanders about the challenges that came with the opportunity to make a modern adaptation of the comic book series.
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Sony Pictures Classics
Genre: Comedy drama
Playing time: 1h 45m
Director: Rich Peppiatt
Form: Naoise Ó Cairealláin, Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh, JJ Ó Dochartaigh
This irreverent comedy-drama stars the members of Kneecap, a Belfast hip-hop trio of native Irish-speaking rappers, as they relive the story of how they met and began making music in early 2010. From run-ins with British authorities to their rise to fame across the country, Kneecap is a comedy about the power of music as a form of expression and as a means to shape your own identity.
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Dark Sky Films
Genre: Body horror comedy
Playing time: 1h 18m
Director: Maria Dauterman
Form: Grace Glowicki, Garrick Bernard, Heather Matarazzo
Grief is a difficult emotion to deal with, especially if you happen to transform into a monster in the process. When Anna (Grace Glowicki) learns of the shocking death of her best friend and roommate, Izzy, she adopts a stray cat as an outlet for her grieving process. After being bitten by the cat, however, Anna begins to notice disturbing changes in her behavior and begins to suspect that she may be turning into something… inhuman.