A political dramedy, military satire, and dark whimsy — in theaters this week

A stellar cast can’t save James L. Brooks’ dramedy in theaters this week. Luckily, there are other choices, including an Alia Shawkat-led military satire and a horror fantasy from the creator of Pushing Daisies.

They’re joining Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, Fackham Hall, Hamnet, Wake Up Dead Man, Wicked: For Good and more at cineplexes. Here’s our movie roundup from last week, and the week before.

Here’s what’s new.

Ella McCay

In theaters Friday 

85-year-old James L. Brooks has such an enviable track record as a TV creator (The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Taxi, The Simpsons), and movie writer/director (Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News, As Good as It Gets), that it’s hard not to hope for the best when he makes his first feature film in 15 years. Alas, this treacly, tone-deaf dramedy centered on the travails of its titular idealist will be nobody’s idea of a good time. Ella (Sex Education‘s Emma Mackey) is lieutenant governor of an unnamed state, who becomes governor when her avuncular mentor (Albert Brooks) resigns to take a cabinet position.

Buttressed by a supportive aunt (Jamie Lee Curtis) and a wisdom-spouting driver (Kumail Nanjiani), while being undercut by a neglectful dad (Woody Harrelson) and opportunistic hubby (Jack Lowden), she embarks on a singularly inept attempt to do public good while also counseling her agoraphobic little brother (Spike Fearn) on how to win back his girlfriend (Ayo Edebiri). That is an indisputably impressive cast, which makes it all-the-more remarkable that not one of them manages to make the film’s dialogue or motivations either plausible or comic. — Bob Mondello

Atropia

In limited theaters Friday 

We begin in a bustling Iraqi village, with teenaged American soldiers confronting villagers in turbans and hijabs who look as if they’re going about everyday life in … oh never mind, it’s all fake. Atropia is a town constructed in the California desert to train green troops before they’re sent off to fight in the Middle East. These towns evidently exist in real life, though they’re presumably not put to uses as goofy as they are in Hailey Gates’ scattered satirical romp. Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development) plays an aspiring actress who still nurtures dreams that this gig will further her acting career. Callum Turner (a handsome inexpressive lug in The Boys in the Boat) is now a marginally more expressive lug as a returning vet playing an Iraqi insurgent to exorcise his own demons and maybe give a few green soldiers some pointers. The setup’s fun, the payoff less, but it’s amusing. — Bob Mondello 

Dust Bunny 

In theaters Friday

Where do you stand on the notion of “dark whimsy?” Because that’s what the horror/fantasy film Dust Bunny will be serving up — in a big way — in select theaters. It’s writer/director Bryan Fuller’s feature debut, although he’s put in plenty of time on the small screen (he’s the guy behind Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies and Hannibal). The premise is simple — a young girl (Sophie Sloan) is terrified of a monster under her bed, and recruits an assassin for hire (Mads Mikkelsen) to kill it. It’s the execution (heh) that matters, though — and that execution is stylized to a fare-thee-well, in a mode reminiscent of the go-for-broke fabulism of films like Delicatessen, The City of the Lost Children and, yes, Amélie. If you like that sort of approach, it’s whimsical; if you hate it, it’s twee. (Me, in this case I lean more to the former, because the film features Sigourney Weaver as a kind of executive assassin. There is nothing twee about my girl Sigourney goddamn Weaver, and there never has been.) — Glen Weldon