NOW PLAYING
Reviews of movies showing in theaters or streaming online
‘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
‘CODA’: Writer-director Sian Heder has cast her loose remake of the 2014 French hit “La Famille Belier” extremely well. Emilia Jones excels as Ruby, the 17-year-old hearing daughter of deaf parents. The family members are workingclass, insider/outsider figures in the beleaguered Gloucester, Massachusetts, fishing community. Ruby’s father (Troy Kotsur) and older brother (Daniel Durant) are barely scraping by, marginalized by the rest of the fisherman. Her brash free spirit of a mother, played by “Children of a Lesser God” Oscar winner Marlee Matlin, regularly exasperates Ruby, who is spending her high school years trying to stay as invisible as possible. The conflicts are many and entirely resolved, never my preference in any kind of drama. 1:51. 2 ½ stars. Streaming on Apple TV+. — Michael Phillips
‘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 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
‘JUNGLE CRUISE’: One surefire way to know a film isn’t working the way it’s intended is if you notice yourself pondering each individual element rather than being swept away by how they’re working together. That’s the problem with Disney’s new adventure film inspired by a theme park ride, “Jungle Cruise.” Directed by Jaume Collett-Serra and Starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, “Jungle Cruise” should be a stew of flavors perfectly blended together, but instead, it’s a salad, each discrete element tossed together, and tossed, and tossed, and tossed again. 2:07. 2 stars. Streaming on Disney+ Premier Access. — Katie Walsh
‘THE NIGHT HOUSE’: David Bruckner’s 2017 folk horror film “The Ritual” explored the dangers that lie in the wilderness, following a group of friends dealing with their own personal loss and grief while confronting ancient forest monsters. For his follow-up, “The Night House,” we retreat to the indoors, though this home offers no protection from the demons within, or from the beyond. The screenplay, by Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski, is lean and spare, a showcase for star Rebecca Hall, who owns the screen as the freshly widowed Beth, confronting the ghost of her husband, Owen (Evan Jonigkeit), who has recently committed suicide, a shock to all who knew him. Bruckner employs visual storytelling to lay it out, the camera drifting over used tissues, pill bottles, framed photos, empty pillows. Beth is isolated in the lakeside home that Owen designed and built for them, tormented by the sight of the rowboat where he shot himself, questioning what could have led to this. The answers she receives are more horrific than she could have imagined. 1:48. 3 ½ stars. — Katie Walsh
‘PAW PATROL: THE MOVIE’: To very young kids who like cartoon dogs driving shiny vehicles, “Paw Patrol: The Movie” may be awesome. To grown-ups, it may be an aggressively under-written, 88-minute toy commercial. Rather than exploring expressions beyond Big Happy Smile and Sad Little Frown, more attention is paid to the plastic-looking toys, er, cars and trucks. One can only assume the streaming version of the film on Paramount+ includes “Add to cart” buttons on the screen. 1:28. Not ranked. — Michael Ordoña, Los Angeles Times
‘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. In theaters and streaming on HBO Max. — Michael Phillips
‘RESPECT’: Jennifer Hudson stars as Aretha Franklin in the film that depicts her early life and career, from 1952 to 1972. It culminates with the recording of her live “Amazing Grace” album, which was the bestselling gospel album of all time and the bestselling album of her career (footage of the live recording was released as a documentary in 2018). The film attempts to link together her connections to the civil rights movement, her extraordinary talent and tshe personal challenges that Aretha faced in her young life, but the direction feels unfocused and disjointed, and overly invested in Aretha’s trauma and abusive relationships. 2:25. 2 stars. — Katie Walsh
‘THE SUICIDE SQUAD’: After David Ayer’s much lambasted “Suicide Squad” bowed to critical disdain in 2016, it seemed the gleefully chaotic crew of DC Comics anti-heroes were done for. Then, lauded “Guardians of the Galaxy” director James Gunn was fired from “Guardians 3” by Disney after a rash of unsavory tweets were turned up, and DC/ Warner Bros. snapped him up to direct the “Suicide Squad” sequel, “The Suicide Squad.” Though Gunn has since been reinstated on “Guardians,” his turn with the bad kids of comics feels like the writer/director has been unleashed in the best way. The team that we end up following is composed of Bloodsport (Idris Elba), Peacemaker (John Cena), Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), Polka Dot Man (David Dastmalchian) and King Shark (Sylvester Stallone). They link up with Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) and Col. Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) in an effort to infiltrate a South American island nation, Corto Maltese, which has just been taken over in a military coup. Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) wants the Suicide Squad to destroy a former Nazi experimentation site in Corto Maltese, where an extraterrestrial beast is rumored to reside, and contain all threats to the U.S. 2:12. 3 stars. Streaming on HBO Max. — 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.