Heroes from around the world arrive on streaming this weekend. James Gunn skips the origin story and reboots the DCU with a silly, heartfelt tale about the Man of Steel trying to stop a war in Superman, which soars onto HBO Max. Batman finds himself in the center of a war in Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires, which places the Dark Knight in 16th century Mesoamerica, with mixed results. The film is available on VOD, along with Ne Zha 2, which continues the story of the Chinese folk here as he defies his dark destiny to make his parents proud.
This weekend also offers some family-friendly fun with Pixar’s sci-fi adventure Elio available to stream on Disney Plus and Smurfs singing and dancing on Paramount Plus.
Here’s a rundown of the most notable new releases on streaming and VOD, including the biggest, best, and most popular new movies you can watch at home right now.
New on Netflix
Ice Road: Vengeance
- Genre: Action thriller
- Run time: 1h 53m
- Director: Jonathan Hensleigh
- Cast: Liam Neeson, Fan Bingbing, Marcus Thomas
The sequel to 2021’s The Ice Road has truck driver Mike McCann (Liam Neeson) embroiled in a kidnapping on a bus on the way to Mt. Everest. He’ll have to protect the passengers (and a village) from mercenaries and corrupt cops by showing off both his shooting and driving skills in hostile terrain.
New on Disney Plus
Elio
- Genre: Sci-fi adventure
- Run time: 1h 38m
- Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
- Cast: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldaña, Remy Edgerly
A lonely, orphaned young boy who dreams of being abducted by aliens gets his wish in Pixar’s ambitious science fiction movie. Mistaken for Earth’s leader, Elio (Yonas Kibreab) is taken to a strange and vibrant world threatened by the warlord Blood Emperor Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett), where he has to learn to deal with his grief and let people in.
From our review:
Elio himself is an enjoyable character, the kind of kid who’s meant to be both a bit aspirational for kid audiences, and simultaneously sympathetic and exasperating for adult viewers. His goofy dedication to alien abduction and his willingness to do whatever it takes to stay in the Communiverse are strong story drivers that push the narrative and character-building forward at the same time. But they aren’t always relatable. This is where the risk of weird retro sci-fi stories comes in: Enough of Elio is dedicated to exploring wild animated dreamscapes and bizarre settings and creatures that there isn’t always room to unpack the story points that most need unpacking.
New on HBO Max
Superman
- Genre: Superhero
- Run time: 2h 9m
- Director: James Gunn
- Cast: David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult
James Gunn reboots the DCU by skipping the origin story of the Man of Steel and picking up the action three years after Superman (David Corenswet) started protecting Metropolis. After he loses a fight for the first time, the hero has to rely on his friends and allies to stop a war and unravel the schemes of billionaire Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult).
From our review:
Corenswet, like so many Superman performers before him, has a difficult line to walk, figuring out how to convey Clark’s essential goodness without coming across like a ramrod-straight parody of an overgrown Boy Scout. Corenswet leans into the dorkiness charmingly, while teasing out some human irritation at the pitfalls of his chosen life. (Superman knows he shouldn’t read the tweets or pay attention to the trending hashtags, and yet…) Though a little bit of Superman’s faith in humanity gets the told-not-shown treatment, with Lois describing him in terms we don’t fully see played out on screen, Corenswet squares the hero’s big (and obviously heavily CG’d) physical feats with a surprising amount of interior conflict.
New on Paramount Plus
Smurfs
- Genre: Animated musical comedy
- Run time: 1h 32m
- Director: Chris Miller
- Cast: Rihanna, James Corden, John Goodman
The reboot of The Smurfs film series is packed with musical numbers and dance routines as the blue guys travel through alternate dimensions animated in different styles. It doesn’t have a coherent plot, but it’s meant to delight kids while packing in a ridiculously long list of cameos from famous actors to distract their parents.
From our review:
Smurfs is garbage. It’s a randomized assortment of Stuff That Happens in Kids’ Animated Movies, which scriptwriter Pam Brady (Hot Rod) and director Chris Miller (Shrek the Third, Puss in Boots) seem to have organized into a narrative by means of free-association. It’s mostly meaningless, or occasionally mildly offensive, if you stop to think about it. It’s also blandly drawn, stiffly animated, and maddeningly inconsistent in its visual design.
New on Shudder
Night of the Reaper
- Genre: Horror thriller
- Run time: 1h 33m
- Director: Brandon Christensen
- Cast: Jessica Clement, Matty Finochio, Ryan Robbins
In Brandon Christensen’s tribute to ‘80s slasher films, a college student’s babysitting gig takes a sinister turn when she discovers someone else is lurking in the town sheriff’s home while he’s out investigating a killer who films their victims’ last moments. The night becomes increasingly disturbing as evidence connects the killer to the death of another babysitter.
New to rent
Americana
- Genre: Crime thriller
- Run time: 1h 47m
- Director: Tony Tost
- Cast: Sydney Sweeney, Paul Walter Hauser, Halsey
Everyone in a small South Dakota town wants to get their hands on a valuable Lakota artifact in this thriller taking on cultural appropriation. Selling it could mean a ticket to Nashville for aspiring country star Penny Jo (Sydney Sweeney), but a Marxist Native American leader, Ghost Eye (Zahn McClarnon), wants to return it to the tribe.
Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires
- Genre: Superhero
- Run time: 1h 29m
- Director: Juan Meza-León
- Cast: Horacio García Rojas, Omar Chaparro, Álvaro Morte
The reimagining of Batman’s origin story follows a young Aztec noble (Horacio Garcia Rojas) who swears vengeance against Hernan Cortes (Alvaro Morte) after the conquistador kills his father and slaughters his village. Taking on the mantle of the bat god Tzinacan, Batman rallies his people to stop the conquest of Tenochtitlán.
From our review:
DC’s other time-hopping Batman films are all self-contained, but Aztec Batman focuses on laying groundwork for a sequel and never really delivers a compelling narrative of its own. None of Aztec Batman’s characters have much personality or character development. Forest Ivy (Maya Zapata) looks gorgeous in her crown of maize when an injured Yohualli encounters her in a psychedelic sequence, but she just serves as a sort of generic forest spirit guiding the hero along his destined path. The historical conquistador Pedro de Alvarado (Jose C. Illanes Puentes) doesn’t do much as Cortes’ bloodthirsty lieutenant. Stylish character design and sultry voice acting from Ruiz at least helps Jaguar Woman feel more like her DC counterpart than anyone else in the cast. Cortes’ descent into madness as he begins to view his hand as guided by fate is a clever way of fusing the historical character to Two Face, but he just becomes a caricature of greed as he seeks to plunder Tenochtitlán.
Eden
- Genre: Survival thriller
- Run time: 2h 9m
- Director: Ron Howard
- Cast: Jude Law, Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby
Based on a true story, Eden follows a group of Europeans who try to settle the isle of Floreana in the Galapagos Islands in the leadup to World War II. As personalities clash and the unprepared face the harsh reality of life on the island, the search for paradise turns into a fight for survival.
The Knife
- Genre: Psychological thriller
- Run time: 1h 22m
- Director: Nnamdi Asomugha
- Cast: Nnamdi Asomugha, Aja Naomi King, Melissa Leo
Emmy-nominee Nnamdi Asomugha co-wrote, directed, and starred in this tense film set over the course of a single night as a Black family confronts a white woman they find in their home. As a determined detective questions everyone, the family has to try to protect themselves against assumptions about who’s at fault.
Ne Zha 2
- Genre: Fantasy adventure
- Run time: 2h 24m
- Director: Yu Yang
- Cast: Michelle Yeoh, Crystal Lee, Griffin Puatu
The highest-grossing animated film ever, Ne Zha 2 proved so popular in China that A24 made an English dub to bring the spectacle to the U.S. The mythical story about a child defying his destiny combines epic fight sequences, low-brow gross-out humor, and emotional storytelling about the fear of loss and disappointment.
Relay
- Genre: Thriller
- Run time: 1h 52m
- Director: David Mackenzie
- Cast: Riz Ahmed, Lily James, Sam Worthington
Oscar-winner Riz Ahmed plays Ash, a fixer who uses a relay service for the deaf as a way to conceal his identity while helping whistleblowers figure out what to do with the evidence they have. His latest job turns very dangerous as he tries to help a woman being threatened and surveilled by her former employer who just wants to return the documents she took.
Trust
- Genre: Thriller
- Run time: 1h 30m
- Director: Carlson Young
- Cast: Sophie Turner, Rhys Coiro, Billy Campbell
Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones, Dark Phoenix) plays a TV star dealing with a scandal who retreats to a remote cabin. But when she’s betrayed by someone she trusted, she winds up having to fight to survive in this home invasion thriller.
Witchboard
- Genre: Supernatural horror
- Run time: 1h 53m
- Director: Chuck Russell
- Cast: Madison Iseman, Aaron Dominguez, Melanie Jarnson
A remake of Kevin Tenney’s 1986 film of the same name, Witchboard follows a group of friends trying to break the curse of a stolen spirit board that’s causing a series of gory deaths. After using the board, Emily (Madison Iseman) has to mystically explore the history of its creation and those who wish to use its power.