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Reviews of movies showing in theaters or streaming online
‘THE BOY AND THE HERON’:
In 2013, legendary Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki claimed he was retiring after the release of his film “The Wind Rises,” which was nominated for an Academy Award for best animated feature. It’s a common refrain for Miyazaki, who said he was retiring after “Princess Mononoke” and the Oscar-winning “Spirited Away.” But he has yet to stick with retirement, as evidenced by the release of his first film in a decade, the enchanting “The Boy and the Heron.” Based on the 1937 book “How Do
You Live?” by Genzaburo Yoshino, which was given to Miyazaki in his youth by his mother, “The Boy and the Heron” is a deeply personal project from the animation auteur. Like his other work, it is a fantastical and wildly imaginative film that straddles the spirit and human worlds, with a story rooted in deeply relatable emotion, threaded with an enduring sense of hope for the future despite the harshness of everyday reality. Set in the waning days of World War II in a rural village outside Tokyo, “The Boy and the Heron” follows the story of Mahito, a young boy grieving the loss of his mother, who has been killed in a fire. He and his father move away from the city, where Mahito gets to know his strange new home and a pesky heron won’t leave him alone.
“The Boy and the Heron,” yet another masterpiece from Miyazaki, helps us to see the beauty of life around us and contemplate the future of the universe more profoundly. Thank goodness retirement doesn’t agree with him. 2:04. 4 stars. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
‘GODZILLA MINUS ONE’:
Back in 1954, just nine years out from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japanese filmmaker Ishiro Honda and special effects designer Eiji Tsuburaya dreamed up a giant dinosaur-like creature that came from the depths of the ocean, mutated by nuclear radiation, a “kaiju” named Godzilla. The monster was a metaphor for Japanese atomic trauma, and the film, produced and distributed by Toho, was a hit, spawning the longest running film franchise of all time. Some 70 years later, the 33rd Toho Godzilla film (the 37th in the franchise), “Godzilla Minus One,” written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, brings Godzilla back to its Japanese roots (it’s the first
Toho Godzilla film since 2016’s “Shin Godzilla”), as well as its World War II roots. Taking place in the immediate post-war period in 1945, the film reckons with more than just the metaphorically monstrous nuclear fallout of the war, but also the devastatingly human emotional effects. When this monster surfaces, glowing neon blue from the nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll, it unearths all of the repressed shame and trauma of Japanese veterans, specifically a failed kamikaze pilot, Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki). 2:05. 3 stars. — Katie Walsh
‘THE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS
& SNAKES’: It has been eight years since the release of the last “Hunger Games” film, a franchise that produced big boxoffice dollars for Lionsgate, and made star Jennifer Lawrence a household name. It also helps that author Suzanne Collins released a prequel novel in 2020. “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” explores the young adult life of Coriolanus Snow, the tyrannical president of Panem played by
Donald Sutherland in the prior films. “The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes” invites viewers to learn more about the background of Coriolanus, played here by Tom Blyth, and to witness the early days of the Hunger Games, in which the game-makers figure out how to wield the spectacle of children killing each other for sport as a tool of propaganda. There’s so much that works about the film, but it’s unfortunate that it has all been crammed into one overly long film. 2:37. 2 ½ stars. — Katie Walsh
‘NAPOLEON’: The literal French definition of “tour de force,” an admiring noun that gets thrown around a lot in English, translates as “feat of strength.” Therefore, I don’t get it. I don’t get why Joaquin Phoenix’s take on Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France and frequent film subject, might inspire anyone to characterize the results as a tour de anything, except a feat of sustained, occasionally droll indecision. The same goes for director Ridley Scott’s middling epic “Napoleon.” “Middling” and “epic” are not words you want to see together, but there you are. Napoleon was many things, and with this dutiful career highlights reel, Phoenix and his director deliver glancing blows to as many aspects of the warrior-tyrantgenius-fool-lonely heart as cinematically possible in two and a half hours. It’s a movie of men, horses, digital blood bursts and practical craftsmanship. 2:38. 2 stars. — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
‘POOR THINGS’: In the middle of the new film “Poor Things,” an adaptation of the 1992 novel by the late Scottish writer Alasdair Gray from Oscar-nominated oddball auteur Yorgos Lanthimos, our heroine Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) toddles off on a solo adventure for the first time. Wandering the streets of a pastel storybook Lisbon in silky shorts and a blouse with enormous puff sleeves, her long mane of raven hair swaying down back, Bella heads for a pastry stand, where she crams as many custard tarts as she can into her mouth. Later, she vomits them up on a balcony overlooking a picturesque vista of the city. Cause, meet effect. Bella observes this bit of data and reports it back to her scientist father figure, Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) in a crudely scrawled postcard home. This kind of self-experimentation is the backbone of “Poor Things,” Lanthimos’ strange and ravishing masterpiece about a young woman who receives one of life’s rare gifts: a chance
to start over, from scratch. What will Bella do with her new lease on life? She’ll devour every last crumb, without an ounce of shame. This film may be fantastical, outré, at times bizarre, and sexually frank. But ultimately, “Poor Things” is a traditional heroine’s journey forging its own singular path. That Bella achieves a fully embodied sense of personal liberation makes it a truly radical — and feminist — fairy tale. 2:21. 4 stars. — Katie Walsh
‘WISH’: Ostensibly a 100-year anniversary celebration film of the Walt Disney Company, the story of “Wish” is extrapolated from the classic song “When You Wish Upon a Star,” which was originally written for “Pinocchio.” Writers Jennifer Lee and Allison Moore (working from a story by Lee, Moore and co-directors Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn) have dared to imagine, what if you wish upon a star? What then? Framed with a storybook device, the fairy-tale setting of “Wish” is Rosas, an island city in the Mediterranean where people from around the globe immigrate to live in tranquil safety under the watchful eye of King Magnifico (Chris Pine), a
powerful (and handsome) sorcerer. Part of his whole deal is that he requires every citizen of Rosas to hand over their wishes at age 18, and every now and then he grants one. When we get a glimpse at them, the wishes are laughably basic, like flying and being strong or making dresses. There’s some sort of logic about why one might want their king to keep their wishes safe, but it’s just the way things are in the autocracy of Rosas, until a young girl, Asha (Ariana DeBose), dares to question why that is while she’s interviewing to be the king’s apprentice. She asks Magnifico to grant her 100-year-old grandfather’s wish, and when Magnifico turns her down, the bloom is off the Rosas for Asha. The story is very generic, and the songs, by pop singer-songwriter Julia Michaels and Benjamin Rice, are rather uninspiring, though performed well by DeBose and Pine. “Wish” will serve to entertain the very young, but it’s not up to the standards of those who know their Disney well. 1:35. 2 stars.
RATINGS: The movies listed are rated according to the following key: 4 stars, excellent; 3 stars, good; 2 stars, fair; 1 star, poor.