Glass Onion, Prime Gun: Maverick, and each new film you possibly can watch at dwelling

Christmastime is right here, Polygon readers, and Netflix received you a brand new Knives Out film.

Daniel Craig returns with a brand new ensemble solid in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Thriller, certainly one of fairly a number of new films touchdown on streaming companies and VOD this week. It’s joined by the Matilda musical on Netflix, whereas Prime Gun: Maverick (Paramount Plus) and Unusual World (Disney Plus) look to make splashes on competing platforms.

It’s an thrilling week in VOD releases, too. The indie darling Aftersun, certainly one of our prime films of the 12 months, is now out there for dwelling viewing, as is the Santa-as-an-action-star flick Violent Night time.

Let’s get into it!

Netflix

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Thriller

The place to observe: Obtainable to stream on Netflix

Style: Thriller/comedyRun time: 2h 20mDirector: Rian JohnsonCast: Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Dave Bautista

Rian Johnson’s sequel to his 2019 ensemble thriller now finds itself as part of a franchise. The as soon as upstart, non-IP style piece is now a Netflix tentpole, launched first in theaters and now out there for streaming at dwelling.

Daniel Craig returns to reprise his position because the detective Benoit Blanc, now confronted with a brand new group of rich individuals performed by very well-known individuals, as he makes an attempt to unravel a brand new homicide. This time it’s in Greece, when a tech billionaire (Edward Norton) invitations his buddies for a celebration and certainly one of them finally ends up useless.

From our evaluate:

Glass Onion is a brighter, louder, extra extroverted film than the primary Knives Out. Its themes and vogue flirt with brazen, cartoony silliness. This time round, Johnson goals for large concepts and large laughs — it is a funnier film, virtually an outright comedy at occasions, and a broad one at that. The place Knives Out targets the defensive pretension of inherited wealth, Glass Onion mocks the determined peacocking of recent cash, in a world of tech billionaires, influencers, and flash-in-the-pan politicians. As earlier than, although, the gentlemanly Benoit Blanc is right here to strip these individuals’s illusions away with comedian courtesy.

The Invitation

The place to observe: Obtainable to stream on Netflix

Style: HorrorRun time: 1h 44mDirector: Jessica M. ThompsonCast: Nathalie Emmanuel, Thomas Doherty, Sean Pertwee

Impressed by Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Invitation follows a younger lady who meets her prolonged household after her mom’s dying, solely to find they’re… vampires!

From our evaluate:

One half Get Out, one half Prepared or Not, and too few components Dracula, The Invitation is a pastiche of infinitely higher horror tales that it by no means measures as much as. You can also make vampires do virtually something in films, however The Invitation commits the one unforgivable sin: making vampires boring.

Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical

The place to observe: Obtainable to stream on Netflix

Style: Musical/fantasyRun time: 1h 57mDirector: Matthew WarchusCast: Alisha Weir, Emma Thompson, Lashana Lynch

The film adaption of the musical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Matilda went semi-viral a number of weeks again, with eye-catching choreography that places many different fashionable film musicals to disgrace.

Paramount Plus

Prime Gun: Maverick

The place to observe: Obtainable to stream on Paramount Plus

Style: ActionRun time: 2h 11mDirector: Joseph KosinskiCast: Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly

The undisputed box-office champion of 2022 (though The Manner of Water lurks), Prime Gun: Maverick lastly makes its option to Paramount Plus this week, after many lengthy months of ready. This simply means it’s a good time to observe Prime Gun: Maverick once more. Or leap out of a airplane, for those who’re Tom Cruise. As much as you.

From our evaluate:

If there’s one thing price salvaging from that period — and from Prime Gun — it’s the sense of optimism that used to dominate ’80s motion films. That and the idea that the only, corniest story, if advised with sufficient talent and conviction, can delight everybody on the earth. Prime Gun: Maverick has each these qualities in abundance. They’re embodied in Tom Cruise, who’s the auteur of his personal fable, and is perhaps the final true film star. He desires to indicate you a superb time, and he’ll. However greater than that, he desires to take off and by no means come again down.

Hulu

Mack & Rita

The place to observe: Obtainable to stream on Hulu

Style: ComedyRun time: 1h 34mDirector: Katie AseltonCast: Diane Keaton, Elizabeth Lail, Molly Duplass

A brand new wrinkle on Massive, Freaky Friday, and different body-swap comedies, Mack & Rita follows a younger author (Elizabeth Lail) who at some point wakes up as her 70-year-old self (Diane Keaton).

Sharp Stick

The place to observe: Obtainable to stream on Hulu

Style: ComedyRun time: 1h 32mDirector: Lena DunhamCast: Kristine Froseth, Jon Bernthal, Luka Sabbat

Lena Dunham already delivered among the finest comedies of the 12 months in Catherine Referred to as Birdy. Her second 2022 comedy is extra of the R-rated selection, a few lady (Kristine Froseth) who begins an affair together with her employer (Jon Bernthal). Dunham additionally co-stars on this one, as do Jennifer Jason Leigh and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Bear, Andor).

Disney Plus

Unusual World

The place to observe: Obtainable to stream on Disney Plus

Style: Motion/adventureRun time: 1h 42mDirectors: Don Corridor, Qui NguyenCast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jaboukie Younger-White, Gabrielle Union

This animated journey was certainly one of Disney’s largest box-office flops shortly, and now you possibly can test it out for your self from the consolation of your house.

From our evaluate:

When the emotional coronary heart of the film focuses on this group of ragtag explorers desperately making an attempt to save lots of the world they know, it’s a grand and thrilling journey, with stunning surroundings and fantastical creatures at each flip. When the film focuses on its wider scope, it shines, however when it pulls again all the way down to the overdone relationships, it loses what makes it sparkle. These father-son dynamics seem to be they had been speculated to anchor the film in some actuality, however all they do is drag Unusual World down when it may’ve soared.

Apple TV Plus

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

The place to observe: Obtainable to stream on Apple TV

Style: FamilyRun time: 34mDirector: Peter BayntonCast: Tom Hollander, Idris Elba, Gabriel Byrne

Charlie Mackesy’s 2019 kids’s novel will get a stunning hand-drawn animated adaptation, with Idris Elba, Tom Hollander, and Gabriel Byrne offering voice performing.

VOD

Aftersun

The place to observe: Obtainable to buy for $19.99 on Amazon, Apple TV, and Google Play

Picture: A24

Style: DramaRun time: 1h 42mDirector: Charlotte WellsCast: Frankie Corio, Paul Mescal, Celia Rowlson-Corridor

Polygon’s No. 8 greatest film of the 12 months, a formidable function debut from filmmaker Charlotte Wells, is lastly out there to observe at dwelling. I’ll let our blurb for Aftersun communicate for itself.

The human reminiscence is, famously, unreliable — defective to the purpose of being thrown out even when it’s your sworn testimony. Childhood reminiscences are maybe the very best instance of this: Even a small, remoted reminiscence can utterly change tone later when seen with the complete spectrum of maturity, filtered by the prism of concern and care that comes with it. It’s a tricky idea to wrap your mind round at occasions. And so Aftersun seems like a small miracle within the methods it not solely captures that scope however manages to border the entire idea with grace.

Younger father Calum (Paul Mescal) and his 11-year-old daughter Sophie (Frankie Corio) are on a uncommon resort trip, a fading second captured by her on a clunky camcorder (not less than partially; you realize what it’s like handy a child a video digicam). Whereas that plot is easy in development, the execution of it’s much more profound, capturing the wistful vantage factors of each Calum’s and Sophie’s experiences on vacation with equal, vivid readability. In Aftersun’s fingers, reminiscence is simply as slippery because it’s all the time been. Typically conversations wash over Sophie and threaten to drown Calum; rising up is seeing the complete image of their journey, and Aftersun is quietly devastating in its potential to seize that. It’s a testomony to the performances on the middle of it (Mescal’s compassionate weariness most of all) that the movie manages to recommend a lot with out overstating its level. In any case, reminiscence could also be unreliable, however typically reminiscence — echoed in a grainy camcorder or the recollection of a heat embrace — is all now we have. —Zosha Millman

Violent Night time

The place to observe: Obtainable to hire for $19.99 on Amazon and Vudu

Style: ActionRun time: 1h 52m Director: Tommy WirkolaCast: David Harbour, John Leguizamo, Beverly D’Angelo

David Harbour stars as Santa Claus on this motion film from 87North Productions, the legendary Hollywood motion studio that introduced you a lot of your favourite components of John Wick and different latest motion classics.

From our evaluate:

Violent Night time works greatest when it captures the warped sensibilities of early-’90s Chris Columbus films, significantly Residence Alone. It’s been identified so typically that it barely must be stated that the occasions of that movie are literally horrifically traumatizing and violent, and that Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin McCallister is a pint-size sociopath. Little Trudy Lightstone has a sadistic streak in her, too, and the movie’s most demented scenes are performed with an outsized sense of cheer that successfully creates a way of giggly discomfort. The distinction right here is that these moments are being engineered on objective. The movie has enjoyable lobbing snarky one-liners and outrageous bloodshed on the viewers, however on the entire, Violent Night time’s massive crimson bag of self-aware methods is overstuffed.