NOW PLAYING
Reviews of movies showing in theaters or streaming online
‘THE BLACK PHONE’: Adapted from a short story by Joe Hill (the son of Stephen King), “The Black Phone” sees “Doctor Strange” director Scott Derrickson reunite with his “Sinister” co-writer C. Robert Cargill, and star Ethan Hawke, under the Blumhouse production banner, known for its low-budget, high-return horror flicks. Mason Thames stars as Finney Blake, a kid just trying to make it through middle school in 1978 Denver. His dad (Jeremy Davies) is a drunk, and the bullies are brutal (the beatdowns on screen are astonishingly bloody). Plus, all of his friends keep disappearing at the hands of a kidnapper known as “The Grabber,” who leaves black balloons at the scene of his crimes. It’s only a matter of time before the vulnerable loner Finney gets snatched too, and considering neighborhood stud Bruce (Tristan Pravong), and tough kid Robin (Miguel Cazarez Mora) didn’t escape the Grabber, Finney figures he’s a goner. Much of “The Black Phone” takes place in the drab basement where Finney is kept by the terrifyingly masked Grabber (Hawke), who occasionally shows up to thoroughly creep him out and make vaguely menacing threats. On the wall is a black rotary phone with a cut cord, but it keeps ringing, and Finney keeps answering. Through the static, voices come through, and Finney realizes these are the voices of the boys who have disappeared before him, coaching him through this experience, giving him tips and tricks and guidance to survive the Grabber’s clutches, if not for him, for them. 1:42. 2 ½ stars. ‘ELVIS’: Why hasn’t there been a great Elvis biopic yet? Well, Austin Butler wasn’t around to star as the King of Rock ’n’ Roll. At the center of Baz Luhrmann’s sprawling pop epic “Elvis,” a film as opulent and outsize as the King’s talent and taste, Butler delivers a fully transformed, fully committed and star-making turn as Elvis Presley. The rumors are true: Elvis lives, in Austin Butler. Swirling around Butler’s bravura performance is a manic, maximalist, chopped-and-screwed music biopic, in which Luhrmann locates Elvis as the earth-shaking inflection point between the ancient and the modern, the carnival and the TV screen, a figure of pure spectacle who threatened to obliterate the status quo — and did. Luhrmann takes Elvis Presley’s legacy, relegated to a Las Vegas gag, and reminds us just how dangerous, sexy and downright revolutionary he once was. He makes Elvis relevant again. 2:39. 3 ½ stars.
— Katie Walsh
‘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. People have lots of opinions about their dinosaurs. 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
‘SPIDERHEAD’: Ona remote island, sometime in the near future, prison inmates confined to a concrete, key-shaped structure jutting out over the ocean are being subjected to experimental, mood-altering drug trials. Chris Hemsworth, all slap-happy, suspicious bonhomie, plays the genius-blowhard in charge. Miles Teller plays one of the inmates, haunted by a fatal mistake behind the wheel years earlier; Jurnee Smollett portrays his lover and fellow inmate, likewise trying to shut out her own personal tragedy. In the control room, aka Spiderhead, aided by a morally queasy assistant (Mark Paguio), Hemsworth’s character takes smug delight in administering, via an app on his phone, strategic doses of un-inhibitors to his subjects. The vials of brightly colored liquid are attached surgically to the lower back, allowing the drugs to flow straight into the inmates’ bloodstreams. The most sinister of the trials involves doses of Darkenfloxx, which causes thoughts and feelings so dire, the results can be fatal. “Spiderhead” takes its time revealing what’s up with these experiments, and whether there’s a way out of this pharmacological hell. Streaming on Netflix. 1:47. 2 stars.
— Michael Phillips
‘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. — Michael Phillips
RATINGS: The movies listed are rated according to the following key: 4 stars, excellent; 3 stars, good; 2 stars, fair; 1 star, poor.