What to watch this week: Gal Gadot buoyant in an otherwise sinking ship in 'In the Hand of Dante'

Gal Gadot fans have been waiting eagerly for the release of In the Hand of Dante, a 2025 movie directed by Julian Schnabel, which just started streaming on Netflix.

This is because Schnabel is a serious director, and the plot is a literary mystery about the discovery of the manuscript of Dante’s “Divine Comedy.”

Schabel is a painter who turned to filmmaking 30 years ago and made several excellent films, notably The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a powerful, innovatively filmed drama about a magazine editor who is completely paralyzed after an accident.

But it’s a long way from that carefully scripted and plotted film to the muddle that is In the Hands of Dante.

His new film is based on a 2002 novel by Nick Tosches, about how the manuscript of the epic poem surfaces in New York, where it is found by a gangster, who hires a novelist and Dante expert named ... Nick Tosches.

“I know this poem so well, I feel like I wrote it myself,” Tosches says to confirm its authenticity and sell it.

Once word gets out about the existence of the manuscript, people all over the world are chasing Nick. The contemporary plot, filmed in black and white, is interspersed with scenes from Dante’s life in color.

They include Gerard Butler as a violent thug; John Malkovich as a Mafia don named Joe Black (which could be a reference to a lackluster 1998 movie called Meet Joe Black about how Death, played by Brad Pitt, comes to Earth to take the life of an industrialist played by Anthony Hopkins, but why would anyone refer to that film?), and Martin Scorsese as a bearded sage named Isaiah, who appears only in the 14th-century scenes.

Gadot has a dual role in both the contemporary and medieval storylines, playing an assistant from his publisher in Italy who helps arrange his research trip and falls head over heels in love with him, and Gemma Donati, Dante’s wife, whom he took for granted but came to love, in the movie’s telling.

While I sensed that an interesting literary mystery was buried in the film’s 150-minute running time, I felt that an editor should have dragged it out; instead, the viewer is put through an endurance test that few will pass.

It’s nice at first to hear quotes from a poem recited, but it bogs down quickly in cliched drunken, macho writer tropes. If there is something clever about juxtaposing a classic film about a journey through hell with modern-day wise guys, the idea seems less inspired with every moment that passes.

Eventually, there is a scene with a character named Mephistopheles, who is asked whether the ashtray on a table is an ashtray. “It’s whatever you want it to be,” he replies. I wanted this to be a good movie, but it isn’t.

To quote Nick from an early scene, “You look at anything long enough, you see what’s wrong with it. A broad, your kid.” You will see what’s wrong with In the Hand of Dante in a very short time, sadly.

She also dashes all over Europe to keep a shadowy peacekeeping agency from getting its hands on the most dangerous weapon ever in the history of humanity. Jamie Dornan and Alia Bhatt co-star.

The most memorable aspect of the Netflix movie Red Notice is the skin-tight red evening gown Gadot wears in a key scene, in which she plays the world’s most wanted art thief, known as The Bishop.

A bland Ryan Reynolds portrays a character who is supposed to be another dashing art thief, while Dwayne Johnson is an FBI profiler with a secret you will probably guess early on, and Ritu Arya is the dogged Interpol agent tasked with solving an art heist.

Gadot also has a dramatic role in Death on the Nile, available on Apple TV+, Disney+, and Netflix.

It’s the latest adaptation of Agatha Christie’s often-filmed play, and it was directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also stars as Hercule Poirot, the iconic sleuth who finds himself investigating a murder on a Nile cruise.

Gadot plays Linnet, an heiress who marries Simon (Armie Hammer). Linnet stole Simon away from her old friend, Jackie (Emma Mackey), who follows them on their honeymoon cruise.

The movie was filmed partly in Egypt, and its locations, period costumes, and sets are the draw here, rather than the old-fashioned mystery, which isn’t very compelling. Gadot has a couple of big scenes but is mostly eye candy, although she holds her own.

Gadot has been at her best in comedies, like Wonder Woman, where she gets to show off her playful side.

If you’d like to see her in something funny, try Keeping Up with the Joneses on Disney+ and Apple TV+, in which she and Jon Hamm play steely superspies who move in next door to an ordinary suburban couple, played by Zach Galifianakis and Isla Fisher.

Her two Wonder Woman films, the 2017 original, which was fun, and the lackluster sequel, Wonder Woman 1984, are also available on Apple TV+.

Notably, there’s an enjoyable earlier version available to stream on HBO Max (also available through Hot and Yes).

It’s the 1984 Supergirl starring Helen Slater, a Jewish-American actress who went blonde for the role, which was released in the wake of the extremely successful Superman movies starring Christopher Reeve.

Those early Superman films were directed by Richard Lester, who also helmed the Beatles classics Help! and A Hard Day’s Night, and were witty and well-acted.

Supergirl was directed by Jeannot Szwarc, who also made Jaws 2, and while it doesn’t quite measure up to the Superman movies, it’s entertaining.

Slater plays Kara, Superman’s cousin, who must go down to Earth to retrieve something called an omegahedron, which powers life on Argo City, the planet where she lives with her family.

It has a great cast that includes Peter O’Toole as a wizard, Faye Dunaway as a would-be witch who finds the powerful object and uses it for evil, Peter Cook as a warlock, and Mia Farrow as Supergirl’s mother. Slater is very winning in the role, but there were no sequels.