Director Robert Eggers enjoys making bleak films about the madness and magic of the world. With “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse,” Eggers was able to bring his vision to the screen with the help of small-scale productions, keeping budgets and expectations low. For “The Northman,” the helmer is offered significant resources to make his dream of a Viking epic come true, enjoying the visuals big money can buy, along with colorful casting. However, Eggers doesn’t stray far from his cinematic interests, returning to the muck and blood of heightened conflict. He sets out to craft a period picture that respects elements of history and embraces the fury of mythology, working with co-writer Sjon to make “The Northman” a major moviegoing event, but on his terms (to the best of his ability). It’s violent, loud, and unafraid to get ugly, trying to remain in a state of psychological unrest for 135 minutes, which is a task that taxes Eggers as he labors to shape a brutalizing viewing experience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Bad Guys” is a children’s book series created by Aaron Blabey, who’s managed to transform his original idea into a wildly popular franchise, with 2022 welcoming the 15th installment of the series. Blabey brings an enjoyable sense of humor to his work, and now DreamWorks Animation tries their luck transferring good-natured silliness to the big screen. “The Bad Guys” is directed by Pierre Perifel (making his helming debut) and scripted by Etan Coen (“Get Hard,” “Holmes & Watson”), and while they don’t put a lot of thought into the story, the filmmakers do capture an engaging energy to the endeavor, which speeds along for its first hour before formula kicks in, slowing things down. It’s a spirited feature at times, offering interesting visuals and strong voice work, trying to reach the fan base with a colorful caper that respects the literary characters and their complicated relationship with goodness. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Nicolas Cage’s career has been weird for a long time now. He’s been working almost non-stop for the last decade, participating in projects that promise a big payday for a limited time commitment, churning out some rather dismal pictures in the process. There have been a few gems as well, such as last year’s “Pig” and “Willy’s Wonderland,” but Cage’s overall taste in screenplays hasn’t inspired his usual magic. “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” challenges Cage to play himself, albeit a slightly more amplified version of the real man, who’s newly stuck in a troubling situation when a money gig in Spain goes wrong on multiple levels. Co-writer/director Tom Gormican has a deep love for Nicolas Cage, and he’s ready to share it with the world in “Massive Talent,” but he stops just short of making a farce with the endeavor, which stops just short of becoming an exuberant celebration of Cage’s special ways with comedy, action, and self-loathing. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Roger Michell enjoyed a lengthy career filled with critical darlings (“Venus,” “The Mother,” “Enduring Love”) and a genuine smash hit (“Notting Hill”). He passed away last year, and his final film, “The Duke,” showcases his strengths as a helmer, managing character lives and tremendous performances in an unexpectedly spirited movie about an extraordinary situation orchestrated by a charismatic man. “The Duke” is based on a true story, but Michell gives it a jazzier sense of dramatic engagement, offering mild comedy and strange moments of suspense while putting his faith in leads Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren, who give the material a rich sense of emotional life, helping to deepen a tale of thievery that, in other hands, could’ve been played for simple laughs. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Unplugging” is a timely tale about a couple drifting apart, getting more comfortable with their devices than with each other. There’s a dramatic version of this story to be made, but screenwriters Brad Morris and Matt Walsh (who also stars) attempt a comedic take on the problem of excessive screen time, hoping to find humor in the efforts of two people trying to remain connected everywhere they go. It’s a small-scale offering of domestic disturbance from director Debra Neil-Fisher (a longtime editor, with credits including “Dr. Giggles,” “Fifty Shades of Grey,” and “Fried Green Tomatoes”), who tries to make something happen with very little from the writers, who are more interested in creating personalities than cinematic events. “Unplugging” is amusing, with a few laugh-out-loud moments, and I’m sure some viewers will be able to relate to at least a few of its ideas. Consistency is punted away in the third act, but there’s an hour of enjoyable mildness with performances aiming to please, meeting the production’s modest creative goals. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“9 Bullets” is being marketed as a tough action picture, focusing on characters with guns drawn, narrowly escaping danger at every turn. It’s not an accurate representation of the actual viewing experience, which is more in line with a slightly more violent Hallmark Channel production, concentrating on melodramatic acts of human connection. The occasional act of pursuit finds its way into the endeavor, but writer/director Gigi Gaston keeps things painfully uneventful in “9 Bullets,” which stumbles through emotional exchanges with banal characters, brought to life through dreadful performances. It’s a difficult sit, with Gaston making a weird creative decision to blend Disney-style storytelling with moldy B-movie cliches, ending up with a messy snoozer that often plays like there wasn’t a completed screenplay during filming. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” series was originally planned to be a five-film franchise, covering a grand story about an earlier age in the Wizarding World. “The Secrets of Dumbledore” is the third chapter in the saga, picking up where “The Crimes of Grindelwald” left off in 2018, with the second installment introducing an impenetrably grim tone and unnecessary ugliness to reach a more mature audience raised on everything “Harry Potter.” “The Secrets of Dumbledore” sustains the severity of J.K. Rowling’s vision (she co-scripts with Steve Kloves), but there’s a defined effort to brighten up the wizard war for the new endeavor, as director David Yates is tasked with balancing lightness and darkness to preserve brand name approachability. There’s noticeable springiness to parts of the movie, but still no firm dramatic reason to remain interested in the stale storytelling, which remains so painfully far from the heartfelt highs of “Harry Potter.” Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead” came to America in 2015, with filmmaking duo Kiah and Tristan Roache-Turner looking to have their way with the zombie subgenre, merging the merciless violence of the undead with a heavy “Mad Max” influence. The picture was a creative success, providing a necessary jolt of excitement for zombie entertainment, promising more mayhem to come. But mayhem didn’t come, at least not immediately, which is typically the norm for this kind of endeavor. Instead, the helmers waited quite some time to return to the world of “Wyrmwood,” emerging after seven long years with “Wyrmwood: Apocalypse,” which hopes to resurrect the graphic horrors of the original effort. “Apocalypse” sustains the intensity of the first movie, but timing isn’t a friend to the follow-up, with the large gap between features hurting the overall impact of the sequel, which struggles to come up with new challenges for its characters and deliver on expectations established years ago. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Riley Sterns likes the dry stuff. He has a dark sense of humor, especially when portioned out into bite-sized pieces of deadpan delivery and mild absurdity. He was last seen helming the 2019 comedy “The Art of Self-Defense,” which strived to be weird, goofy, and severe, only emerging with a moderate amount of success on all three fronts, and he returns to his specific tastes in oddness in “Dual.” The plot is unnervingly similar to “Swan Song,” a 2021 picture that detailed the experience of a man getting to know his clone before death claims him. “Dual” shares the same story, but Sterns isn’t making a heavy drama. He’s after a more elusive tone with the effort, working with star Karen Gillan to embrace the stillness of silliness, putting his love of idiosyncrasy to the test in this study of low self-esteem, cloning, and combat training. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Father Stu” tells the story of Stuart Long, a rough-around-the-edges guy who stumbled through life as a boxer and a man of dented charms who suddenly found his calling to the priesthood, taking him on a much different journey. It’s a bio-pic that’s more about the odyssey of life than select moments of drama, with writer/director Rosalind Ross (making her feature-length debut as a filmmaker) trying to identify the power of persistence and faith, as Long was eventually diagnosed with a muscle disease that threatened everything he was working for. “Father Stu” isn’t typical Christian entertainment, with Ross keeping things raw and as real as possible while still trying to engage her audience, often going to comedy to remain approachable. She has a faithful servant in star Mark Wahlberg, who goes about as far as he can as an actor here, working extra hard to deliver a performance that respects the development of Long’s unique determination to be of service to others while saving himself. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Chariot” is a brain-bleeder from writer/director Adam Sigal. It plays like a sci-fi novel and probably should’ve been one, looking to confuse and beguile viewers with its sustained oddity, exploring one man’s awareness of unreality while dealing with personal issues and meeting bewildering people in his new apartment building. There’s a clear voyage into the unknown with this material, as Sigal enjoys introducing unexplained visuals and personalities, giving the audience about 75 minutes of disorientation before the answers start coming, and it’s debatable if they ever do. “Chariot” has many issues, the primary one being a lack of a clear invitation from Sigal to join the lead character on his odyssey into the unknown, keeping participation at arm’s length as he organizes a carnival of weirdness only for himself. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com