THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS

1/2 PG-13, 96 minutes. Starts Friday at Madison Art Cinemas. It’s about as human and interesting as stories get: Three men meet for the first time, and discover they are identical triplets separated at birth. Reunited by chance in 1980, the three teenage siblings — Edward Galland of New Hyde Park, David Kellman of Howard Beach and Robert Shafran of Scarsdale, N.Y. — found they shared not only physical attributes but mannerisms, habits, likes and dislikes. Their heartwarming story and head-spinning similarities turned them into media darlings: They popped up on television talk-shows, appeared in a movie with Madonna and used their fame to open a Manhattan eatery called Triplets. There were few signs that their story would be revealed as part of a dark conspiracy, or that one of the siblings would meet a sorrowful end. “When we first got together, everybody said, ‘Are you guys angry?’” Shafran recalls. “We said, ‘No, we’re just happy we found one another.’ And we really, really were.” The first feature documentary on the triplets, Tim Wardle’s “Three Identical Strangers,” tells a different story than what the public saw in 1980. It wasn’t until 15 years later that the triplets — born at what was then Long Island Jewish Hospital (now Long Island Jewish Medical Center) in New Hyde Park — learned they had been part of a clandestine behavioral study conducted by a prominent psychiatrist with the help of a now-defunct adoption agency, Louise Wise Services. Around the same time as that discovery, one of the triplets killed himself. The story instantly captivated Wardle. “At the heart of this story, you’ve got a compelling human family drama,” he says. “But then you’ve got these much bigger themes that allow you to explore free will, destiny, nature versus nurture.” The improbable chain of events began when 19-yearold Shafran enrolled at Sullivan County Community College, about two hours west of his Scarsdale home. Having recently pleaded guilty to manslaughter in connection with a beating death during a robbery — he was sentenced to probation and community service — Shafran was looking to start a new life. Instead, many of the college students already seemed to know him. Everyone called him “Eddy.” After two days of confusion, it was a fellow named Michael Domnitz who thought to ask Shafran his birth date (July 12, 1961) and whether he was adopted (the answer was yes). The two then drove to a house in New Hyde Park, where the door opened to reveal Shafran’s mirror image, Eddy Galland. “Oh, my God,” the siblings said. They exchanged hugs, went inside and began trading life stories. In the mid-1990s, the triplets received calls from The New Yorker journalist Lawrence Wright, who was working on a story about twin studies. What the triplets learned came as a shock: Their adoption agency, Louise Wise Services, had been working with a child psychiatrist, Dr. Peter Neubauer, who had launched his own study. Essentially, Louise Wise was supplying Neubauer with test subjects — not just the triplets, but also about a dozen pairs of identical twins — who could be given to different families and monitored. None of the triplets’ adoptive parents were told their son had siblings, and researchers paid regular visits to each family. — Rafer Guzmán, Newsday him from gruff meathead roles and uncovering his goofy comedic talent. In “Skyscraper,” Thurber takes Johnson to a darker, grittier place. Don’t expect to see much of his megawatt grin here. Johnson’s Will Sawyer is tough as nails, using brute force, blunt instruments and plenty of duct tape to rescue his family from a burning building. He barely even touches a gun. In so many of his films, Johnson is like some kind of comic book superhero: cartoonishly strong, his biceps bulging to an unimaginable size — he dwarfs the usually yoked Vin Diesel in the “Fast and Furious” films. But in “Skyscraper,” Thurber seeks to diminish that strength. The camera looks down on him rather than up, and he’s outfitted in rumpled business casual rather than tactical spandex. It makes Johnson more human before we then watch him perform feats of strength and derring-do using simple machines, like Buster Keaton on human-growth hormone. Thurber literally handicaps Will, who loses his leg in a bombing as an FBI rescue team leader 10 years prior to the events of the film. He loses the limb but gains a wife, Sarah (Neve Campbell), the surgeon who operated on him. They’re in Hong Kong with their twins at the tallest skyscraper in the world, The Pearl, where Will is putting in a bid as a security consultant for the self-sustaining city in the sky. Scams, theft, arson and double-crosses ensue, and soon Will is outside The Pearl, which is on fire, trying to get in to save his trapped family as a team of thieves are trying to get out. — Katie Walsh, Tribune Content Agency

HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 3: SUMMER VACATION

destination for creatures doing booming business. Things are going so well that a break is needed and the group books passage on the first monster cruise, which will take them from the Bermuda Triangle to the found city of Atlantis. The trip becomes a monster version of “The Love Boat” as Dracula does what he has thought was impossible: He falls in love again. The problem is she’s the last in the long line of Van Helsings, who have made it their life’s work to kill Dracula. The most enjoyable part of the first two films was how every nerve in Dracula’s batty body was stretched to the limit by being a single father and grandfather. In “Hotel Transylvania,” the problem was that a human who had found the spa for the supernatural fell in love with Dracula’s daughter, Mavis (voiced by Selena Gomez). The follow-up film had Dracula and his buddies trying to bring out the monster in his half-human, half-vampire grandson as a way of keeping Mavis from leaving the hotel. Seeing Dracula flabbergasted makes for plenty of fun because Sandler has a way of making his voice sound both commanding and confused. It would have been nice if “Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation” had the same zing as past efforts. But, there’s never a love as zing-filled as the first, and it happening a second time is amazing. The third time is not quite the charmer as the others, but still offers enough laughs to keep kids plus their mummys and daddies entertained. — Rick Bentley, Tribune Content Agency