THE SPY WHO DUMPED ME
a point where we must ask: What does it all mean? Of all the “Mission: Impossible” installments, “Fallout” may be the sparest and most efficient — not counting the truly wild and gasp-worthy stunts. It’s taut and unadorned; there’s very little flash or distraction in the form of eye-popping costumes or exotic locations or gadgetry. There is no cinematic sleight of hand performed as a digression. It’s pure action wrapped around a twisty tale of terrorism, covert ops and the one man who stands between the world and nuclear destruction, Ethan Hunt (Cruise). — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
SLENDER MAN
H1/2 PG-13, 93 minutes. Waterford, Stonington, Westbrook, Lisbon. What darkness lies in the dreamy imaginative mind of young girls? The mystery has been a source of inspiration for horror classics from “The Bad Seed” to “The Exorcist,” and it could have been a fascinating theme to explore in the internet-inspired “Slender Man,” written by David Birke and directed by Sylvain White. Unfortunately, this profoundly not-scary horror film completely misses the mark about what makes its subject matter interesting. If you’ve heard of the internet phenomenon that is Slender Man, it’s likely from a 2014 attempted murder in Waukesha, Wis., where two 12-year-old girls stabbed a friend 19 times and left her for dead. They told police they were acting as proxies for Slender Man, a character they discovered on a website hosting “creepypasta” ghost stories copied and pasted from the internet. The true crime story was covered in the excellent documentary “Beware the Slenderman,” but the horror adaptation takes a different tack, taking the character literally, as a malevolent force that can be summoned with a ritual that’s “The Ring” by way of a slumber party game. A group of small-town, lightly goth teenage girls stumble upon Slender Man during a sleepover — Hallie (Julia Goldani Telles) jokingly tells her mother “we’re going to drink vodka and meet guys on the internet,” in the film’s only winking line of dialogue, and that they do. Soon, the friend group is disappearing, and the girls are beset with heinous visions of Slender Man, a tall, faceless man in a black bespoke suit. What does he want? Them. What’s he going to do once he gets them? We’re not exactly sure. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
1/2 R, 116 minutes. Through today only at Stonington, Westbrook, Waterford. Still playing at Lisbon. Don’t ever question the power of Kate McKinnon. Watch her wring laughs out of any flimsy, like the action-comedy “The Spy Who Dumped Me,” co-written and directed by Susanna Fogel. All you need to know is right there in the title, a play on the 1977 James Bond film “The Spy Who Loved Me,” which was subsequently parodied with the 1999 Austin Powers sequel “The Spy Who Shagged Me.” The next logical step in this relationship? A breakup. When the dashing but mysterious Drew (Justin Theroux) dumps Audrey (Mila Kunis) via text, she’s heartbroken, and he’s too busy battling Lithuanian thugs to return her calls. Her best friend, Morgan (McKinnon) tries to cheer up Audrey, but all too soon, the girls are ensnared in the remnants of Drew’s failed spy plot. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS
1/2 PG-13, 96 minutes. Madison Art Cinemas, Mystic Luxury 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: — Rafer Guzmán, Newsday