‘Tomb Raider’ unleashes a new Lara Croft
‘Tomb Raider’
It’s not your imagination; Lara Croft’s been on the big screen before.
But it was way back in 2001 when Angelina Jolie first played the video-game hero in “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,” two years after her Oscar-winning supporting-actress performance in “Girl, Interrupted.”
The new “Tomb Raider” is completely different: Its star, Alicia Vikander, won her Oscar for best supporting actress for a movie she made three years previous (”The Danish Girl”).
Vikander’s Croft is a no-nonsense, nothing-is-impossible free spirit who uncovers the secret her father left behind when he disappeared, and it’s a doozy: She has to stop an organization with genocide on its to-do list from getting the deadly contents of a tomb buried on an island near Japan.
Director Roar Uthaug knows spectacle; he made the super-tense, critically acclaimed Norwegian disaster movie “The Wave” a couple years ago. Walton Goggins, Kristin Scott Thomas, Dominic West and Daniel Wu co-star. “Tomb Raider” is rated PG-13 for some violence and language. It runs for 118 minutes.
‘Love, Simon’
By all indications, “Love, Simon” is a traditional teen romance movie — with two exceptions.
First, the title character, played by Nick Robinson, is gay, but hasn’t told anyone yet. Second, unlike many teenager-driven movies (excepting “Lady Bird”), it’s getting pretty good reviews.
The former becomes an issue when Simon develops a crush on an anonymous classmate, who admits in a school blog that he’s gay. Will his crush’s daring embolden him, or keep him in the closet?
Josh Duhamel and Jennifer Garner play his supportive (albeit in the dark) parents, and Alexandra Shipp, Jorge Lendeborg Jr. and Katherine Langford are the friends in his corner.
Early reviews cheered “Love, Simon’s” candor and, considering its unusual (for a Hollywood studio) story angle, conventionality. “‘Love, Simon’ proves groundbreaking on so many levels, not least of which is just how otherwise familiar it all seems, from laughout-loud conversations in the school hallways to co-ed house parties where no one drives drunk, and no one gets past first base,” Variety critic Peter Debruge wrote. “Love, Simon” is rated PG-13 for thematic elements and language. It runs for 110 minutes.
‘7 Days in Entebbe’
In 1976, a crew of hijackers — including members of a breakaway Palestinian group and two members of a selfproclaimed German revolutionary outfit — seized an Air France flight going from Israel to Paris. Their demand: Release Palestinians held in Israeli prisons or some of the 240-plus passengers, many of them from Israel, would die.
They rerouted the plane to the airport in Entebbe, Uganda, where dictator Idi Amin gave the terrorists sanctuary. Israel decided, instead of giving in to the demand, to stage an ambitious rescue operation.
In “7 Days in Entebbe,” Daniel Brühl and Rosamund Pike take the point among the terrorists, with Eddie Marsan as then-Israeli Minister of Defense Shimon Peres and Lior Ashkenazi as then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Early reviews are mixed. The Wrap’s Ben Croll sort of liked it, saying the film’s central goal is “taking this culturally ingrained myth and draining it of clear heroes and villains while breathing life into the uncertain day-by-day process. … (But) it does result in a slow-burn film that can often feel dramatically inert.”
“7 Days in Entebbe” is rated PG-13 for violence, some thematic material, drug use, smoking and brief language. It runs for 106 minutes.
‘I Can Only Imagine’
After his father died, Bart Millard, the lead singer for the contemporary Christian group MercyMe, wrote a song about what it would be like to be in heaven.
The song, “I Can Only Imagine,” went through a couple of iterations before becoming a big hit on the Christian music charts, and even crossed over into adult-contemporary radio.
The movie “I Can Only Imagine”tells the story behind the song — Millard’s complicated relationship with his father, and his relationship with his faith.
J. Michael Finley plays Millard, with Dennis Quaid as the Christian singersongwriter’s prickly but big-hearted father. Madeline Carroll, Trace Adkins, Cloris Leachman and Priscilla Shirer costar in the movie, produced by the faithfueled company behind such movies as “Woodlawn” and “Moms’ Night Out.” “I Can Only Imagine” is rated PG for thematic elements and some violence. It runs for 110 minutes.
Best movies off the grid
“This Is Spinal Tap”: The mockumentary classic from 1984 about the hapless rockers who, among other things, brought mini-Stonehenge to Shank Hall, is showing at the Times Cinema, 5906 W. Vliet St., at 9 p.m. Friday. DJ Paul Host starts the turntables at 8 p.m. Admission is $5. Info: times cinema.com.
“Vertigo”: Alfred Hitchcock’s tale of love, obsession and murder recently supplanted Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” as the greatest movie of all time on Sight & Sound magazine’s muchvaunted critics’ poll. If you haven’t seen it on a big screen, you can catch the 1958 thriller starring James Stewart and Kim Novak at 2 p.m. Sunday and 7 p.m. Wednesday at Marcus Theatres’ Majestic, Menomonee Falls, North Shore, Ridge and South Shore cinemas.Tickets are $12.50. Info: marcustheatres.com.
“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off ”: This justabout-perfect John Hughes movie follows the title righteous dude as he charts the perfect reality-avoidance day, doubling as a valentine to the city of Chicago. The 1986 Matthew Broderick comedy is showing at noon Sunday and 7 p.m. Monday and Wednesday at Marcus Theatres’ Bistroplex Southridge, Majestic, Menomonee Falls, Ridge and South Shore cinemas. Admission is $5. Info: marcustheatres.com.
More Miyazaki at the Avalon: The Avalon Theater, 2473 S. Kinnickinnic Ave., continues its salute to Japan’s master of animation, Hayao Miyazaki, with screenings of 1988’s “My Neighbor Totoro” at 11 a.m. Saturday; 1989’s “Kiko’s Delivery Service” at 11 a.m. Sunday; and the 1997 classic “Princess Mononoke” at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday. Admission is $5; evening screenings are in Japanese with English subtitles, with daytime screenings dubbed in English. Info: avalonmke.com.
“The Countess of Monte Cristo”: The Charles Allis Art Museum’s Movie Time series wraps up its Winter Olympics-pegged Sonja Henie tribute with this rarely shown 1948 musical starring the medal-winning figure skater as a movie extra who passes herself off as an aristocrat. It’s showing at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Allis, 1801 N. Prospect Ave. Admission is $7, $5 for students and seniors and free for museum members. Info: charlesallis.org.