February film preview: an ant, a wasp, and two bears walk into a theater...

Universal isn’t actively promoting the fact that M. Night Shyamalan’s latest suspense story, , is based on Paul G. Tremblay’s novel, The Cabin At The End Of The World, possibly because reading the book might spoil elements of surprise that the twist-o-phile helmer often relies upon. However, was also an adaptation, and Shyamalan changed that ending, so nothing’s spoiled until it’s spoiled, as Yogi Berra might say. In any case, the setup is the same: a gay couple on vacation with their young daughter are taken prisoner by four religious fanatics who demand one of them be sacrificed in order to prevent the apocalypse. Are they just murderous homophobes, or is a vengeful God actually speaking to them? In a Shyamalan movie, both possibilities are very much on the table.

Want to feel old? Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda are now in their 80s, Rita Moreno is 91, and Sally Field’s the baby of this group at a spry 76. For the purposes of the semi-rhyming title, however, they average out as all octogenarians. Inspired by a true story—and probably — focuses on these senior superfans of Tom Brady and the New England Patriots who journey to the 2017 Super Bowl hoping to meet Tom Brady … and fail to realize that they can’t just walk up to the box office and buy tickets. The movie also boasts a bevy of cameos from football stars, as well as Guy Fieri, and a soundtrack with iconic female vocalists, who are merely in their 60s and 70s: Dolly Parton, Debbie Harry, Belinda Carlisle, Gloria Estefan, and Cyndi Lauper. Kyle Marvin makes his feature directorial debut having previously cowritten and costarred in the Sony Pictures Classics comedy The Climb, a well-reviewed Cannes 2019 entry about the troubled friendship between two male cyclists. Bonds should be considerably sweeter in this wanna-be crowd pleaser.

A mother-to-be (Noémie Merlant) starts having nightmares about her upcoming baby, and they only get worse once it’s born and she becomes convinced it’s killing her. Fear of parenthood always makes a fertile topic for horror, and it offers a weird sort of catharsis for anxious parents—hey, the problem’s not you, your kid’s just evil! But as with so many recent horror movies, the mom in this case is a social media “influencer,” which can be shorthand for “deserving victim,” because let’s face it, who actually likes influencers? Director Bess Wohl, the Tony-nominated playwright of 2020’s Grand Horizons, makes her feature debut here. It’s an interesting transition, given that Grand Horizons was a broad comedy about an elderly couple considering divorce. Perhaps, like its obvious predecessor, , will contain more satirical elements than are readily apparent in its trailer.

In , two generations of con artists play against each other in Manhattan’s high society. Julianne Moore’s Madeline romances John Lithgow’s Richard because he’s rich. Her son Max (Sebastian Stan) likes to run scams, but he thinks small-scale. Richard’s son Tom (Justice Smith) is more honest, or at least he seems to be, and suffers for it. Director Benjamin Caron has helmed episodes of , , and , so he clearly gets pretty people doing intrigue. Sharper’s script, by Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka, made the 2020 Black List, and it was picked up by A24, with Moore and her husband Bart Freundlich producing. Expect many twists and turns, and given the way these things usually go, our money’s on Tom to outsmart everyone in the end. (That’s entirely a guess, not a spoiler.)

Goran Stolevski made an impressive feature debut with , about a shape-shifting witch in 19th century Macedonia. brings him into a more modern era—1999, to be precise—with an Australia-set romantic drama about a Serbian immigrant ballroom dancer who falls for his partner’s brother. The two cross paths 10 years after an intense one-day fling and take stock of what time has done, or not done. For viewers who remember the ’90s, there’s a built-in metaphor here—so many of us long to return to the days before 9/11, before Bush vs. Gore, before TSA, when the world still seemed hopeful. Marrying that to nostalgia for a love lost seems a canny way to hook Gen-Xers of any orientation.

Following a lackluster sequel that he did not direct, Steven Soderbergh returns to his just-for-fun franchise to deliver the trilogy capper, . This installment sees stripper-turned-bartender Mike (Tatum) head to London, sans regular sidekicks like Joe Manganiello and Kevin Nash, where he’ll put on a stage show for Salma Hayek Pinault. Though this film is said to conclude Mike’s story, Soderbergh has mentioned plans for spin-offs with other characters. But we’re not writing off Mike just yet, since the role seems to regularly be the most fun Tatum has onscreen.

is a rom-com in which a house swap leads to sparks flying. Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher play old friends living on different coasts who slept together one time years ago. When they trade spaces, with him babysitting her son and her discovering a new dating scene, old feelings come up, and friends weigh in on how often the two talk about each other. While the outcome is inevitable, the joy will potentially be in the journey. Both leads are veterans of this stuff, but let’s hope they don’t go on autopilot as a result. Aline Brosh McKenna, the writer of , , and the 2014 remake, makes her directorial debut here.

This is what happens when literary properties known the world over enter the public domain: exploitation movies find an angle and work it. Winnie-the-Pooh creator A.A. Milne would likely never have approved of , a horror movie in which Pooh and Piglet go feral, eat Tigger, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo, and Owl, and continue on a murderous rampage. But it doesn’t matter as long as it doesn’t violate Disney’s copyright. ITN studios knew what they were doing—after the announcement of this quickie, shot in 10 days, got major mainstream media attention, they allotted more money for reshoots, and now Fathom Events will get it into theaters. The idea may be funnier and more outrageous than the final product could ever hope to be, but since insane bears seem to be a trend this February (keep clicking!), we fully expect a new and gleefully tasteless franchise to emerge.

Liam Neeson’s 100th movie isn’t just another story about an old man shooting people vengefully. Rather, is a reunion with Neil Jordan, who directed him in 1988’s ghost comedy , and adapted for the screen by ’s William J. Monahan. Neeson plays Philip Marlowe, the famous detective created by Raymond Chandler, but for this film’s purposes, also the protagonist of John Banville’s The Black-Eyed Blonde. As so often happens in these things, Marlowe is hired to find an heiress and it soon gets complicated. Though the story’s set in 1939, Jordan cites as an inspiration, with its shadowy interiors and neon-lit nights. Neeson still gets to fire guns and punch people, but this time around it looks like he might get to recite some decent dialogue as well.

After two movies heavily focused on shrinking and growing action-comedy on the streets of San Francisco, goes full epic fantasy, taking place mostly in the Quantum Realm. Previously shown as a relatively uninhabited time tunnel, the microverse is herein revealed to be populated by all manner of robots and aliens, as well as a megalomaniacal new archvillain named Kang (Jonathan Majors), who seeks Ant-Man’s shrink-enhancing Pym particles to power his conquest of time and space. Because Kang is destined to be the big villain in the crossover movie some 20 projects down the line, don’t expect much closure here. The trailers suggest Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) will get heavily beaten up, but could he die? Given Evangeline Lilly’s public, controversial vaccine-skeptical stances, the Wasp seems more likely to get written out. Then again, nobody ever really dies in comics or comic book movies, at least as long as they’re still making money for the studio.

No,  is not a sequel or prequel to , but rather it’s a semi-fictional Emily Bronte biopic. It imagines a romance that inspired the writing of Wuthering Heights, as recalled in unreliable narration by Bronte on her deathbed. The story promptly inspires sister Charlotte in her own literary pursuits. Actress Frances O’Connor (, ) steps behind the camera for this irreverent yet earnest tribute to the great writer. Emma Mackey, best known for Netflix’s , plays Emily.

The Internet has already decided, based on the title alone, that will be the greatest movie of the year. To be fair, said internet also thought the same about . Nonetheless, if nobody yells, “I have had it with this motherfucking cocaine in this motherfucking bear!” it will be a truly missed opportunity. Thankfully, the preview promises swears aplenty. Directed by Elizabeth Banks, the film is based on a true story about a bear who, back in 1985, ingested a duffel bag full of cocaine and went on a rampage. Considering the Frank Miller-style artwork on the poster, this isn’t going to be a sensitive treatise on animal rights. Rather, it looks to be the best CG animal attack movie since , and deserves major props for using Melle Mel’s White Lines in the trailer.