The Bone Temple’ in theaters, rent ‘Song Sung Blue,’ stream ‘The Rip’ on Netflix

Welcome to another edition of Trust Me, I Watch Everything, a weekly guide to all the new movies released every Friday.

My name is Brett Arnold, film critic and host of Roger & Me, a weekly Siskel & Ebert-style movie review show. I’m here to shepherd you through all the new film releases hitting cinemas and streamers.

In theaters this weekend is The Bone Temple, the sequel to 28 Years Later, which was in theaters a mere six months ago.

At home, you can rent or buy Song Sung Blue, the film based on the inspiring yet tragic true story of a Neil Diamond cover band, starring Kate Hudson and Hugh Jackman. Rental Family with Brendan Fraser also comes home.

And on streaming services you’re likely already paying for, we’ve got a high-profile Netflix action movie starring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.

Read on, as there’s a lot more, and there’s always something for everyone.

🎥 What to watch in theaters

My recommendation: 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

Why you should see it: If you thought 28 Years Later was a divisive film, wait until you get a load of The Bone Temple, Nia DaCosta’s follow-up shot back-to-back with Danny Boyle’s previous entry, as part of a planned trilogy that resurrected the long-dead zombie IP. Things get really, really weird, and I mean that as a compliment.

In this sequel, Ralph Fiennes’s Dr. Kelson, whom we met in the last film, finds himself in a shocking new relationship, with consequences that could change the world as they know it. Meanwhile, young Spike’s (Alfie Williams) encounter with Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell) becomes a nightmare he can’t escape. Alpha zombie Samson from the previous film is also heavily involved in the proceedings.

28 Years Later ended with a bizarre tease that introduced Jimmy and his cult of identically dressed pals, and The Bone Temple delivers on that tone shift that jarred many in the theater last time. If the last film was about characters coming to terms with the reality of their post-apocalyptic situation, and how to maintain their humanity in such a world, this one is about how all that trauma inflicted upon them has stunted them, and everybody’s stuck as a twisted version of the person they were before everything collapsed.

Jimmy Crystal is the boy from the opening Teletubbies scene of 28 Years Later, all grown-up, and his religious upbringing has been distorted into him being a Satanic cult leader in these new times. His journey contrasts perfectly with Dr. Kelson’s, an atheist and man of science, who is using morphine to drug Samson to see if he can return him to being a regular human. He wonders if the virus infects the brain directly or merely places a sort of cloud over it that can be dissipated. Remember when I said it was weird?!

It’s a movie that’s laugh-out-loud funny at one moment, and the next, it’s depicting the most sadistic, nihilistic and upsetting violence I’ve ever seen in a major studio movie. Human beings are skinned alive as sacrifices, and it’s still chilling any time Samson rips someone’s head off so hard that their spine is still attached. It also features Fiennes dancing with a huge naked zombie and listening to a bunch of killer ’80s vinyl, so it’s not all doom and gloom!

Alex Garland’s script is the true star here, as director DaCosta smartly decides not to emulate Boyle’s inimitable style and instead gives it her own look and feel. It’s not as visually striking or as kinetically edited as Boyle’s film, but the themes it introduced are so expertly mined in new directions I never saw coming that I was ultimately completely won over.

I declared Fiennes’s performance in 28 Days Later to be one of the best of last year, and he’s even better here, given more runway. There’s a musical interlude of sorts in this film that’s so hilarious, so awesome and such a perfect conclusion to the batshit crazy proceedings and all the ideas swirling in the film that it’s hard to imagine another movie this year besting that sequence. The entire audience I saw it with erupted into applause.

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is one of the most audacious movies I’ve ever seen from a big studio franchise, subverting zombie movie tropes at every turn and delivering a singular, memorable experience that’s as thought-provoking as it is purely entertaining. I may prefer the overall look and feel of the previous entry — Anthony Dod Mantle’s iPhone cinematography is unbeatable, and Young Fathers’ score stands as some of the best movie music of last year — but as a full-on moviegoing experience, I enjoyed my trip to The Bone Temple even more. It’s, ultimately, strangely crowd-pleasing for how depraved it gets.

What other critics are saying: It’s getting even better reviews than the last one! Los Angeles Times’ Amy Nicholson says it’s “gruesomely both low and highbrow” and “the movie equivalent of Jell-O wrestling an anthropology professor at Burning Man, which may have been the inspiration of one of its standout characters, Ralph Fiennes’s spry and mesmerizing Dr. Ian Kelson.” Jesse Hassenger at the AV Club writes, “It’s a neat surprise that Nia DaCosta extracts more dark humor from the series than Danny Boyle.”

How to watch: 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is now playing in theaters nationwide.

Get tickets

💸 Movies newly available to rent or buy

My recommendation: Song Sung Blue

Why you should see it: Song Sung Blue isn’t actually a Neil Diamond biopic, thankfully, and instead is a much more interesting film based on a true story, which has already been depicted in a documentary of the same name. In the film, two down-on-their-luck performers (Kate Hudson and Hugh Jackman) form a Neil Diamond tribute band, proving it’s never too late to find love and follow your dreams.

As someone who loves both karaoke and movies about people pursuing their dreams — even as they adjust to the realities of those dreams — I was quite taken with this film, which manages to combine those ideas into one. It coasts a bit on the power of Neil Diamond’s musical catalog, and fans of his will be delighted by the star-studded renditions, as well as its celebration of working-class musicians instead of the wildly rich ones.

It’s very effective, even with the absolutely insane tonal shifts that are so outrageous and unexpected that they simply have to be based on a real story. Kate Hudson is great here and is earning tons of praise this awards season; Jackman is good too, though his performance feels much more stagey, which makes sense, as he just finished a run on Broadway.

I really appreciated how much Song Sung Blue respects Diamond as an artist, and takes issue with the fact that he’ll forever be the “Sweet Caroline” guy to many people. They’re gonna open with “Soolaimon,” and you’re gonna like it!

What other critics are saying: The response is mixed! AP’s Mark Kennedy cheekily writes that it “hits all the wrong notes,” though Variety’s Owen Gleiberman digs it, writing, “Hudson’s anguished performance holds it together. This is let-it-rip acting with the fussiness burned off.”

How to watch: Song Sung Blue is now available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Prime Video and other VOD platforms.

Rent or buy

My bonus recommendation: Rental Family

Why you should see it: Brendan Fraser’s follow-up crowd-pleaser after his Oscar win for The Whale is this light and sweet and sad trifle. Struggling to find purpose, an American actor lands an unusual gig with a Japanese agency to play stand-in roles for strangers.

As he immerses himself in his clients’ worlds, he begins to form genuine bonds that blur the lines between performance and reality. It’s one of those emotionally affecting films that you can see and feel manipulating your emotions, but it’s effective nonetheless. Fraser is terrific in the lead role, which slyly and effectively uses his real-life career as shorthand for the character

What other critics are saying: The response is fairly mixed. Jocelyn Novek, writing for AP, details how it “[inches] over that thin line between heartwarming and totally sappy.” The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw couldn’t stand it, though, writing, “there is something fundamentally wrong-headed about this smug, saccharine film.”

How to watch: Rental Family is now available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Prime Video and other VOD platforms.

Rent or buy

📺 Movies newly available on streaming services you may already have

My recommendation: The Rip

Why you should watch it: Lifelong friends and artistic collaborators Ben Affleck and Matt Damon return to the screen alongside each other in Joe Carnahan’s straight-to-Netflix action movie The Rip, which is loosely based on a true story and a throwback to the sorts of gritty cop thrillers they’d make all the time back in the ’70s.

After a team of Miami cops discovers millions in cash inside a derelict stash house, trust frays as everything — and everyone — is called into question. Everyone’s a suspect, and no one can be trusted, even longtime partners and others who are purportedly the “good guys.” It’s based on a story Carnahan heard from a friend who works as a tactical narcotics officer.

It basically plays out like John Carpenter’s The Thing, had it been set during John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13, but with so much police lingo thrown around that it occasionally borders on parody of a big, brawny cop movie. If you take a drink every time someone says “the rip,” you’ll be checking into a hospital before the hour mark.

It’s very entertaining, though, with enough twists and turns to keep you engaged, even if it never really establishes its own identity and mostly feels like it’s imitating other, better movies. It has a lived-in quality that rings truer and makes it feel more like a “real movie” than the usual straight-to-Netflix affair, despite the stock “corrupt cops” angle. That’s thanks to skillful work from Carnahan, whose career lately vacillates between underrated theatrical fare that rocks, like Copshop, and movies that barely exist, like Shadow Force and Not Without Hope, both of which technically debuted in theaters last year. The pulse-pounding score that blankets the entire thing doesn’t hurt, either.

Sometimes all you need is a big, dumb clichéd action movie elevated by a pair of A-listers! In addition to Affleck and Damon, who have a lot of fun playing against type and off of one another, there’s DTV-action legend Scott Adkins, Kyle Chandler, newly minted Golden Globe winner Teyana Taylor and The Walking Dead’s Steven Yeun. The ending may be more of a fizzle-out than a grand finale, but I still enjoyed the ride. It cleverly uses modern stereotypes about police corruption to subvert your expectations.

What other critics are saying: It’s getting great marks! Deadline’s Pete Hammond calls it “a fresh and smart entry into the overworked cop drama genre,” and the Daily Beast’s Nick Schager writes that the Damon-Affleck partnership “shows no signs of losing steam.”

How to watch: The Rip is now streaming on Netflix.

Watch on Netflix

But that’s not all …

That’s all for this week — we’ll see you next week at the movies!

Looking for more recs? Find your next watch on the Yahoo 100, our daily list of the most popular movies of the year.