Author: Polygon

Another week, another group of movies new to streaming on VOD for you to sift through. This time around, the sequel to Sonic to Hedgehog lands on Paramount Plus and the Michael Bay action movie Ambulance (one of our favorite movies of the year so far) hits Peacock. There’s also an intriguing college comedy thriller on Prime Video, the Ti West horror movie X at a reduced rental price, and the usual group of streaming originals, including a Hulu documentary about the late rapper XXXTentacion and a dark Turkish drama on Netflix. Without further ado, here are the new movies…

After a 15-year break, Mario and friends are headed back to the pitch for more full-contact, over-the-top soccer-style action. Mario Strikers: Battle League, coming June 10 to Nintendo Switch, intensifies the soccer-like game of Strike with new super moves, equippable gear, and an online Strikers Club mode that will let players build and grow a club that works, more or less, like real-world soccer. Mario Strikers: Battle League brings back Mario sports game veterans like Luigi, Peach, Bowser, Toad, Wario, and Waluigi, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. (Nintendo says more characters will be added for free over time,…

Sony’s Returnal may be coming to PC, if a recent SteamDB entry is any indication. The entry, first noticed by Video Game Chronicle, is for a game codenamed Oregon, but there are plenty of indications that it might be the PlayStation 5 exclusive roguelike. The simplest clues come from the game tags that SteamDB lists for Oregon. There are things like “roguelike,” “bullet hell,” “third-person shooter,” and “sci-fi.” But many games could fit that bill. However, the game’s update history on SteamDB paints a slightly more convincing picture. On that page are mentions of the Tower of Sisyphus, Returnal’s endless…

The Star Wars franchise is constantly producing a stream of profitable new merchandising and material, including video games, novels, comics, and animated shows. But the film and TV side of Star Wars feels like it’s struggling. Over the past five years, Disney has repeatedly announced plans for new movies, then unceremoniously canceled them or just kept them silently back-burnered. Disney Plus’ recent Star Wars live-action shows keep promising new directions for the franchise, then pulling back and mixing messages. There’s no clear vision or coherent narrative direction for the screen versions of the franchise, even though they’re the most visible…

Rogue Games and Game Grumps collaborated to create Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator back in 2017 — a game which appeared shallow and silly at first, but proved to have surprising depth. Now the team is back with a follow-up title that looks very different called Homebody. Homebody is a psychological horror game that takes inspiration from 80’s slasher films, but it also appears to be inspired by both classic survival horror titles and a newer wave of low-poly, narrative-heavy titles. The player takes the role of Emily, who is trapped in a house full of mysterious puzzles. However,…

Thor’s next adventure is coming soon, but it’s his whole supporting cast that looks most exciting in his movie’s latest preview. The new trailer for Thor: Love and Thunder shows off more of Jane Foster’s Thor (Natalie Portman), Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie, and, for the first time, Christian Bale’s Gorr the God Butcher. Along with the main cast from the Thor movies, Love and Thunder also includes all of the Guardians of the Galaxy, including Chris Pratt, Karen Gillan, Dave Bautista, Pom Klementieff, and the voices of Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel. Marvel’s fourth Thor movie also brings in Russell Crowe…

A balanced Dungeons & Dragons party is a fundamental part of creating an enjoyable gaming experience. Yes, you want to make sure you have strong fighters who can provide a variety of melee or ranged attacks, some magic users, and definitely at least one person with a healing spell. You want a range of stats for the non-battle parts so that conversations with innkeepers can go smoothly and potential dangers and traps can be spotted from a glance around the room. Most importantly, you want a group that will be fun together, one that might unexpectedly work together to succeed…

Two things particularly stand out about Hanna Bergholm’s creepy horror feature Hatching: the emotional performance from Siiri Solalinna as a wide-eyed preteen under the thumb of a perfectionist mother, and her co-star Alli, the dripping, toothy, gradually mutating bird monster she hatches from a giant egg. Where it’s been standard procedure since Jaws for horror directors to only reveal their central creatures with teasing glimpses until the climax of the movie, Alli is on screen throughout much of Hatching — a slimy, shrieking, blood-drinking monstrosity that Solalinna’s character Tinja is trying to keep hidden and safe, even as it gets…

In Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers, animated characters live alongside live-action humans — and not just Disney characters. The movie follows the two cartoon chipmunks, voiced by John Mulaney and Andy Samberg, as they reunite years after their show Rescue Rangers was canceled. As they search for a missing co-star from the show, their adventure takes them across Hollywood, where they meet cartoon characters from throughout animation history. Practically every screenshot of Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers is packed with Easter eggs and visual references, from Seth Rogen’s Pumbaa from the “live-action” CG Lion King remake to My Little Pony:…

It’s Friday, and you know what means. The weekend’s around the corner, and we have a list filled with new movies available for you to watch at home, either for rental or on streaming services like Netflix. This week, two of our best movies of the year so far make their VOD debut: Belle, the modern anime adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, and the Indian historical action epic RRR. Also newly available digitally is the vampire Marvel movie Morbius, Paul Thomas Anderson’s most recent movie, Licorice Pizza, and the “startling” Finnish horror movie Hatching (yes, for real this time,…