What to watch: ‘Missing’ reboots the ‘Searching’ formula, ‘The Last of Us’ brings the game to life, and more
Missing
Rated PG-13, 1 hour 51 minutes, in theaters Jan. 20
Released in 2018, “Searching” was produced before the coronavirus pandemic but with the benefit of hindsight, it felt like the ultimate Covid movie, claustrophobically focusing on a father as he scours the Web for clues about his missing daughter. “Missing” flips the generational script, in a movie that’s still plenty twisty and watchable while laboring, perhaps inevitably, to hit “refresh” on the formula.
This time around, perhaps appropriately, it’s the 18-year-old June (“Euphoria’s” Storm Reid) who is forced to go on the hunt after her widowed mom (Nia Long) doesn’t return as scheduled after a trip to Colombia with her new boyfriend (Ken Leung). It doesn’t help that June has been distant and surly — irritated that mom will be away on Father’s Day — prompting guilt to go hand in hand with surprises as her search unearths clues and shocking secrets in near-equal measure.
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The Last of Us
Rated TV-MA, 1 hour 20 minutes, Available Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO and HBO Max
The spotty track record of videogame adaptations and glut of apocalyptic/zombie dramas receive a welcome boost from “The Last of Us,” which proves there’s room for more of each as long as it’s this good. A road series with mini-dramas baked into the episodes, the HBO show quickly proves itself worthy of the hype and anticipation by delivering a fully realized series graced with flesh-and-blood characters.
Sure, we’ve been down this particular road before, featuring a world rapidly descending into chaos, after a pandemic that has transformed people into zombies, spurring government attempts to tamp down the spread in the most ruthless of ways.
Series creators Craig Mazin (an Emmy winner for “Chernobyl”) and Neil Druckmann (co-president of the award-winning game’s maker, Naughty Dog) initially construct that story around one family, flaring out to chronicle the outbreak’s ramifications around the globe, with a 20-year palette from which to choose.
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Plane
Rated R, 1 hour 47 minutes, in theaters now
“Plane” is a too-generic title for what’s actually a pretty good little movie, combining with the ad campaign to convey a sense the film is more “Rambo”-like than it is. A crisply executed thriller likely never to be offered as in-flight entertainment, the bare-bones story falls mainly in the plain but is fueled by stars Gerard Butler and Mike Colter, thinly written though they may be.
“The Unluckiest Flight” would be a more descriptive title based on the way events unfold, as widowed pilot Brodie Torrance (Butler, adding another entry to his long action resume) flies a New Year’s Eve leg from Singapore to Tokyo, looking forward to meeting up in Hawaii with his daughter.
Alas, Torrance and his 14 passengers — a list that includes a prisoner, Louis Gaspare (“Luke Cage” and “Evil’s” Colter), being extradited to stand trial for murder — don’t reach their destination, as the plane gets struck by lightning, forcing Torrance and his copilot (Yoson An) to execute a harrowing emergency landing on a sparsely populated island.
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***
Looking for more streaming and movie options this weekend? Look no further:
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Leslie Jones is taking a seat at “The Daily Show” desk.
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Series is Inspired by ‘Black-ish’ producer Vijal Patel and his family’s move from India to America.
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The show’s creator is hoping to find the series a new TV home.
Prequel series centers on Brian and Ellen Fraser’s love story. Here, learn new plot details.
‘We wanted to leave it on this note of possibility,’ says executive producer Peter Horton.
In the Apple TV+ mystery, she plays a woman whose husband mysteriously disappears.
The weddings get wrapped up as Season 16’s couples get ready for the next phase of Lifetime’s social experiment.
Plus, what Ackles ‘willed to happen’ and those ‘Supernatural’ nods.
The interview with the ‘Tiger King’ star is over a year old, but Twitter just got wind of the news.
Apple comedy will return in the spring.
(RATINGS: The movies listed below are rated according to the following key: 4 stars — excellent; 3 stars — good; 2 stars — fair; 1 star — poor.)
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