Welcome to another edition of Trust Me, I Watch Everything, a weekly guide to all the new movies released on Friday. I’m Brett Arnold, film critic and host of Roger & Me, a weekly Siskel & Ebert-style movie review show.
This week, we’re really feeling the January energy, as the only two wide-release movies are the Chris Pratt vehicle Mercy and the low-rent horror sequel-of-sorts Return to Silent Hill.
At home, you can rent or buy the latest SpongeBob movie to watch with your little ones, and on streaming services you’re already paying for, there are a number of great picks, including the Springsteen biopic making its way to Hulu and the Dwayne Johnson film The Smashing Machine hitting HBO Max.
Read on, as there’s a lot more, and there’s always something for everyone.
🎥 What to watch in theatersMy sort-of-recommendation: Mercy
Why you should maybe see it: Director and super-producer Timur Bekmambetov is back with yet another “screenlife” movie, also known as a movie that unfolds largely on a computer screen. He produced the best-of-the-form Unfriended, as well as Searching and its sort-of sequel Missing. He takes the concept to ambitious new heights in Mercy, crafting a futuristic sci-fi action-thriller that is largely limited to the computer screen, and in which Chris Pratt is confined to a chair the entire time.
In the near future, an advanced AI judge (who looks like Rebecca Ferguson) tells a captive detective (Chris Pratt) that he’s on trial for the murder of his wife. If he fails to prove his innocence within 90 minutes, he’ll be executed on the spot. This premise allows the movie to sport one of my favorite taglines in recent memory: “Prove Your Innocence to an AI Judge or Face Execution.”
The movie is at its best when we see Pratt using the technology he helped create to try to solve the mystery he’s presented with. The movie is at its worst when it’s frontloading Pratt’s character with terrible (and clichéd) personality traits, making damn sure the audience thinks, “This guy is actually capable of killing his wife.” It’s a strange choice that doesn’t exactly get you on his side.
Mercy also wants to have its cake and eat it too with regard to its depiction of the Mercy system and AI judges. Pratt acknowledges that the system is a “kill box” at one point, yet his character is meant to be a staunch advocate for its usefulness. The technology is as evil as the movie needs it to be at one moment, and super-helpful and actually concerned with the truth the next. Ferguson is good and appropriately robotic as the human face of the AI; Pratt, sadly, shows the limits of his dramatic acting chops throughout.
Mercy isn’t a great movie, but it’s compelling enough when it needs to be for a relatively easy, breezy and largely entertaining watch, if only to see how its particularly contrived mystery resolves.
What other critics are saying: It appears I’ve been far kinder to this film than most critics! Lindsay Bahr at the AP writes, “At times, it feels as tedious as watching a stranger’s increasingly frustrating call with a robotic customer service representative play out in real time.” Owen Gleiberman at Variety, however, was into it, writing, “The premise of Mercy makes it sound like the sort of thin, doctrinaire anti-technology, anti-police-state thriller that Arnold Schwarzenegger would have starred in 40 years ago. But the movie turns out to be a notch or two better than you expect.”
How to watch: Mercy is now playing in theaters nationwide.
But that’s not all …
Jeremy Irvine in Return to Silent Hill. (Courtesy of Cineverse/Everett Collection)
(Courtesy Everett Collection)
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Return to Silent Hill: Filmmaker Christophe Gans, who directed the original 2006 film based on the iconic horror video game series, is back after allegedly spending years badgering Japanese video game company Konami to pursue a cinematic sequel. It’s based on one of the most beloved entries in the franchise, Silent Hill 2, which itself got a terrific remake for PS5 just last year. Sadly, the film is incredibly low-rent and cheap-looking — its 20-year-old predecessor looks far better — and in trying to streamline a 6-to-10-hour story into a 100-minute movie, it loses what makes it so special. It’s quite disappointing. Get tickets.
💸 Movies newly available to rent or buyMy recommendation: The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants
Why you should see it: The fourth theatrically released SpongeBob movie is as silly and colorful as ever, and if your kid has been bugging you to see it, it’s now available without leaving your home.
Hoping to prove his bravery to Mr. Krabs, SpongeBob follows a mysterious, swashbuckling ghost pirate known as the Flying Dutchman on a seafaring adventure that takes him to the deepest depths of the ocean. Of course, his friend Patrick, annoyed neighbor Squidward and pal Sandy Cheeks are involved in the fun.
You don’t need to have kept up with the TV series or any of the other movies to enjoy this, as its low-brow humor doesn’t require much of a lead-in. It’s full of clever wordplay and running gags that will make kids laugh, and just as many that will go over their heads and make you, the parent, chuckle at the irreverence. I honestly laughed more than my 2-year-old, who was happier when the movie featured a live-action pirate goofing around right up top. The new animation style incorporated here is gorgeous, too, utilizing 3D computer animation to add more life to these traditionally 2D characters. You can do far worse when it comes to movies for your kids.
What other critics are saying: The response is pretty mixed. The Guardian’s Mike McCahill liked it, writing, “Whether its spitballing silliness will linger when the lights come up is debatable, but it’s a solid SpongeBob movie — and by far the funniest Pirates of the Caribbean movie.” Owen Gleiberman at Variety, however, wasn’t a fan, writing, “Don Drymon, the director … was one of the show’s founding creative talents, and he certainly knows how to keep the butt jokes popping, but I’m sorry, they are not surprising butt jokes.”
How to watch: The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants is now available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Prime Video and other VOD platforms.
📺 Movies newly available on streaming services you may already haveMy recommendation: Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere
Why you should watch it: A new musician biopic is here, this time about Bruce Springsteen. Rather than attempt to depict his entire storied career, the film focuses on a particularly dark period in the singer-songwriter’s discography: the creation of his stripped-down 1982 masterwork, Nebraska. Jeremy Allen White stars as the Boss, and his emotional arc in the film is actually quite similar to his famous TV character on The Bear. Both men are constantly running away from their problems rather than facing them, and they both have tragic family backstories.
White doesn’t exactly disappear into the role, which may be a “he’s a beloved TV actor we all know” problem more than a performance one. He’s still quite impressive, considering he actually sings here, and I found myself wondering if it was Springsteen himself. Though it’s one of those performances that feels more like an elongated impersonation than a total embodiment, White does nail the impression.
Nobody is prepared for how much of the movie is sound engineers turning knobs and futzing with the soundboard, trying to replicate the lo-fi vibes of Springsteen’s cassette tape recording of the album, which he made in the bedroom of a rental house in Colts Neck, N.J. Over and over, Springsteen hears it, freaks out and declares that the songs need to sound worse.
These fights between Springsteen and the record execs — largely through his manager Jon Landau, played by Jeremy Strong — over the marketability and commercial value of the record are a joy to behold, as the singer remains steadfast that the songs must retain the melancholy of the original cassette. I also appreciated the focus on the influence that popular media had on him at the time, including how watching Terrence Malick’s Badlands led to his fascination with the Starkweather killings, which in turn inspired Nebraska. As a child, he would skip school to watch Charles Laughton’s classic film The Night of the Hunter with his dad. These sequences get at the importance of art to help us channel and understand our own emotions and internal struggles; the films help Springsteen understand the darkness within him, despite all his success.
While the movie’s structure attempts to distance itself from biopic tropes, it still relies on them. For example, the film presents a composite character as a love interest (Odessa Young, who is great here) rather than Springsteen’s real-life romances, and it generally simplifies his struggles with depression. From the film, you’d think Springsteen’s relationship with his father is the driving force behind it all, but it’s much more complicated. Still, he deserves credit for showing his breakdown.
I was impressed by where the movie ends up: an earnest call to arms for the men of Springsteen’s generation to seek therapy. It almost feels like a public service announcement, which may turn some people off, but I found it moving. If this movie gets a single Boomer to go to therapy and/or stop avoiding their problems, it’s a win!
Also, the music is undeniably brilliant, so if you’re the type who tears up at “I’m On Fire” or “Atlantic City,” it will likely work for you.
What other critics are saying: Reviews are split right down the middle. Rolling Stone’s David Fear sums it up nicely: “Despite the movie’s flaws, what [director Scott] Cooper has given audiences here is way more compelling than a live-action greatest-hits compilation.” Nick Schager at the Daily Beast, though, isn’t a fan, writing that it’s “like a greatest-hits package of genre clichés.”
How to watch: Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere is now streaming on Hulu.
My bonus not-quite-a-recommendation: The Smashing Machine
Why you should watch it: Dwayne Johnson is as good as you’ve heard in The Smashing Machine, though he missed out on an Oscar nomination.
Johnson plays real-life MMA and UFC fighter Mark Kerr, whose issues with substance abuse and relationship troubles with his then girlfriend were the centerpiece of an HBO documentary in 2002, also titled The Smashing Machine.
The 2025 film does not pass the “is it better than the documentary on the same subject?” test. It lacks the momentum needed to get the audience invested in the character and his personal and professional battles. It never justifies why you’re watching a biopic about Kerr, who isn’t incredibly well-known. Is it really that interesting that an athlete who is ruthless in the ring is kind and genial outside of it?
It doesn’t help that Emily Blunt is essentially playing an earnest version of the Heidi Gardner Saturday Night Live character “Every Boxer’s Girlfriend from Every Movie About Boxing Ever,” with no element of self-awareness.
What other critics are saying: Most agree that Johnson is at his career-best. Liz Shannon Miller at Consequence writes that he “never fully disappears into the role, but were he to do so, it might almost diminish his performance — one which never distracts from the narrative, but keeps present the awareness that Johnson is really going through it here.” The Daily Beast’s Nick Schager says “at every juncture, The Smashing Machine pulls its punches, and that’s truest when it comes to presenting a three-dimensional portrait of its protagonist.”
How to watch: The Smashing Machine is now streaming on HBO Max.
But that’s not all …
Providence Place Mall, Providence, R.I., as seen in Secret Mall Apartment. (Courtesy of Wheelhouse Creative/Everett Collection)
(Courtesy Everett Collection)
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Secret Mall Apartment: Sometimes, the truth is stranger than fiction. In 2003, eight Rhode Islanders created a secret apartment inside the busy Providence Place Mall and kept it going for four years, filming everything along the way. Far more than just a wild prank, the secret mall apartment became an incredibly meaningful act for all the participants, at once an act of defiance against local gentrification, a boundary-pushing work of public/private art and a 750-square-foot space that sticks it to the man. It’s one of the very best documentaries of the year. Now streaming on Netflix.
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Mother of Flies: Horror fans may be familiar with the Adams family. No, not that one — the indie filmmakers who make creepy movies in the woods with their family. Their latest effort is their best yet, a witchy meditation on death and dying that’s nasty in creative ways and full of the impressive lo-fi filmmaking they’re known for, like Hellbender and The Deeper You Dig. In the film, a young woman faces a deadly diagnosis and seeks dark magic from a witch in the woods; but every cure has its cost. Now streaming on Shudder.
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A Big Bold Beautiful Journey: They truly don’t make movies like this one anymore: a big-budget studio film full of magical realism, a sort of surreal romantic fantasy. Sarah (Margot Robbie) and David (Colin Farrell) are single strangers who meet at a mutual friend’s wedding and soon, through a surprising twist of fate, find themselves on a funny, fantastical, sweeping adventure together where they get to relive important moments from their respective pasts, illuminating how they got to where they are in the present, and possibly getting a chance to alter their futures. I admire the film’s earnest old-fashioned ambitions, though the thoroughly modern final product lands more at imitation Charlie Kaufman by way of the Everything Everywhere All At Once guys. Now streaming on Netflix.
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Eleanor the Great: June Squibb stars in Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut, a strange, well-meaning and mildly baffling film about a woman who pretends to be a Holocaust survivor. Squibb is great, but the script simply doesn’t do a good enough job of getting you to understand why this woman would do such a despicable thing. The tone is too lighthearted for the seriousness of the subject matter. Its heart is certainly in the right place, but its exploration of grief is just kinda bizarre. Streaming on Netflix starting this Saturday.
That’s all for this week — we’ll see you next week at the movies!
Looking for more recs? Find your next watch on the Yahoo 100, our daily list of the most popular movies of the year.