GRETEL & HANSEL

eye, Fletcher (Hugh Grant), who has turned up on the doorstep of Mickey’s right hand man, Ray (Charlie Hunnam), hoping to sell his highly embellished version to Mickey. — Katie Walsh, Tribute News Service

H1/2 PG-13, 97 minutes. Waterford, Stonington, Westbrook, Lisbon. There’s a scene early on in “Gretel & Hansel” when the two title characters accidentally scarf down psychedelic mushrooms in a forest and it produces one very strong feeling in the audience: jealousy. Oh, if only we could all also be high for the rest of this. If only there was something that could make bearable another hour or so of this art-film horror. “Gretel & Hansel” is as visually arresting as it is tedious, a 90-minute movie that really should have been a 3-minute music video for Marilyn Manson or Ozzy Osbourne. It’s in the horror genre only loosely. It’s more eerie, if that’s a genre. The Brothers Grimm should really be outraged that their simple story about child abuse, malnutrition, cannibalism and witchcraft has been so twisted. Rob Hayes’ script centers on Gretel and turns her into woke, coming-of-age super-heroine who outsmarts a witch. Sophia Lillis, of “It,” plays 16-year-old Gretel, while newcomer Sam Leakey stars as her 8-year-old brother. — Mark Kennedy, Associated Press

JOJO RABBIT

1/2 PG-13, 108 minutes. Starts Friday at Mystic Luxury Cinemas. Still playing at Waterford. Viewers familiar with the antic wit of Taika Waititi — from such comedies as “What We Do in the Shadows,” “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” and “Thor: Ragnarok” — might wonder what he’ll next pull out of his hat. The answer, “Jojo Rabbit,” might be a trick for the ages. A sprightly, attractively composed coming-of-age comedy set in World War II Germany, “Jojo Rabbit” is an audacious high-wire act: a satire in which a buffoonish Adolf Hitler delivers some of the funniest moments; a wrenchingly tender portrait of a mother’s love for her son; a lampoon of the most destructive ideological forces that still threaten society and, perhaps most powerfully, an improbably affecting chronicle of moral evolution. Refracted through the childlike perspective of its alternately sweet and appalling 10-year-old protagonist, the horrors of Germany under Hitler’s Reich aren’t defanged as much as defenestrated: They go flying out the windows of Waititi’s dollhouse world as quickly and decisively as the film’s copious sight gags, punchlines and Mel Brooksian “Heil, Hitler” bits. — Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

JUMANJI: THE NEXT LEVEL

1/2 PG-13, 123 minutes. Through today only at Westbrook. Still playing at Waterford, Stonington, Lisbon. In 2017, director Jake Kasdan rebooted the 1990s family adventure film “Jumanji” by plunking John Hughes-style teen characters into a wilderness-set video game. “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” was a critical and commercial success, anchored by the charms of megastars Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan and Jack Black, and the unique pleasure of watching them all play against type. Kasdan and company (including co-writers Jeff Pinkner and Scott Rosenberg) know a good formula when they see it. So the sequel simply offers more and more of it: There’s more jaw-droppingly crazy video game hijinks, and especially, more stars playing personas vastly different from theirs. The video game setting allowed a motley crew of teens (Alex Wolff, Madison Iseman, Morgan Turner and Ser’Darius Blain) to choose their own avatars and see what happens to them when they get to be someone else for a little while. Self-effacing nerd Spencer (Wolff) learned his own strengths as the muscle-bound Dr. Smolder Bravestone (Johnson), but it was also hilarious to watch Johnson play the insecure and jumpy Spencer. However, the breakout player of the “Welcome to the Jungle” ensemble was most definitely Jack Black, who perfectly inhabited teen queen Bethany (Iseman) in his portly cartographer’s bod. In “The Next Level,” Kasdan doubles, even triples down on this conceit, to rather hilarious returns. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service

JUST MERCY

1/2 PG-13, 136 minutes. Westbrook. The stirring, stylish legal drama “Just Mercy” feels familiar on several levels. The story of a wrongly accused man sent to death row, it joins such films as “Dead Man Walking” and the more recent “Clemency” as an affecting examination of how justice is confused with inhumane retribution. Based on factual events, “Just Mercy” is the story of Walter “Johnny D.” McMillian, who in 1987 was arrested for a murder he didn’t commit, but who was railroaded by a racist and incompetent legal system in Alabama — a story that is as old as the rugged cross itself. McMillian’s case became famous by way of a “60 Minutes” episode and the memoir of Bryan Stevenson, a brilliant, Harvard-educated attorney who came to his defense and has gone on to become a visionary leader in criminal justice reform. Both on a macro and micro level then, “Just Mercy” — which takes its title from Stevenson’s book — might feel like something we’ve seen before. But in the judicious hands of director and co-writer Destin Daniel

Cretton, it feels not new exactly, but fresh and urgent and more timely than ever. Largely, that’s because Cretton, best known for his exceptionally assured 2013 breakthrough “Short Term 12,” knows exactly when to get out of the way and let Stevenson and McMilllian’s story simply unfold. “Just Mercy” begins in 1987, when McMillian — played in an astonishing comeback performance by Jamie Foxx — is in a forest outside Monroeville, where he works as a pulpwood contractor. Arrested for the murder of a white dry cleaning clerk back in town, McMillian insists he couldn’t have committed the crime (he was at a church fish fry that day along with several witnesses). Still, he winds up on death row, the result of countless assaults on his human and constitutional rights that will continue once he’s there. McMillian would have been just another statistic of structural racism and irrational fear and revenge, had Stevenson not decided to move from the Northeast to Monroeville,. — Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

KNIVES OUT

1/2 PG, 130 minutes. Mystic Luxury Cinemas, Westbrook, Lisbon. It’s hard to imagine having more fun at the movies than with Rian Johnson’s delectable murder mystery “Knives Out,” a sparklingly wordy delight of fascinating faces, cozy sweaters, fireplaces and a delectably depraved wealthy family fighting over the massive estate of their dearly departed patriarch. But within the tightly crafted and finely embossed package, Johnson has smuggled a deceptively radical and empathetic message of acceptance, tolerance and wealth redistribution. It’s “Murder, She Wrote” with a side of political activism, two great tastes that taste great together. We meet the tony Thrombey clan upon the unlikely demise of their patriarch, Harlan (Christopher Plummer), a wildly successful mystery novelist who has built a publishing empire off which his good-for-nothing children leech. By all appearances, it seems Harlan has killed himself, with a knife, in his study. Yet, an inquisitive detective (Lakeith Stanfield), his hapless partner (Noah Segan) and a mysterious private investigator (Daniel Craig) just have a few questions for the family, several of whom were financially cut off by Harlan on the night of his birthday party and death. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together, but it will take a keen mind to deduce the different probabilities each family member presents. Benoit Blanc (Craig), the flamboyant, honey-accented Southern investigator, soon latches on to Marta (Ana de Armas), the good-natured nurse and daughter of an undocumented mother, who became Harlan’s friend and confidant in his final years. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service

1/2 R, 119 minutes. Niantic, Madison Art Cinemas, Mystic Luxury Cinemas, Waterford, Stonington, Westbrook, Lisbon. Sam Mendes’ “1917” is nothing short of astonishing. Designed as two extraordinarily long, unbroken shots, the film is a stunning feat of cinematography, production design and performance moving seamlessly as one piece. But the most incredible thing about “1917” is how often you forget about the trick of it all, absorbed in character and story rather than any “gimmick.” For Mendes, it’s a deeply personal story, a passion project dedicated to his grandfather, Alfred Mendes, “for the stories he told us,” which places this