Christmas is coming early for movie lovers with streaming releases for the next week stuffed with high-profile feature films, led by the Ryan Reynolds/Will Ferrell Christmas musical comedy Spirited, Disney sequel Disenchanted, and the Jason Momoa fantasy adventure Slumberland. Series fans also have something to cheer with the debut of The Addams Family spinoff Wednesday, and more!
MOVIES
Spirited
Apple TV+ – 18 November 2022
We all know the tale of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (Bah, humbug!), but probably not like this! This new musical comedy sees Will Ferrell as the Ghost of Christmas Present, who is tasked with picking a mean soul every year to help them rediscover the joy of Christmas. Except this year, Present chose the wrong guy in Ryan Reynolds’ Clint Briggs, a very different kind of “Scrooge” who decides to the turn the tables on the Christmas ghost to hilarious results full of choreographed musical numbers!
Disenchanted
Disney+ – 18 November 2022
Keeping things musical and fantastical comes Disenchanted, the long-awaited sequel to Disney’s Enchanted. It’s been 18 years since Amy Adams’ fairy tale princess Giselle found herself in the real world and marrying Patrick Dempsey’s single father Robert. And as the mundane drudgery of normal small-town life starts to set in for Giselle, she makes use of a magical wand to wish for her life to become a fairy tale again. One small problem: Giselle is now a stepmother, and we all know how they’re supposed to behave in fairy tales!
Slumberland
Netflix – 18 November 2022
I’m sure that many people dream of Jason Momoa all the time, but Slumberland keeps things a lot more wholesome. In the new family fantasy adventure directed by Francis Lawrence, the beefcake actor plays Flip, a magical outlaw in the titular kingdom of dreams, who guides Nemo, a young girl who recently lost her father and dreams of being able to see him just one last time. Luckily for her, the fantastical Slumberland may hold the key to her wish, if only she’s brave enough to get there.
Alice
Google Play Movies/Apple TV – 18 November 2022
Inspired by some of the details in the harrowing true case of Mae Louise Miller, Alice stars Keke Palmer as the titular character, one of several black slaves living in horrible conditions on a 19th-century plantation in Georgia. When Alice manages to escape her hell, she discovers just how twisted the evil of the plantation owner was: It is actually 1973, in a post-Civil Rights movement America in which slavery has ended. When Alice debuted on the film festival scene earlier this year, it saw Palmer earn plenty of praise for her performance as the former slave who goes from bewilderment to vengeful.
The People We Hate at the Wedding
Amazon Prime Video – 18 November 2022
As somebody who just recently had to travel to attend a big family wedding, I know how stressful and messed up it can be. And that was just to another province with a family who actually gets along for the most part. Things could not be more different in People We Hate at the Wedding, which sees Kristen Bell and Ben Platt as American siblings who struggle with money as much as they do their overbearing mother (Allison Janney), and who reluctantly agree to attend the overseas wedding of their estranged, wealthy half-sister (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) in England.
The Swimmers
Netflix – 23 November 2022
For any athlete to make into the Olympics, it requires ridiculous amounts of sacrifice and willpower. For teenage sisters Yusra and Sara Mardini, that already difficult challenge had another tragic twist. Starring actual sisters Nathalie and Manal Issa, The Swimmers tells the incredible true story of how the swimming stars siblings fled war-torn Syria with their family, embarking on a harrowing journey as refugees, all while never giving up on their dream to compete in the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Candyman
Showmax – 24 November 2022
With a great combination of chills and social commentary, Nia DaCosta and Jordan Peele’s classic horror franchise revival was a smash hit when it slashed its way into theatres in 2021. However, since then Candyman has only been available for purchase on all digital platforms. However, the film is finally getting streaming release and all you have to do to see it is look into a mirror and repeat the name “Candyman” five times… or just check it out for yourself when it debuts on Showmax next week.
SERIES
Our Universe
Netflix – 22 November 2022
It’s often said that Morgan Freeman can narrate anything, but can he narrate everything. Well, the story of everything at least. Billed as a tale 13.8 billion years in the making, Our Universe is a new documentary series making use of jaw-dropping wildlife footage and cutting-edge visual effects to show how everything in existence is linked, from the birth of our sun millions of years ago to the birth of a tiny lizard today.
Wednesday
Netflix – 23 November 2022
It’s time to get those fingers snapping as Tim Burton’s long-awaited take on the world of The Addams Family (he was supposed to direct the original 1991 film but had to pull out last minute due to scheduling conflicts) is finally here! Wednesday focuses on Jenna Ortega’s titular grim teenage girl, the only daughter of Gomez and Morticia Addams (Luiz Guzman and Catherine Zeta-Jones), as she gets enrolled in Nevermore Academy, a special school for the supernatural and macabre. But there’s even more creepiness and kookiness than expected in the mysterious school and the colour-allergic Wednesday is going to get to the bottom of it no matter what!
Echo 3
Apple TV+ – 23 November 2022
If spooky teenagers are not your thing, you could not get more different than Echo 3. Apple TV+’s upcoming six-episode thriller series comes from the mind of two-time Oscar-winning writer Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty) and stars Luke Evans as the husband of a brilliant scientist kidnapped in Colombia. When normal legal channels fail him, the aggrieved husband turns to his wife’s special forces brother (Michiel Huisamen) with the two men willing to stop at nothing to achieve the safe return of the women they both love, even if that means inadvertently triggering an international geo-political incident involving the CIA.