AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR

1/2 PG-13, 149 minutes. Through tonight only at Niantic. Still playing at Waterford, Stonington, Westbrook, Lisbon. “Infinity War,” written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, isn’t all comfort food. In fact, it’s a very dark film about loss and grief, following our group of superheroes through the traumas and violence they’ve endured. It also attempts to pull the rug out from under fans that have followed these characters from film to film for a decade. Don’t worry though, there’s still a healthy amount of easy humor threaded throughout (one of the hallmarks of the Marvel superhero films, where the heroes crack wise as much as they crack heads). The film almost plays like a comedy in a crowded theater, especially with some of the more inspired pairings. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) finds himself teaming up with Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), and the two cocky geniuses trade dry barbs. When Thor (Chris Hemsworth) crashes into the windshield of the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Starlord (Chris Pratt) is instantly emasculated by the impressive God of Thunder. The pairings and deft humor are the best part of the film, and the plot, helpfully, leaves a lot of room for that to breathe. With so many characters and backstories to weave together, the story isn’t all that complicated. Giant purple space titan Thanos (Josh Brolin) has some strong beliefs

about overpopulation and resource management. The problem is he thinks random genocide is the only way to solve this. — Katie Walsh, Tribune Content Agency

BOOK CLUB

PG-13, 104 minutes. Niantic, Mystic Luxury Cinemas, Madison Art Cinemas, Waterford, Stonington, Westbrook, Lisbon. In “Book Club,” four older women choose an unlikely title for their monthly group-read: “Fifty Shades of Grey,” book one in E.L. James’ sadomasochistic romance trilogy. With its explicit scenes of dungeon kink, the book re-awakens dormant libidos and leads the women into various sexual and romantic misadventures. The lesson, of course, is that even late life is never too late for love. What makes “Fifty Shades of Grey” such an unlikely selection? Just that these female characters are played by some of the best actresses around — Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen — and seem far too intelligent to endure more than a few pages of James’ artless ode to female passivity. Watching these women run hungry eyes over James’ blindingly bad prose breaks the spell of believability, which is important even in a rom-com as trifling as this. — Rafer Guzmán, Newsday

BREAKING IN

PG-13, 88 minutes. Through today only at Waterford. Still playing at Lisbon. The home invasion thriller “Breaking In” seems designed for the “Payback is a Mother” billboards around Los Angeles in anticipation of Mother’s Day. The tale of young mother Shaun (a stern Gabrielle Union) battling a quartet of burglars to save her children is fairly brilliant Mother’s Day programming (or counterprogramming), which is why it’s a shame the movie itself isn’t more fun. Thrillers should be taut and ruthlessly efficient in storytelling. “Breaking In,” written by Ryan Engle, directed by James McTeigue, doesn’t have an ounce of fat on it. We’re given only a few minutes of setup before we’re thrown right into it. Shaun and her kids, Jasmine (Ajiona Alexus) and Glover (Seth Carr), arrive at the remote country compound of her recently deceased father. She’s long been estranged from him, and Shaun plans to spend the weekend getting ready to sell the house. They aren’t there for more than a few minutes before a crew of four burglars, on the hunt for $4 million in cash they heard her dad kept in a safe, have taken her kids hostage and locked Shaun out. So the riff on the “home invasion” angle is Shaun is the one trying to break into her house to save her children. Everything in “Breaking In” announces itself as significant — here’s an insert of Shaun taking off her shoes, her bottle of wine, the alarm system on the fritz, the control panel for the electronically-controlled smart home. The whole thing is just a bit too tight, though — there’s no room to play, or moments of reprieve to lure you into a false sense of security before a jump scare. — Katie Walsh, Tribune Content Agency

CHAPPAQUIDDICK

PG-13, 101 minutes. Westbrook. Ambiguous and damning at once, John Curran’s “Chappaquiddick” plunges us back into the summer of 1969: Edward M. (“Teddy”) Kennedy, already seven years a senator having filled his brother’s Massachusetts seat,

was Joseph Kennedy’s only living son left and a likely future president. Those aspirations — and some of the Kennedy dynasty’s noble veneer — effectively crashed when 37-yearold Teddy (played by Jason Clarke) drove an Oldsmobile off a narrow bridge on a remote beach road on Chappaquiddick Island, off Martha’s Vineyard, late at night on July 18. With him was 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, a former campaign worker for Bobby (played by Kate Mara in the film), who died underwater. Kennedy escaped from the car, submerged in eight feet of water. Whatever his efforts were to free Kopechne, they were futile. It took him 10 hours to report the incident to the police. Kennedy attributed the delay to a concussion and exhaustion. Chappaquiddick has long loomed in the political imagination as a kind of definitive yet murky scandal. Curran’s film — a profile in cowardice, you might call it — is principally an effort to visualize and understand that evening. — Jake Coyle, Associated Press

DEADPOOL 2

H1/2 R, 119 minutes. Niantic, Mystic Luxury Cinemas, Waterford, Stonington, Westbrook and Lisbon. “Deadpool 2” is annoying and bad. That’s all you really need to know, but criticism requires argumentation and examples, and it just so happens that the sequel to the shocking (and shockingly successful) superhero satire is rife with evidence for just how annoying, and yes, also bad it is. Point the first: As portrayed by Ryan Reynolds, the character of Deadpool, also known as Wade Wilson, has always been annoying. The sarcastic, quippy, red-suited burn victim who can’t die is one of those guys who substitutes movie references for a personality and thinks he’s a lot funnier than he actually is. It’s just that way back in 2016, under the crushing weight of all those endless, self-serious superhero movies, the snarky, silly sendup of “Deadpool” was a refreshing tonic — essentially the “Scary Movie” of superhero movies. Now, all our superhero movies are funny and self-referential, lessening the unique value proposition at stake for “Deadpool 2.” As our super-antihero opines in an opening sequence, with all these R-rated comic book movies on his tail, he’s got to up the ante. But then for some reason the movie just doesn’t up a single ante. “Deadpool 2” is a whole lot more of the same, but to extremely diminishing returns. It’s a thin facsimile of the original film, eschewing storytelling for disorganized bits of hyperviolent cheekiness. Deadpool doesn’t assemble his team until almost an hour into the film. The main villain’s motivation isn’t articulated until an hour and 20 minutes. Until then, it’s just a chaotic mess of bland fights and sarcastic one-liners. That’s just incredibly sloppy screenwriting, something that writers Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick and star Reynolds think they can get away with by having Deadpool deadpan “lazy screenwriting,” directly into camera. They’re aware of it, so it’s OK! The thing is, for all of its self-awareness, the film isn’t even aware of its own overreliance on tired tropes, such as The Dead Wife — there are so many Dead Women Motivating Men to action in “Deadpool 2,” it could have been a Christopher Nolan movie. Now, there’s a ripe opportunity to parody the overused cliche, but that just happens to be the one thing “Deadpool 2” takes completely seriously. — Katie Walsh, Tribune Content Agency

I FEEL PRETTY

PG-13, 110 minutes. Westbrook. The Amy Schumer vehicle “I Feel Pretty” tackles a very real epidemic — the crisis of confidence. Low self-esteem is part of the human condition for people of any age, gender or race, but it’s particularly virulent and destructive in the young female population, resulting in eating disorders, imposter syndrome, plastic surgery, billions of dollars spent on beauty products, diets, shapewear and generally a serious failure to thrive. Writing/directing duo Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein take on this issue in a high-concept comedy with the notion that it’s all in your head. “Change your mind, change your life,” chants a SoulCycle instructor, Luna