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Reviews of movies showing in theaters or streaming online
‘BULLET TRAIN’: In “Bullet Train,” Brad Pitt plays a lovable-loser assassin (code name: Ladybug) bent on self-improvement. He’s an easygoing sweetie, in the spirit of John Cusack’s gun-for-hire in “Grosse Pointe Blank,” to name one film you may wish you were rewatching instead of watching this one. This one’s well made in its chosen attack. It’s fun for a while. And then, not so much. An adaptation of the 2010 Kotaro Isaka novel, one of his popular “Hitmen” series, “Bullet Train” has been cast, deftly, with actors ready to play. Even Pitt, never much in the verbal-facility or quicktime dialogue department, loosens up and finds an effective sweet spot at the intersection of unkillable tough guy and exasperated bad-luck charm. For an Americanized version of Japanese source material (well, internationalized, in terms of casting, but heavy on the Anglos), director David Leitch makes sound business sense behind the camera. 2:06. 2 stars. — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
‘DC LEAGUE OF SUPERPETS’: The DC Comics Cinematic Universe has mostly taken a dark, gritty approach to blockbuster comic book movies. But perhaps there’s another way to explore the world of the Justice League that’s a bit more warm, cuddly and friendly. That’s the thesis presented by the animated movie “DC League of Super-Pets,” which combines several elements that have already proven successful to create a family friendly access point to the worlds of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and their gang of superheroes. The voice cast is packed with favorite comedy actors, including Kate McKinnon, Vanessa Bayer, Natasha Lyonne, Jemaine Clement, John Early and Marc Maron. But most importantly, it teams Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart in the lead roles of Krypto the SuperDog and Ace, a rescue mutt. Johnson and Hart have had quite the success in their odd couple pairing in films such as “Central Intelligence” and “Jumanji,” and “DC League of Super-Pets” relies on their lively banter to sell the enemies-tofriends story at the center of the film. 1:46. 2 ½ stars. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
‘EMILY THE CRIMINAL’: Emily (Aubrey Plaza) is a caterer, barely getting by, with $70,000 in student loans and an aggravated assault conviction blocking access to better-paying jobs. A co-worker mentions a side hustle he once tried: a credit card scam, run by an enterprising family working out of a warehouse. Using fake cards and false IDs, the so-called “dummy shoppers” use the cards to buy merchandise, deliver it to the boss and get their modest cut. Emily’s first purchase is a $2,000 TV. Her commission: $200. It’s a start. Soon she graduates to riskier, more expensive fake purchases. Where “Emily the Criminal” goes from there combines familiar ingredients in an absorbing fashion. This is a film shot in real apartments and offices on a tight budget. Theo Rossi brings a shrewd, watchful quality to the role of Youcef, Emily’s handler and, eventually, lover. He’s part of an extended family (also in on the charge card scam) that is posing an increasing threat to both him and Emily. At one point, Emily lands a job interview at her friend’s ad agency, run by a smiling shark (Gina Gershon, perfect). The confrontation between these two, like the rest of this efficient, confident film, wastes no time and lets the actors take care of business. 1:35. 3 stars. — Michael Phillips ‘MACK & RITA’: Who doesn’t love Diane Keaton? Or frankly, want to be Diane Keaton? The Oscar-winning star has had a film and television career spanning six decades, she’s a fashion icon, and she’s done it all in her own singularly unique and quirky way. It’s not surprising then, that in the fantastical and fluffy comedy “Mack & Rita,” written by Madeline Walter and Paul Welsh, directed by Katie Aselton, a struggling young writer wishes to be as cool and confident as Keaton herself, or someone like her, as in, older. Rendered literal, that wish results in a tale that could be described as “Freaky Friday” meets “Old.” It’s a cute concept, but one that turns out to be a lemon once you start kicking the tires. 1:35. 2 stars. — Katie Walsh
‘MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU’: I could not possibly begin to explain just how these hot dog-shaped, banana-hued, gibberishspeaking overlords came to infiltrate our culture at every level. The grasp these inexplicable animated creatures hold on cinema is insidious, and they continue their reign of terror in their latest cinematic dispatch, “Minions: The Rise of Gru.” They’ve overthrown their masters in the “Despicable Me” franchise, wrestling top billing away for themselves. “The Rise of Gru” is just another “Despicable Me” movie, a supervillain origin story for beaky-nosed, scarf-wearing, evil aspirant Gru (Steve Carell). 1:27. 1 star. — Katie Walsh
‘NOPE’: In “Nope,” writer/ director Jordan Peele presents us with a big, shiny summer blockbuster — a cowboys and aliens riff built from the DNA of sci-fi spectacles of yore — and then proceeds to vivisect the very notion of a summer blockbuster before our eyes. He wants us to question the nature of image-making, and he starts at the beginning of film history, with photographer Eadweard Muybridge. In 1878, Muybridge crafted the first known example of the “moving pictures”: a two-second clip called “The Horse in Motion,” made up of sequential photographs of a jockey riding a race horse. That the jockey on the horse — the first person featured in the movies — is Black, and unknown, is the starting point for Peele’s exploration of seeing and the seen in “Nope,” which interrogates the power of images, who gets to create them, and who gets the credit. These are complex questions, but Peele has wrapped them up in an incredibly original, and entertaining, piece of sci-fi filmmaking that is both unlike, and like, anything you’ve ever seen before. 2:10. 3 ½ stars. — Katie Walsh
‘ROGUE AGENT’: As the old saying goes, the truth is always stranger than fiction, and indeed there are some true stories so strange that they can’t be fully expressed with familiar modes of storytelling. Such is the case of “Rogue Agent,” a film that unfolds as a spy thriller and romantic drama before it takes a hard left into the seamy world of scam artistry. Alice Archer (Gemma Arterton), a litigation solicitor, is a powerful businesswoman who falls in with Robert Freegard (James Norton), going by the surname Hansen, while he’s working, or posing, as a luxury car salesman. Alice is smart, running a background check on Robert, though her fears about his mysterious past are assuaged when he reveals he’s an MI5 spy. Alice’s intuition, as well as her private investigator, win out, but not after she’s started a business with him and made plans for the future. Streaming on AMC+. 1:56. 2 stars. — Katie Walsh
‘THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER’: This is co-writer and director Taika Waititi’s aggressively nutty follow-up to “Thor: Ragnarok” (2017). That film zazzed up Thor’s corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe enough to justify more of the same. “Love and Thunder” establishes in the prologue the latest threat to intergalactic extinction: an ordinary soul on a planet far, far away, played by Christian Bale, wandering with his daughter in the desert. He suffers a grievous loss and then transforms into Gorr, the God Butcher, hellbent on wiping out those privileged paragons who, in this outing, forsake mere mortals left, right and center. Chris Hemsworth’s Thor is learning, uneasily, to be a more progressive and empathic specimen of godly hunk, a team player instead of a solo act. The storyline concerns, among other things, the children of New Asgard, swept up and kidnapped by Gorr. Their rescue leads the A-team straight to the enemy. 2:05. 2 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.