Welcome to Trust Me, I Watch Everything, a weekly guide to all the new movies out each Friday. This week’s buzziest release is poised to have the biggest box-office opening not just of the summer or the year, but likely of all time: Spider-Man: Brand New Day,starring Tom Holland, Zendaya and franchise newcomer Sadie Sink.
If Marvel movies aren’t your thing, there’s also the latest film from once-prolific indie filmmaker Gregg Araki, a raunchy screwball comedy called I Want Your Sex,starring Oli
And if you’d rather stay home, you can now rent or buy the latest film from James Gunn’s D.C. Comics Universe, Supergirl,which was a major bomb. There’s also the ambitious, violent and ultimately too dour The Death of Robin Hoodstarring Hugh Jackman and Jodie Comer, another movie that didn’t connect at the box office. I didn’t care for either, but both films have their fans.
Want to stick to a streaming service you’re likely already paying for? It’s a great week for that, with The Devil Wears Prada 2 debuting on Disney+ and the Zendaya-Robert Pattinson cringe comedy The Dramaheading to HBO Max.
-
Movies newly available to rent or buy
-
Movies newly available on streaming services you may already have
🎥What to watch in theaters
The biggest release:Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Why I didn’t like it: It takes about three minutes before Spider-Man is featured next to a Little Caesars box (try the Webberoni pizza, available now at a location near you!) and a couple more minutes for him to order up another one. A few minutes later, he’s framed next to some Bero, Tom Holland’s booze-free beer, at the bodega. We get it — this is corporate-branded big business more than it is entertainment, merely a vehicle to sell more whatever. Call it Spider-Man: New Brand Day!
This is certainly an annoying thing to complain about — I remember all of Tobey Maguire’s Sony-branded gear from the Sam Raimi movies, but having a Sony laptop doesn’t break immersion; flashing a bright orange pizza box twice in what feels like 90 seconds does. It also really speaks to the major problem with the modern-day MCU: This movie feels as impersonal as possible, and the entire endeavor is so clearly a means to an end.
It’s emblematic of another issue that plagues Marvel: Even when it’s not doing blatant in-your-face product placement, it’s doing tacit product placement. What is the inclusion of Frank Castle if not an in-movie ad for The Punisher,now streaming on Disney+? As someone who checked out of the MCU right around the time they pivoted to “You better watch this Disney+ show if you want the full experience,” I have no idea why Jon Bernthal’s very silly take on The Punisher is in this movie, beyond some brand-synergy play. I love the guy, but his performance reeks of “this belongs on television.”
The villain, kept secret in the marketing, feels similarly shoehorned in, but clearly ties this movie to the next big Marvel release, Avengers: Payday,or whatever it’s called. The entire modus operandi of the MCU is to keep viewers invested in the next thing; otherwise, the whole project crumbles.
This helps explain why Tom Holland’s MCU Spider-Man, despite a decade as the character and four mainline movies, has never really felt like the star of his own show, even though Spidey is the most popular superhero in the world. In Homecoming,he’s introduced as Tony Stark Jr.; in No Way Home,he literally gets sidelined so past Spider-Men (Spiders-Man?) can get some applause.
In the self-serious slog that is Brand New Day,which announces itself as such with a more melancholic Marvel Studios logo than usual, decent storytelling and stakes are nowhere to be found; things just happen arbitrarily as the movie lumbers along with zero tension. Don’t confuse “it has no story” for “it has no plot” — the movie is all plot! (Here, most of it centers on everyone — even his loved ones — forgetting all about Peter Parker as he confronts a new villain.)
When the movie is actually engaging with the characters we care about, like MJ and Ned, it’s far better for it. More often than not, it’s off on some tangent with Frank Castle. Or teasing out the villain, who is so obvious from the jump that all the laborious build-up lacks tension, no matter how cool some of the mind-control stuff gets. By the end, it’s clear Spider-Man has taken a backseat in a Spider-Man movie yet again. Call me old-fashioned, but I think Spider-Man movies should be about Spider-Man and not a backdoor pilot for something else.
Spider-Man: Brand New Dayis set to open huge, though, even bigger than the cross-generational No Way Home.The only thing Marvel has to worry about now is figuring out which products and characters to prominently feature in the next one to maximize shareholder value.
What other critics are saying: It’s very well-reviewed overall. Stephanie Zacharek at Time says the film, “at the very least, shows some awareness that actors, and not excessive, soul-killing special effects, are what will keep drawing us to the movies.” Rolling Stone’s David Fear was more on my wavelength, however, writing that “the movie keeps getting tangled in a complicated web of its own making, one that feels all too familiar after several decades of superhero cinema sucking up the cultural oxygen.”
How to watch:Spider-Man: Brand New Dayis now playing in theaters nationwide.
Another option: I Want Your Sex
Why I liked it despite some issues: Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sexdoesn’t want to be taken too seriously, though its director’s compassionate plea to Gen Z, specifically, is earnest and direct: Stop being afraid of sex. Allow yourself the experience of doing it, and all the pluses and minuses that come along with it, because these are the formative experiences of your life.
When fresh-faced Elliot (Cooper Hoffman) lands an exciting job for renowned artist, icon and provocateur Erika Tracy (Oli, his fantasies come true as Erika taps him to become her sexual muse. But Elliot soon finds himself out of his depth as Erika takes him on a journey more profound than he ever could have imagined, into a world of sex, obsession, power, betrayal and murder
It’s a sex-positive comedy that’s more interested in earning laughs from the various sub-dom relationship situations the characters find themselves in than in actually depicting intimacy and sexiness, though Wilde is undeniably sexy and in her element here. By the third or fourth joke about her shoving stuff up Hoffman’s ass, though, I started to see the limits of its edginess. Any fan of indie filmmaking knows that Gregg Araki (The Doom Generation, Mysterious Skin)can go way, way harder than this!
The movie’s Sunset Boulevard-inspired frame narrative and flashback structure are its weakest assets; the Norma Desmond comparison is fun, but the movie doesn’t really have any real reason to do the in medias resthing, and every time we cut to the interrogation room where two cops are getting the story out of Elliot, it kills the momentum and reminds you this is leading somewhere specific that’s not necessarily in this particular movie’s wheelhouse. The art world satire also feels a bit stale.
Where the movie shines, though, is in its depiction of a generation that came of age during the COVID-19 pandemic and how that experience stunted and deeply affected their sense of intimacy and their capacity for vulnerability. Oddly enough, I Want Your Sexactually has the same ultimate message as the recently released Toy Story 5:Get out from behind your smartphone and make a real, human connection. There’s simply no replacement for it!
What other critics are saying: Reviews are quite positive, even if most use the same qualifying language I did. The Los Angeles Times’ Amy Nicholson writes, “From the opening shot of a body in a Los Angeles pool, Araki and co-screenwriter Karley Sciortino tickle us with their 21st-century send-up of Sunset Boulevard. But Araki can go where Code-era movies couldn’t: into the bedroom.” Monica Castillo at the AV Club writes, “Araki’s silly, sexy, tongue-in-cheek skewering of cross-generational sexual attitudes is just as funny as it is thought-provoking.”
How to watch:I Want Your Sexis now playing in limited release.
💸Movies newly available to rent or buy
The biggest release:Supergirl
Why I didn’t like it:As a noted hater of James Gunn’s Supermanbut a big fan of the comic book series that this new movie is based on (Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow,by writer Tom King and artist Bilquis Evely),I had high hopes for Supergirl.The movie did not meet them.
Milly Alcock of HBO’s House of the Dragonstars as Clark Kent’s cousin Kara Zor-El, and here’s what passes for a plot: When an unexpected and ruthless adversary strikes too close to home, Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl, reluctantly joins forces with an unlikely companion on an epic, interstellar journey of vengeance and justice.
While the movie technically adapts the comic book’s story, it does so in such disastrous ways that they might as well have left the source material alone. In Woman of Tomorrow,you are made to feelhow evilmarauding space villain Krem is; he comes off quite menacing and scary on the page. In the movie, we know he’s bad because he’s made up to look like aMad Maxvillain, with studs in his face and the like. It’s a great look, but that’s not characterization, and he has none here. Thus, an A-grade villain becomes a generic, forgettable bad guy.
Even worse, Ruthye, the Supergirl ally who is such a key part in the books, gets sidelined in a way that makes her annoying and useless. Her arc in the comic mirrors Mattie’s in Charles Portis’s legendary novel True Grit,and even her dialogue throughout the series makes it clear that’s what they’re going for. The movie abandons all of this to give us … Jason Momoa as Lobo, a fan-favorite bounty hunter character who has no business being in the movie at all, and a fetch-quest plot centered around the poisoning of a CGI dog that was already overutilized in the last movie. The story of Woman of Tomorrowis such a layup, and they give it up for no good reason.
The movie plays like a Star Wars cantina band-scene compilation for a while as Kara and friends traverse the galaxy to track down the antidote to the poison or whatever. It’s one Mos Eisley after another! These sequences feature some fun, practical makeup on the monsters and cool-looking sets mixed in with awful-looking digital effects, which only serve to emphasize how muddy and bad the movie looks the rest of the time.
Supergirl,worst of all, shortchanges Kara, who feels like she’s second- or third-string in her own movie at times. She doesn’t get to do anything “super,” really, and is often seen just floating around, which, again, looks terrible because these movies are now all shot in warehouses with backgrounds added in post. It’s clear that Momoa’s Lobo is shoehorned in because somebody at Warner Bros. was worried that a female-centric superhero movie wouldn’t sell enough tickets. You could excise his character from the movie entirely and lose nothing. In fact, it would be better. And I’ve barely mentioned how incoherent and useless the action sequences are; not a single one makes an impression, unless what they were going for is me squinting to see what the hell is happening.
Supergirlgoes in a decidedly different direction from Superman,leaning more into Star Warsterritory, which, combined with the reverence the movie shows for its needle drops, makes it feel like another attempt at Guardians of the Galaxy.The Mad Maxaesthetic is cool, but those movies work because they have the action and spectacle to back it up. Supergirldoes not, nor does it have an actual story to engage with.
The one-two punch of Supermanand Supergirlwas supposed to usher in an exciting and bold new era at DC, despite industry headwinds suggesting that superhero movies have lost their luster. Instead, all they’ve done is prove there’s not much juice left to squeeze.
What other critics are saying:It’s getting torn apart! Clarisse Loughrey at the Independent writes, “The mandate here appears to be to keep things as distinctly Gunn-esque as possible. In return, Superman’s moodier, more cynical relative has been robbed of the chance to speak with her own voice. It’s the superhero equivalent of a Vegas impersonator.” Robbie Collin at the Telegraph writes, “Like watching an endless orangey-gray rehash of scenes from Mad Max and Star Wars. Who is faster than a speeding bullet and can leap tall buildings in a single bound? Supergirl‘s novel answer: Who cares?”
How to watch:Supergirl is now available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Prime Video and other VOD platforms.
Another option:The Death of Robin Hood
Why I didn’t like it:The Death of Robin Hoodis so grim and bleak and dark that my initial response was simply to laugh at the audacity. We’re introduced to the title character as he kills a child, as if the movie is saying right off the bat, “This ain’t your grandpappy’s Robin Hood,” which honestly could be the logline for the entire endeavor.
In this gritty take on the man, myth, and legend, we find Robin Hood (Hugh Jackman) grappling with his past after a life of crime and murder. He finds himself gravely injured after a battle he thought would be his last. In the hands of a mysterious woman (Jodie Comer), he is offered a chance at salvation.
It’s beautifully photographed throughout, but it feels as if it’s simply being dour for the sake of being dour, rejiggering the backstory of a famous tale we all know to say, “Everything you thought you knew about Robin Hood is wrong.” But it never really answers whywe need to hear this revisionist take. It depicts absurdly brutal violence and forces the audience to wallow in it. It’s not particularly fun, is what I’m getting at, and even if you’re in it for the action, almost all of it is relegated to the opening act.
I understand the thematic idea at the center here: The harsh and brutal realities of life are often softened by the stories we tell. The violent truth is lost to history, and instead, we get legends about heroic figures. Christopher Nolan actually just made an incredible epic about this exact idea, and even though Robin Hooddirector Michael Sarnoski technically got there first, I thought Nolan utilized the concept better. I can appreciate the intent and still find the movie deadly boring and one-note.
The Death of Robin Hoodis most disappointing in that it’s the first misfire from its writer/director, whose debut, Pig, is terrific, and whose follow-up, the Quiet Placespin-off/prequel A Quiet Place: Day One,was unexpectedly poignant and affecting. Here’s hoping he bounces back with something a bit more fun.
What other critics are saying: The response has been pretty mixed. The AP’s Jake Coyle writes, “The oppressive dourness and forced cynicism of the film suffocate the characters in a way that feels no more realistic than Mel Brooks’s 1993 parody. The result, while admirably considered, is almost comically misjudged.” Benjamin Lee at the Guardian says, “[Michael Sarnoski]’s yet to elevate good to great, and the unsureness of tone here, the film stuck somewhere between epic and chamberpiece, makes it another valiant, if ultimately unsuccessful, attempt. Greatness will one day surely come.”
How to watch:The Death of Robin Hoodis now available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Prime Video and other VOD platforms.
The biggest release:The Devil Wears Prada 2
Why you should watch it:Legacy sequels have become so commonplace in Hollywood that they’re no longer just for the mega-budget genre pictures: Even The Devil Wears Prada,a beloved workplace comedy that earned Meryl Streep an Oscar nomination for her iconic turn as Miranda Priestly, a character based on real-life Vogue editor Anna Wintour, gets a chance to catch up with its characters 20 years later.
The worst legacy sequels play like Super Bowl commercials, in which actors return as characters we love, but in a way that feels unsatisfying and a little desperate, like when Ellie Sattler, Ian Malcolm and Alan Grant turned up earlier this year to sell us on Xfinity.
Thankfully, The Devil Wears Prada 2feels like it could be the model going forward, as it updates its story for a modern era in a way that’s unexpectedly smart, clever and sadly, maybe even a little tooreal, especially for audience members who happen to work in media. It ends up being a movie about the death of print journalism, the rise of algorithmically driven “content” and how every institution is being gutted to make a few more dollars for the billionaires in charge. It’s also very funny, despite opening with Anne Hathaway’s Andy Sachs getting laid off from her job as an investigative reporter at a print newspaper.
Meanwhile, at Runway, the magazine where Andy was Miranda’s assistant 20 years ago, her former boss is ushering the company through a very 2026 PR crisis that requires someone like Andy to come in and fix it. This leads them to reencounter Emily (Emily Blunt), who now works at Dior, flipping the power dynamic. Priestly needs to grovel to get Dior’s approval, since the company relies on Dior’s ad money. And because it’s 2026, the magazine barely exists, and nobody clicks on its online-only content — except for other culture reporters and writers, Priestly notes at one point, which is such a specific barb at Twitter-addicted journalists that you’d think it was written by one.
The Devil Wears Prada 2uses the blueprint of a 20-year-later sequel to provide an earnest update on the industry it famously depicted back in 2006, and that honest approach goes a long way. The movie makes a meal out of material that sounds broad and groan-worthy on its face — like Miranda Priestly being subjected to more stringent HR oversight — because the writers and the audience both know the characters well enough for it to play as genuine instead of schticky. It’s hard not to laugh at Priestly, wondering if her missing assistant was “human trafficked” and also being aware that she’s not allowed to say things like that anymore. “She used to throw her coats at people,” one of the new interns says.
It also functions as a poignant love letter to the people still putting in the work that used to make up magazines, now found in bite-size pieces on your TikTok feed. Its ultimate message is that journalism still matters, which is a heartening one in an era rife with misinformation and when trust in the media hits all-time lows, and one you likely didn’t see coming from a movie about the inner workings of a fashion magazine.
The Devil Wears Prada 2manages to do all of that while being as charming and fun as the first film, in a well-made movie that cares enough to travel to the locations depicted. What a concept! Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci and Emily Blunt all don’t miss a beat slipping back into the roles, and it’s nice that those characters actually had something to say rather than sell us the latest home phone and internet package. It may be even better than the original.
What other critics are saying:Reviews are strong, but there are some detractors. The Telegraph’s Robbie Collin writes that “Hathaway and Streep are at the respective peaks of their comedic powers.” Jake Coyle at the Associated Press, however, writes, “I wouldn’t begrudge anyone who just wants to see … these actors together again. But the movie, well stocked in Prada, could have used a bit more of Streep’s unflappable devil.”
How to watch:The Devil Wears Prada 2is now streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.
Another option: The Drama
Why you should watch it: How well do you know your partner? We all think we know the people in our lives, but do we really? How much of what we know about our spouse was learned during courtship, when you were two different people than you are today? Can a person fundamentally change?
The Drama, a pitch-black comedy about marriage that’s actually about much bigger ideas, including race — but also a plot twist I can’t tell you that is the centerpiece tease of the above trailer — asks these questions. But let’s just say that the unmentioned detail (click here if you want the spoiler) makes it about American culture in a very specific way.
Kristoffer Borgli’s fourth feature film, his second in a row at A24 after the Nicolas Cage-starring Dream Scenario,stars Robert Pattinson and Zendaya as a couple preparing for their wedding. During a night of wine and food tasting to finalize their menu, Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Pattinson) play an off-the-cuff game with their best man, Mike (Mamoudou Athie), and his wife, maid of honor Rachel (Alana Haim, who gets to shine here like never before).
They all drink and reveal the worst things they’ve ever done. What Emma decides to share is the big reveal. The rest of the movie revolves around Charlie convincing himself that he is about to marry a psychopath and that he must not actually know her as well as he thought he did. There’s definitely a racial element at play too, with two interracial couples and their differing reactions to certain revelations shaping Borgli’s point on how these characters see one another. You’ll appreciate my vagueness when you watch it!
The Dramais slyly brilliant in the way it gets at the inherent performance involved in the dating process: how we all want to serve up the best version of ourselves, accentuate the positives and maybe leave out some of the negatives entirely. It’s a movie about the disconnect between how we present ourselves and who we actually are and the hypocrisy that can come with pretending otherwise. There are several characters in the movie who spill dark secrets, and what they reveal, and how they react to the other reveals, speak volumes.
It’s also impeccably crafted and particularly well edited; the first act lays the foundation for their relationshipn, cutting to the moments in jarring fashion for comedic effect, purposefully subverting rom-com meet-cute tropes with the more uncomfortable truth beneath them. Is it creepy that he lied about reading a book to get her attention?
Thankfully, Borgli is as interested in making the audience laugh as he is in making them squirm, and he excels at both. The Drama builds to an incredibly satisfying third act of chaotic madness and ends on a surprisingly tender note that made me want to experience it all again.
What other critics are saying:Reviews are all over the place! William Bibbiani at TheWrap writes, “It’s disquieting, and even though it’s also riveting, it’s difficult to shake the sense that everyone is getting away with something they shouldn’t.” Time’s Stephanie Zacharek, however, says, “It’s hard to have any idea what The Drama is trying to say or do, beyond tease its audience with its lack of specificity.”
How to watch:The Dramais now streaming on HBO Max.
-
The Devil’s Mouth: Celebrate Shark Week with this brand new, straight-to-streaming shark flick that nails the assignment and is easily the best thing director Jeff Wadlow (Fantasy Island, Truth or Dare, Imaginary)has ever made. Kathryn Newton (Lisa Frankenstein, the Ant-Man movies) and Lana Condor (To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before) star as friends exploring “The Devil’s Mouth” cave system in Thailand for one last adventure before life in the real world begins. But they soon discover that something is hunting them underwater. The movie is appropriately claustrophobic and cleverly uses the cave system’s geography to make the viewer feel as if they’re trapped right along with them, and the shark kills are particularly brutal as bodies get thrashed against rocks. Condor’s character may be incredibly annoying, but the dynamic between the friend group is totally believable, and you actually do wind up caring about whether they live or die. It gets extra points for shooting in real locations, which is sadly rare nowadays; it makes a real difference that these actors are actually swimming around in caves most of the runtime! Now streaming onPrime Video
-
A Private Life:This movie, starring Jodie Foster, managed to fly almost entirely under the radar, probably because it’s a foreign film in which Foster speaks almost entirely in French. When renowned psychiatrist Lilian Steiner (Foster, obviously) learns of the sudden death of a patient, she suspects murder. She mounts a private investigation, enlisting an odd assortment of quirky characters. It’s strangely alluring and can best be described as a mysterious Hitchcockian psychological thriller. Now streaming onNetflix
-
Nightborn: In a possibly cursed Finnish forest, Saga (Seidi Haarla) and her husband Jon (Rupert Grint of Harry Potterfame) embark on a new chapter as parents. But Saga’s joy is overshadowed by a chilling suspicion about their newborn, unbeknownst to Jon, causing a rift as she alone grapples with the disturbing truth. A horror flick about motherhood and postpartum depression isn’t exactly breaking new ground — I can think of a dozen “metaphorror” flicks released in the past year, including a few specifically about becoming a mom. But the nasty body horror, combined with practical effects like puppets and animatronics for the scary, cursed baby, makes it fun enough to recommend to fans of genre fare. Now streaming onShudder
-
Over Your Dead Body:This off-putting action comedy is far more violent and lighter on laughs than you’re expecting. Jason Segel and Samara Weaving star as a dysfunctional couple that heads to a remote cabin to “reconnect,” but each has secret intentions to kill the other. Imagine if The War of the Roses,remade just last year as The Roses,got incredibly gory and violent, and you’ve basically got the gist. The movie’s plotting gets increasingly over-the-top as it goes, and there’s a single scene that puts a bad taste in your mouth that never goes away. Now streaming onAMC+
That’s all for this week! We’ll see you next Friday.
Looking for more recs?Find your next watch on the Yahoo 100, our daily list of the most popular movies of the year. And for family-friendly picks, check out ourkid-approved summer movie guide.
If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission.
