NOW PLAYING

Reviews of movies showing in theaters or streaming online

‘BARBIE’: In Greta

Gerwig’s hands, Barbie is a weapon. The director wields the iconic doll like a broadsword in “Barbie,” cleaving through culture with gleeful spirit and savage humor. Written by Gerwig and her husband, filmmaker Noah Baumbach, “Barbie” works in broad story strokes, which allows Gerwig to experiment with style and humor, creating the safe space for their pointed commentary on patriarchy, misogyny and perfectionism. Barbie (Margot Robbie) has to leave the comfort of Barbie Land in an attempt to stem the tide of irrepressible thoughts of death that start to creep through her cotton-candy consciousness. On the advice of Kate McKinnon’s Weird Barbie (scribbled-on makeup, crazy haircut, always in the splits), Barbie sets out to find the girl who’s playing with her, to close the portal between Barbie Land and the Real World. Ken (Ryan Gosling) tags along. But it’s Barbie’s awakening, a process of shock, sadness and acceptance, that is the spine of this story. Throughout her roller-coaster ride to the Real World and back, Barbie discovers that feminism is about seeing the humanity in everyone, even Ken, but most importantly, in herself, despite the challenges of the Real World. 1:54. 4 stars. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service

‘BLUE BEETLE’: For Jaime

Reyes — the Blue Beetle — being a superhero is a family affair. While most superheroes shield their identities from loved ones, in “Blue Beetle,” the first DC Comics movie to feature a Latino superhero, it’s a group project. When recent college graduate Jaime (Xolo Maridueña) unknowingly brings home an alien scarab in a fastfood box handed to him by industrial heiress Jenny Kord (Bruna Marquezine), which she spirited away from the headquarters of the family business, he’s egged on by his sister Milagro (Belissa Escobedo) and Uncle Rudy (George Lopez) to check it out. The scarab quickly responds to him, his entire family watching in horror as the critter fuses onto his spine, forming a symbiotic relationship that affords Jaime the powers of a sentient battle suit complete with a Siri-style intelligence, Khaji-Da (voiced by

Becky G). The alien suit may be nifty, allowing him to fly and fight and conjure weapons out of thin air, but Jaime derives his strength and drive from the tightknit Reyes clan. His family is a crucial component in the comic books, lovingly transferred to the screen by director Angel Manuel Soto and writer Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer. The first Latino superhero movie is a true reflection of Latino culture, including the food, the music, the history and the focus on family, first and foremost. 2:07. 2 ½ stars.

‘BOTTOMS’: The wide, bright, satiric world of “Bottoms,” director and co-writer Emma Seligman’s second feature, expands and contracts as needed. One minute it’s a sincere portrait of a teen friendship between the equally uncool and marginalized PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie

(Ayo Edebiri). They’re queer, witty and a little heartbreaking, and not only because they refer to themselves as “ugly” and “losers” when they’re plainly not. Then, on a dime, Seligman and co-writer Sennott change the key and start tossing whole chunks of “Fight Club” and “Heathers” into a mini-Ninja blender, along with the entirety of John Hughes’ canon of heteromale high school ’80s cool. The result — peppy, bloody and swift — is very different from Seligman’s 2021 sublimely nerve-wracking debut film, the deft comedy of lesbian Jewish mortification “Shiva Baby.” This one tries more, every which way and largely successfully. Arch? Glib? Yes and yes. But I laughed a lot, all the more so because the payoffs in “Bottoms” have a way of delivering in stealth mode. 1:30. 3 stars.

— Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

‘GRAN TURISMO’: The visual exterior of Neill Blomkamp’s racing simulator video game movie “Gran Turismo” mimics that of a race car itself: shiny, colorful and chrome. There’s a real surface appeal to this movie, which is based on the remarkable true story of Jann Mardenborough, a gamer and fan of the “Gran Turismo” driving game, who won a Nissan-sponsored driving academy and has since gone on to become a successful race car driver himself. But pop the hood on this bad boy and there’s an undeniable cynicism undergirding this vehicle. A movie about a publicity stunt is still just a publicity stunt after all. “Gran Turismo” does attempt to get ahead of the craven capitalism on display with Orlando Bloom’s portrayal of Nissan marketing exec Danny Moore (a version of GT Academy founder Darren Cox). Bloom — and the script by Jason Hall, Zach Baylin and Alex Tse — positions Danny as savvy but smarmy; an outsidethe-box innovator with visions of “untapped demographics” dancing in his head. 2:15. 2 stars. — Katie Walsh

‘OPPENHEIMER’:

Filmmaker Christopher Nolan has presented us with so many dark splendors and unsettling displays of destruction in his career — in science fiction, in Gotham City or in “Dunkirk,” his first real-world historical thriller. Now we have “Oppenheimer,” his second in that real-world category.

It’s Nolan’s most haunted film to date, and with this subject — J. Robert Oppenheimer, theoretical physicist, “father of the atom bomb,” anguished, conscience-stricken victim of America’s errantly shifting political winds

— a filmmaker cannot treat the sight, and the fallout, of the dawn of our catastrophic nuclear age as mere spectacle. Well, they can. But it’d be a mistake. It stars a pitch-perfect Cillian Murphy, with Nolan freely adapting Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s superb 2006 Oppenheimer biography “American Prometheus.” This is a film about terrible risks and a planet likely destined to destroy itself someday.

And we see it, and feel it. 3:00. 3 ½ stars. — Michael Phillips

‘RETRIBUTION’: Every so often, an action movie starring the ever-working Liam Neeson can be good for the soul. These silly but often entertaining flicks aren’t exactly as nourishing as chicken soup, but they can be filling all the same. “Retribution” is likely to give your soul indigestion. A remake of the 2015 Spanish movie of the same name, this action thriller helmed by Nimród Antal (“Predators”) has a decent enough premise, Neeson portraying a man being forced to drive a car with a bomb under his seat while his son and daughter reside in the back of the vehicle. However, the screenplay, by Christopher Salmanpour (“FBI: Most Wanted”), is rough to the point of distraction, and all the growling in the world can’t overcome that issue. 1:31. 1 ½ stars. — Mark Meszoros, the Willoughby News-Herald

‘TEENAGE MUTANT

NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM’: Radioactive ooze generated the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” has helped birth “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,” the new animated feature about everyone’s favorite rambunctious, pizzaloving reptiles. Directors Jeff Rowe and Kyler Spears showcase the turtles in a way we’ve never seen them before, utilizing a blend of 3D and 2D animation to create a unique, roughhewn (on purpose) style that suggests children’s book illustrations blended with teenage sketchbooks. It’s clear that Rowe, Spears and writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (who also produced the film), Dan Hernandez, Benji Samit and Brendan O’Brien, have a deep love and nostalgia for these lovable ’80s relics, who were ubiquitous in the childhoods of older millennials. 1:39. 3 ½ stars. — Katie Walsh

RATINGS: The movies listed are rated according to the following key: 4 stars, excellent; 3 stars, good; 2 stars, fair; 1 star, poor.