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Reviews of movies showing in theaters or streaming online
‘HUSTLE’: If a long sigh were a person, he would be NBA scout Stanley Sugerman (Adam Sandler). He’s burned out and his dreams have been dashed. Or as tells his wife (Queen Latifah): “Guys in their
50s don’t have dreams, they have nightmares. And eczema.” So he swallows his pride and drags his suitcase through Europe, looking for potential international draft picks. When he arrives in Spain, he spies a 6-foot-9 ringer in Timberlands (Utah Jazz power forward Juancho Hernangomez) crushing it in a street game and walking away with a fistful of cash. That’s one kind of hustle the title is referring to. There’s another — of a man past his prime who perks up when he spots a diamond in the rough. Stanley is convinced this humble construction worker named Bo Cruz is his next great find. His boss with the Philadelphia 76ers says no way, the guy’s a nobody, so Stanley brings the kid back to the States anyway, on his own dime. But wait, there’s another kind of hustle at play — of the drive needed to compete at the NBA level. Bo is quiet and inexperienced and sometimes rattled by trash talk. There’s an assault charge from his past that complicates matters. But he has Stanley in his corner. Poor beaten-down Stanley, who believes in this kid. And friends, you have yourselves a sports drama. Streaming on Netflix.
1:57. 2 stars. — Nina Metz, Chicago Tribune
‘I’M CHARLIE WALKER’:
It’s never a good thing when the postscript to a film based on a true story is more interesting than the actual movie itself. This is unfortunately the case
with Patrick Gilles’ “I’m Charlie Walker,” a biopic about an enterprising
Black trucker who won a lucrative contract to help clean up the largest oil spill in San Francisco Bay history in 1971 when two Standard Oil tankers collided. As interview footage of the real Charlie Walker plays with text cards just before the credits roll, it’s clear that this film would have been better as a documentary. “I’m Charlie Walker” has all the makings of an entertaining period piece: a little-known true story, an environmental disaster, a colorful setting and a fascinating subject in Charlie, played by the compelling actor Mike Colter (“Luke Cage”). It should be a gripping tale of triumph over adversity set against a unique backdrop and moment in cultural history. But the narrative gets bogged down in questions of permitting and licenses and blackmail, and the script has a bad case of telling us, rather than showing, the problems that Charlie faces. Gilles manages to make every choice that renders this story completely uninteresting. Available via video on demand.
1:18. 1 star. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
‘JURASSIC WORLD DOMINION’:
The “Jurassic Park”/“Jurassic World” franchise always favored a janky, what-should-wetry-this-time approach. Fans of dinosaurs (and who isn’t?) and the 1993 Steven Spielberg original based on Michael Crichton’s novel, have been forgiving enough to show up for most or all of the sequels, with their new batches of dinosaurs and hilariously secondary humans. As I took my seat for a recent preview screening of “Jurassic World Dominion,” the family on my left was debating which was the worst in the series so far: the second movie in the first trilogy or the second in the second. Well, it’s neither. I’m afraid it’s this new one, “Jurassic World Dominion,” and neither its blobby story structure nor a frenetic running time of nearly two and a half hours (longest in the franchise) is the problem, really. The problem is filmmaking craft, and how little director Colin Trevorrow (who made “Jurassic World”) brings to bear on the project. Something’s off here,
all the way through the film’s warring personalities and wan subplots. The results may enjoy a big haul this summer, given the film’s nostalgic Grand Finale trappings and the melding of the first trilogy’s headliners — Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum — with the second trilogy’s nominal leads.
But you know how it is with brand-name blockbusters. Whether they personally bust your blocks means nothing. The IP is everything. 2:27. 2 stars.
— Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
‘LIGHTYEAR’: Disney has made big business mining content from content, with spinoffs and sequels and multiverses. “Lightyear,” the latest Disney/Pixar animated film, has been extracted from the much-beloved “Toy Story” universe, but it’s a bit unique. It’s sort of a prequel, in that it’s intended to be Andy’s favorite movie, the one that spawned the Buzz Lightyear toy that took up residence in his room with Woody and the rest of his pals. So “Lightyear”is not about Buzz Lightyear, the toy, but about Buzz Lightyear,
the character, and this satisfying animated sci-fi adventure is a good choice for Andy’s favorite flick. Though Tim Allen originally voiced Buzz, Chris Evans has taken over vocal duties in “Lightyear,” and with Evans in the role, there’s more than a few times one will wish this was a live-action film. “Lightyear” — directed by Angus MacLane, and written by MacLane, Matthew Aldrich and Jason Headley — manages to strike an interesting tone between “adult drama” and “kiddie adventure,” with a serious sci-fi story that has been dusted with some good humor and the therapy-approved life lessons we’ve come to expect from Disney movies. 1:40. 2 ½ stars. — Katie Walsh
‘OFFICIAL COMPETITION’: “Official Competition” makes a statement about the state of the film industry, with deep-pocketed investors looking for something that’s “the best” without having any clue about what that actually means. Argentinian directors Gaston Duprat and Mariano Cohn — with their longtime collaborator, screenwriter Andres Duprat — send up film culture in this tragicomic dissection of the artist’s way, or rather, ways. Legendary Spanish stars Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas team up with Duprat, Cohn and Argentinian star Oscar Martinez to embody the different strains of pretentiousness that permeate the film industry, and the combustion that happens when all three are thrown together in a high-pressure situation. In Spanish with English subtitles. 1:54. 3 ½ stars. — Katie Walsh
‘TOP GUN: MAVERICK’:
It couldn’t outmaneuver the pandemic enemy that delayed its release for two years, but “Top Gun: Maverick” can’t lose, really. It’s a pretty good time, and often a pretty good movie. It’s cozy. And it’ll be catnip for those eager to watch Tom Cruise flash That Look. What is That Look? It’s the half-smile of insubordination when a superior officer (Ed Harris or Jon Hamm this time) busts test pilot and congenital speedneeder Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell’s chops, ineffectively. It’s The Look that goes with an eternally boyish voice and demeanor. Capt. Mitchell, who lives alone in the desert with his beloved Kawasaki motorcycle, is called to a new and time-sensitive duty by his old cohort Iceman (Val Kilmer), now a U.S. Pacific Fleet commander. Maverick has three weeks to train a group of new
Top Gun aces to destroy a uranium enrichment plant in an unspecified but assuredly Slavic location. One of the trainees is Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Miles Teller), the grudge-laden son of Maverick’s late radar intercept officer, Goose, played by Anthony Edwards back when. It’s silly-rousing enough to satisfy younger and older audiences alike. It may help to have hated the original, but I liked this one, even though it’s not so very different from the first. Thirty-six years from now, we’ll probably be watching Cruise teaching a new cadre of flying aces. Only the planet will have changed. 2:17. 3 stars.
RATINGS: The movies listed are rated according to the following key: 4 stars, excellent; 3 stars, good; 2 stars, fair; 1 star, poor.