Now Playing: SEND HELP, ARCO, SHELTER, BACK TO THE PAST

With a side-eye to films debuting on streaming services this week (The Wrecking Crew on Prime Video, If I Had Legs I'd Kick You on HBO Max), and a grateful nod to our Sundance coverage, here's our weekly guide to what's new in movie theaters for genre fans, updated with links to our reviews, where available.

Send Help
The film is now playing, only in movie theaters, via 20th Century Studios. Visit the official site for locations and showtimes.

Official synopsis: "Send Help is a survival horror thriller about two colleagues who become stranded on a deserted island, the only survivors of a plane crash. On the island, they must overcome past grievances and work together to survive, but ultimately, it's a battle of wills and wits to make it out alive."

Our review by Kyle Logan: "Send Help works as comedy every so often, whether it's because of Raimi's penchant for making violence downright goofy or the stars' charisma, but it's so overlong and stagnant as anything else that the majority of it is just a slog."

Arco
The film is now playing, only in movie theaters, via Neon Releasing. Visit the official site for locations and showtimes.

Official synopsis: "A magical and beautifully animated journey through time, Arco is a dazzling adventure about a 10-year-old boy from a peaceful, distant future who accidentally travels back to the year 2075 and discovers a world in peril. As Arco develops a charming and touching friendship with a young girl named Iris, they band together and along with her trusted robot caretaker Mikki, set out on a quest to get Arco home, while the two children may also be the only ones who can save our planet.

"A wondrous odyssey filled with hope and optimism for our future, Arco is an enchanting fable from breakout filmmaker Ugo Bienvenu, produced by Remembers' Bienvenu and Felix de Givry, and mountainA's Natalie Portman and Sophie Mas."

My review: "Capturing the joys of childhood and the coming of age that is inevitable, as well as contemplating unknown threats and unimaginable dangers, Arco is a beautiful tale that is awash in hopes, memories, and regrets."

Shelter
The film is now playing, only in movie theaters, via Black Bear. Visit the official site for locations and showtimes.

Official synopsis: "On a remote coastal island, a reclusive man [Jason Statham] rescues a young girl from a deadly storm, drawing them both into danger. Forced out of isolation, he must confront his turbulent past while protecting her, sending them on a tense journey of survival and redemption."

Our review by Daniel Eagan: "Director Ric Roman Waugh does a solid job focusing on the film's action elements and glossing over its exposition as quickly as possible. Stunt coordinator Steve Griffin's contributions are way better than expected.

"In fact, Shelter on the whole is above average as well. Statham may never again match the heights he reached with Cory Yuen, but he still sets a high bar.

Back to the Past
The film is now playing, only in movie theaters, via Well Go USA. Visit the official site for locations and showtimes.

Official synopsis: "After losing everything for a crime he didn't commit, Ken vows to travel back to the Qin Dynasty and reclaim everything he lost by usurping the throne."

Our review by Daniel Eagan: "The real highlights are the women in the cast. Joyce Tang pops up as a far more accomplished assassin than her male counterparts. Sonija Kwok, Jessica Hsuan, and Bai Baihe all make strong impressions.

"Ng Yuen-fai and Jack Lai Chun-lung co-directed; Sammo Hung was the action director behind several crisp but brief fights and chases."

July Rhapsody
The film is now playing, only in UK movie theaters.

Official synopsis: "Brimming with unspeakable serene beauty, July Rhapsody by Hong Kong's director Ann Hui (A Simple Life) and scriptwriter Ivy Ho (Comrades Almost a Love Story) is a profound and soothing tale about how one paddles through life's chaos as many seemingly eternal inspiration sources of times, like the Yangtze river, quietly fade away. In appearance, Lam prides himself on teaching classic Chinese literature at an elite school and a family of a caring wife and two sons.

"Deep down, the man of forty tastes unfulfilled ambitions in affluent old classmates' belittlements and unsatisfied desires in seductions from a free-spirited student. The sudden return of his teenage years mentor finally wrecks this vulnerable balance. Lam must unearth the long-hidden truth about who he is and gain a new perspective on how to live the rest of his life."

Our review by Rino Lu: "Within this disordered rhapsody, [director Ann Hui] composes an unsettling variation on an ordinary man's forties, winding up its movement in a gentle, poetic cadence."

The Love That Remains
The film is now playing, only in movie theaters, via Janus Films.

Official synopsis: "Anna, an artist, and Magnús, a fisherman, live with their three children and charismatic sheepdog in the quiet grandeur of the Icelandic countryside. As the fractures in their marriage come to the surface, the couple try to hold onto the afterimages of a life together and make sense of a deep and lingering devotion. Filmmaker Hlynur Pálmason (Godland) brings surprising humor and emotional weight to this gorgeous, intimate, and brilliantly expansive scenes from a marriage, amidst the majestic backdrop of the changing seasons."

Our review by Martin Kudlac: "Pálmason's latest film unfolds as a slow-burning lyrical and imaginative portrayal, guided by implicit storytelling in which images gradually supplant dialogue, reframing a family drama about divorce into something more eccentric, more attuned to the rhythms of artistic inquiry."

Islands
The film is now playing, only in movie theaters, via Greenwich Entertainment. Visit the official site for locations and showtimes.

Official synopsis: "In this twisty thriller, a tennis coach at a tropical resort finds himself at the center of a missing persons mystery. Tom (Sam Riley) teaches tennis during the day and parties at night. When an enigmatic tourist (Stacy Martin) arrives, Tom is unable to shake the feeling he has met her before. Tension and attraction grow, until her husband (Jack Farthing) disappears, and the police suspect Tom."

Our review by Daniel Eagan: "Gerster has higher ambitions than a sleazy thriller, however. He's aiming for a post-modern, deconstructed noir, the kind that lets plotting and characterizations slip away like sand through fingers. By the end of Islands, it's the viewer who's been had, not the usual suspects."

Bitter Rice
The film is now playing, only in movie theaters, via Janus Films.

Official synopsis: "During planting season in Northern Italy's Po Valley, an earthy rice-field worker (Silvana Mangano) falls in with a small-time criminal (Vittorio Gassman) who is planning a daring heist of the crop, as well as his femme-fatale-ish girlfriend, played by the Hollywood star Doris Dowling. Both a socially conscious look at the hardships endured by underpaid field workers and a melodrama tinged with sex and violence, this early smash for producer extraordinaire Dino De Laurentiis and director Giuseppe De Santis is neorealism with a heaping dose of pulp."

The Moment
The film is now playing, only in movie theaters, via A24 Films.

Official synopsis: "A rising pop star navigates the complexities of fame and industry pressure while preparing for her arena tour debut."

A Poet
The film is now playing, only in movie theaters, via 1-2 Special. Visit the official site for locations and showtimes.

Official synopsis: "Middle-aged and erratic, Oscar is a failed writer who has given up on life. Unemployed and living with family, he wanders the streets of Medellín in a drunken stupor, lamenting the state of literature in his home country, where he has succumbed to the cliché of the tortured artist. However, the opportunity to mentor a young student offers a chance at redemption, if he doesn't screw it up first.

"In a performance marked by darkly comic pathos, first-time actor Ubeimar Rios stars in Simón Mesa Soto's Un Certain Regard Jury Prize-winner A Poet, a raw and riotous farce about how good deeds are often met with the universe's idea of cruel and unusually poetic punishment."

Now Playing celebrates the theatrical experience.