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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 their 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
‘THE KING’S MAN’: How English is “The King’s Man”? So English that the biggest musical flourish in the score is reserved for a scene in which someone decides whether to have a cup of tea. It’s a prequel to the “Kingsman” movies that starred Taron Egerton and Samuel L. Jackson, but it’s best to forget about them since this one takes place more than half a century earlier. It purports to chart the development of the secret spy agency depicted in the gleefully bloody London-set “Kingsman” films, connecting early 20th-century events such as the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Russian reign of terror of Rasputin and trench warfare in World War I. 2:11. 2 stars. — Chris Hewitt, Minneapolis Star Tribune
‘LICORICE PIZZA’: Gary Valentine is almost famous. This enterprising hustler parlays his demi-fame into a kind of accidentalon-purpose mystique, that of a 15-year-old LA whiz kid, with one foot in the Industry as a child actor and the other in whatever he’s cooking up at the moment. “Licorice Pizza,” writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson’s gloriously hazy hangout of a movie, starts from the premise of this San Fernando Valley high schooler putting his idea of “the moves” on 25-yearold Alana. She works as a photographer’s assistant. He first spies her when he’s in line for picture day. Their queasy age difference makes Gary’s ardor, in Alana’s eyes, a foolish delusion. Yet Alana — as played, indelibly, by Alana Haim of the Grammynominated sisters band Haim — finds herself weirdly charmed by this boy/man. Pretty soon she’s hanging out with his friends, accompanying him as an adult chaperon on a movie promotional trip to New York, all the while yearning for her own niche in life with actual adults. 2:13. 3 ½ stars. — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
‘THE LOST DAUGHTER’: Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley never share a frame in “The Lost Daughter,” since they play the same character, Leda, a literature professor and translator, at different and equally challenging ages. But for anyone who considers these two to be among our very best screen actors, as honest and exacting as they are supple and versatile, the satisfaction of seeing Colman and Buckley create different stages of the same life is enormous. Taken from Elena Ferrante’s 2006 novel, first published in Italian, “The Lost Daughter” is a triumph of adaptation for writer and first-time feature director Maggie Gyllenhaal. Her film, relocating the novel’s southern Italian setting to a Greek island, spins a subtle web of intrigue. Streaming on Netflix. 2:01. 4 stars.
— Michael Phillips
‘THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS’: When the Wachowski siblings, Lana and Lilly, changed the film landscape (and popular culture) forever with 1999’s “The Matrix,” a philosophical sci-fi film starring Keanu Reeves that questioned the very nature of existence itself, it was no surprise that the studio behind the movie, Warner Bros., asked them to make a few more. They obliged in 2003, with “The Matrix Reloaded” and “The Matrix Revolutions,” though the sequels effectively killed off the idea that we’d ever hang with Neo and Trinity again. But the powers that be will always want more, and so a sequel to the trilogy, “The Matrix Resurrections,” arrives 18 years later. But this isn’t just another rehash. Rather, the film asks us to question the utility of sequels, reboots and the constant churn of intellectual property, especially when the original lesson of “The Matrix” was to awaken oneself to the system and then bring the whole thing crashing down. 2:28. 3 stars. Streaming on HBO Max.
— Katie Walsh
‘SING 2’: The turning point in “Sing 2” happens about 45 minutes in, when a porcupine croons a wistful version of U2’s “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of.” Up until that scene, “Sing 2” has been all too much like its predecessor, a weirdly disjointed animated comedy that was sort of like if karaoke were performed by stuffed animals. A bunch of cuddly creatures, including that porcupine (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) and a koala (Matthew McConaughey), are involved in a musical competition where blandly competent singers perform versions of songs that make you wish you could hear the original performers instead. Writer/director Garth Jennings keeps making the musical numbers bigger and bigger, including a version of space travel, and we get to hear Johansson’s moody take on another U2 song, “With or Without You.” 1:52. 2 ½ stars.
— Katie Walsh
‘SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME’: Casting Tom Holland as Peter Parker was one of the sharper decisions to emerge from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Holland provides the glue and the webbing for the latest Spidey outing, “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” Director Jon Watts and screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers deliver an extremely busy, generally entertaining venture into the MCU multiverse of alternate timelines, competing versions of the same character and swirling trippiness. If you caught the animated and extremely deft 2018 “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” you’ll get the idea. This film has little of that film’s visual invention but a good deal of its verbal wit. 2:28. 3 stars. — Michael Phillips
‘THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH’: The early 17th-century potboiler “The Tragedy of Macbeth” is the shortest of Shakespeare’s tragedies. Director and adapter Joel Coen — working here without
brother Ethan — took on this film version with his wife, Frances McDormand, committed to Lady Macbeth, opposite Denzel Washington as the ruthless warrior who lusts for the crown and goes blood simple in the process. Stripping “Macbeth” for parts, keeping the focus on the main narrative lines of political assassination and what Macbeth himself refers to as “supernatural soliciting,” Coen turns out to be ideally suited to a straight-ahead, let’s-geton-with-it rendition. Shot on an LA soundstage, in tight, boxy 4:3 and black and white, this 105-minute trot through a charismatic power couple’s rise and fall is ripping stuff — largely because it dwells in a shadow realm where theatrical methods meet cinematic expression. In the best way, we never quite know where we are here. 1:45. 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.