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Reviews of movies showing in theaters or streaming online
‘ENCANTO’: The latest Disney Animation film, “Encanto,” sweeps audiences away to a colorful, enchanted world of Colombian magical realism, introducing the Madrigal family, who have each been granted extraordinary gifts, except one, our heroine, Mirabel (Stefanie Beatriz), who has yet to discover her own personal magic. The Madrigal family magic was borne out of extreme trauma and pain, when matriarch Abuela Alma (Maria Cecilia Botero) lost her husband while fleeing violence in their village. In desperation, she cried out for protection for herself and her infant triplets, and a magical candle raised mountains around a charmed casita, where she’s raised her family since. Each Madrigal receives a gift in a coming of age ceremony, whether it’s super strength, high-powered hearing, talking to animals, spinning flowers out of thin air, shape-shifting, future divining, weather controlling or food healing. The only exception to the magical rule so far is the sweet, smart Mirabel, who never received her gift, and has since felt like the family outcast, bending over backward to earn her place among them. As she starts to see cracks in the foundation of their beloved casita, Mirabel probes deeper in to the family’s magic and ultimately realizes that all of her family members are caught in the trap of perfectionism, believing that they have to use their gifts in the ways others want them to, without remaining authentic to themselves and their desires. 1:39. 3 stars.
— Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
‘GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE’:
“Ghostbusters: Afterlife” is indeed haunted. But it’s not just the likes of Muncher and the Stay-puft Marshmallow
Man that need to be zapped into proton packs. This film is haunted by the specter of the legacy of the 1984 “Ghostbusters,” which isn’t just lurking around the edges but literally baked into its DNA. “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” brings a new family into the ghostbusting dynasty, which includes a single mom, Callie (Carrie Coon), and her two kids: brainy tween Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) and gawky teen Trevor (Finn Wolfhard of “Stranger Things” and “It”). Anyone with even the most casual passing interest in “Ghostbusters” can see where this family story is going. 2:04. 1 ½ stars.
— Katie Walsh
‘HOUSE OF GUCCI’: For director Ridley Scott, “House of Gucci” is an entertaining if dramatically thin return to the factbased machinations of the rich, famous and weaselly. Sometimes they’re criminal underworld tales, such as “American Gangster” (2007); other times, as with the 2017 Getty kidnapping account “All the Money in the World,” they’re criminality-adjacent, more about the ruthlessness of the crazy-rich. This movie’s a bit of both. It’s bit-of-both in other ways, too, swinging from straight-faced drama to opera buffa extravagance. Lady Gaga, representing the former, co-stars with, among others, Jared Leto (the latter). Buried underneath prosthetics, a baldpate and a ton of Usda-unapproved hamming, Leto gorges himself on the role of Paolo Gucci, the most hapless of all the Guccis. However, Gaga’s the star and driver in “House of Gucci.” The high-gloss and even higher-fashion festival of backstabbing stars Gaga as the woman whose controversial business practices after marrying into the Gucci fashion dynasty included hiring a hit man
to deal with her pesky, cheating husband. Adam Driver plays mild-mannered Maurizio Gucci, opposite Gaga’s Patrizia Reggiani, who comes from a family trucking business. Her wide eyes like what they see in Maurizio and his legendary name. Soon enough Maurizio is horrifying his father (Jeremy Irons) with news of their love. 2:37. 2 ½ stars.
— Michael Phillips
‘THE HUMANS’: Here’s a nice surprise: a restrained, authoritative film version of a hit play that was just asking for trouble. “The Humans” marks playwright and screenwriter Stephen Karam’s directorial debut. It’s Thanksgiving. Brigid (Beanie Feldstein, “Lady Bird” and “Booksmart”) and her boyfriend Rich (Steven Yeun of “Minari”) have just moved into a prewar Manhattan Chinatown two-story apartment, still bereft of their belongings since the movers are stuck in Queens. Brigid’s heartbroken lawyer sister (Amy Schumer, never truer or better) is in from Philadelphia. Their folks, Erik, played by Richard Jenkins,
and Deirdre, played by Tony Award winner Jayne Houdyshell, are in from Scranton, Pennsylvania. Erik’s mother (June Squibb) uses a wheelchair and her dementia has taken hold of her life. The apartment isn’t simply not wheelchair accessible; it’s actively wheelchair hostile. “The Humans” sets the table for a traditional, even conventional family drama, and in many ways that’s what it is, no apologies. 1:48. 3 stars. Available on Showtime. — Michael Phillips
‘KING RICHARD’: “King Richard” redirects the tennis phenomenon of Venus and Serena Williams away from the sisters and toward their father, Richard. He is played by Will Smith in a performance guaranteed an Oscar nomination — deserved, by the way — because the entire film is built to support that outcome. What we have here is a moderately good sports biopic with a very fine performance at center court. Secondarily, in terms of screen time, debut screenwriter Zach Baylin’s enthusiastic account also manages some
of what Richard’s thenwife, Oracene (Aunjanue Ellis), did to parent, coach, cajole and shape these two particular daughters, in a family of five high-achieving girls, into ferocious competitors. The results will please a wide audience searching for inspirational true-life stories ending with a reaffirmation of family, faith and hard, hard work. That said: Even the verifiably true material in “King Richard” has a way of coming off like a Hollywood movie in the most “Hollywood movie” sense of those words. 2:18. 2 ½ stars. — Michael Phillips
‘THE POWER OF THE DOG’: The gorgeous Otago region of New Zealand makes for one hell of a 1925 Montana in “The Power of the Dog,” the first feature written and directed by Jane Campion since “Bright Star” 12 years ago. This adaptation of the 1967 Thomas Savage novel is worth seeing, and arguing with, for several reasons. It’s a chamber Western, focused on four main characters, and those warring personalities are played by the exactly right quartet of Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten
Dunst, Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-mcphee. The environment these forlorn souls call home works like a spacious dream of the Old West, shortly after it has given way to 20th century notions of progress. For Campion, the personifications of Western heroism and toughness are practically indistinguishable from their own nightmarish distortions. “The Power of the Dog” lays out this theme pretty bluntly, in a story that can feel a mite thin. It’s also well worth your time because it imagines the time, place and people it’s about so intriguingly. Campion, cinematographer Ari Wegner, the entire design team knew what they wanted. And got it. 2:06. 3 stars. — Michael Phillips
‘TICK TICK … BOOM!’: Artists suffer, and fail, and work miracles, sometimes in the same frazzled measure of their lives. The late Jonathan Larson, who died at 35 in the final week of rehearsals for his off-broadway (then Broadway, then everywhere) musical smash “Rent,” measured out his own tragically abbreviated life in ways that made him typical of a struggling musical theater composer/lyricist, as well as uniquely himself. He was not an easy-breathing collaborator by any accounts, but he was a seriously inspired one. He took inspiration from the greats and then, after his sudden death, went on to inspire so many more coming up behind him. “Tick, Tick … Boom!” is the story of that life. Lin-manuel Miranda makes his feature directorial debut with Andrew Garfield starring as Larson. 1:55. 3 ½ 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.