NOW PLAYING
Reviews of movies showing in theaters or streaming online
‘AILEY’: He was, Cicely Tyson’s warm voice told the audience at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1988, “a Pied Piper of modern dance.” Choreographer Alvin Ailey, who founded Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1958, spent his relatively short life bringing dance to the world: through his company’s international tours; through his constant dedication to educational outreach; and through the millions of audience members who saw, in dances like his sublime “Revelations,” Ailey’s vision of Black life as universal art. Jamila Wignot’s documentary “Ailey” arrives more than three decades after the choreographer’s death in 1989. But the company lives on, and Wignot wisely frames her film with contemporary scenes of Ailey dancers learning a new work, from choreographer Rennie Harris, inspired by Ailey’s life in honor of the company’s 60th anniversary. 1:30. 3 ½ stars. — Moira Macdonald, Seattle Times
‘ANNETTE’: Director Leos Carax’s “Annette” proved a sensation at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. This was for many reasons, one being a scene where Adam Driver’s character, a lacerating stand-up comic/ performance artist, sings a lyric or two of a song while his head is between the legs of his opera star wife, played by Marion Cotillard. With sternly catchy songs of love, contempt and regret by the Sparks duo of Ron and Russell Mael, “Annette” is doggedly intent on putting you inside the mental cauldron of the Driver character, as he rails against his own fame, his perceived ugly duckling/ fairy princess relationship with his wife and the birth of their phenomenal daughter, who is played by wooden puppets of varying sizes. 2:20. 3 stars.
Streaming on Amazon Prime Video. — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
‘CANDYMAN’: While the trailer suggests the reboot Universal Studios wishes this one were, instead of the one it is, co-writer and director Nia Dacosta has made her own kind of “Candyman” — sleek, brooding, methodical, thoughtful. Gorehounds looking for even more splurch than the first “Candyman” delivered back in 1992 will have to wait for something else. A generation ago, that film relocated author Clive Barker’s bee-infested spirit of vengeance, born in his 1985 short story
“The Forbidden,” from the grim council houses of Liverpool, England, to the notorious Cabrini-green high-rises of Chicago. Tony Todd’s embodiment of the title character meant actual, forceful Black representation in a genre generally more concerned with killing off Black people, where you could find them, as quickly as possible. Still, the racial dynamics were just queasy enough to make “Candyman” an uneasy sort of hit. The ’92 “Candyman” got to its first murder (in flashback) in the first five minutes, long before the University of Chicagoillinois graduate student played by Virginia Madsen ventured into the Black gang-controlled housing projects in the service of her thesis on urban folklore and the Candyman legend. The new “Candyman” has a few things in common with the first one. It too is crafty and well-acted. But the racial lens is new. 1:31. 3 stars. — Michael Phillips
‘CRYPTOZOO’: It’s the
’60s, man, or at least some super-psychedelic alternate version of it, populated by hand-drawn Krakens, Pegasi, hydras, giant worms and various other fantastical creatures collectively
known as “cryptids” — a bestiary to rival Noah’s Ark in scope if not in number. Speaking of the Old Testament: There’s an unmistakably Edenic quality to the prologue, wherein two naked lovers gaze upon the wonders of creation before tragically falling from grace. But the secret refuge into which our stoned-out Adam and Eve (voiced by Michael Cera and Louisa Krause) have stumbled is no God-breathed paradise. This is the Cryptozoo, a man-made theme park designed as a sanctuary for cryptids — a high-minded enterprise that doubles as a commercial one. Here, the park’s keepers insist, these rare and remarkable creatures will be safe from the human killers and traffickers who hunt them. But since they’ll also be held in enclosures, put on public display and marketed as plush toys and other forms of merchandise, their liberation may not be all it’s cracked up to be. 1:35. Not ranked. Available on digital and VOD. — Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times
‘FREE GUY’: The latest blockbuster to bring video games to the big screen is
the bold, brash and selfaware (literally) “Free
Guy,” a film that trains its sights on those oft disposable “nonplayer characters” that populate the edges of the video game world. Guy (Ryan Reynolds) is one such character, living and working in the world of Free City, where every day he gets the same coffee, works as a bank teller and happily hits the deck when a player barges in to rob the bank several times a day. Guy and his pal Buddy (Lil Rel) are more than content to be background players in someone else’s narrative, as they’ve been programmed to be. But Guy has a nagging feeling that there’s more out there, and one day, when a comely player known as Molotov Girl (Jodie Comer) saunters past humming Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy,” a new feeling is awakened within him: love, lust, infatuation, you name it. That shouldn’t be in Guy’s code, and when he starts stepping outside the expectations of a nonplayer character in order to pursue this mysterious player, it causes an uproar that turns him into a star known as “Blue Shirt Guy” in the world outside the game. 1:55. 2 stars. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
‘THE PROTEGE’: There are certain points in director Martin Campbell’s revenge flick that may cause you to chuckle quietly as you attempt to wrap your head around how this latest plot contrivance could have occurred. It wouldn’t quite be fair to call it a “dumb” action romp, but you could poke enough holes in its internal logic to deflate the whole balloon if you’d like. Or you could just enjoy the ultraviolent action, intriguing mystery at the center of it all, and performances from stars Michael Keaton and Maggie Q that save “The Protege” from going too far off the deep end. Anna (Maggie Q) was rescued by Moody (Samuel L. Jackson) as a child and trained in the art of assassination. The two spend 30 years working together and develop a father-daughter bond along the way. 1:49. 2 stars. — Joshua Axelrod, Pittsburgh Post-gazette
‘REMINISCENCE’: In “Reminiscence,” there’s water, water everywhere.
Miami resembles a soggy, reluctant Venice. Writerdirector Lisa Joy, a “Westworld” creative alum, imagines a globally warmed dystopian near-future, with most of the world’s great cities half-sunken, reeling from armed conflict, the political desire for a return to internment camps and murmurs of revolution against the land barons who own what’s left of the high-rise dwellings. Tough times call for a tough hero who isn’t afraid of a ridiculous amount of voice-over narration. Hugh Jackson, shirtless when narratively convenient, plays Nick Bannister, a sort of private detective catering to those desperate to revisit memories of less miserable times. 1:56. 1 ½ stars. Streaming on HBO Max. — Michael Phillips
‘SWEET GIRL’: “Sweet Girl” may appear to be your average action-thriller, but it proves itself to be anything but. Everything about its first hour-plus would lead viewers to believe it’s a slick but relatively standard revenge flick about a man who makes some unfortunate decisions after being pushed to the brink. There are chases, shootouts, hand-to-hand combat and even an attempt to flee the authorities that culminates on top of PNC Park in Pittsburgh. Then, just as “Sweet Girl” lulls you into a false sense of action-movie security, it pulls the rug out from under you with a revelation that changes how everything that came before is perceived and adds an extra emotional layer to an already heartfelt story about a father trying to protect the only family he has left. 1:36. 3 stars. Streaming on Netflix.
RATINGS: The movies listed are rated according to the following key: 4 stars, excellent; 3 stars, good; 2 stars, fair; 1 star, poor.