THE CALL OF THE WILD

1/2 PG, 100 minutes. Niantic, Mystic Luxury Cinemas, Waterford, Stonington, Westbrook, Lisbon. Much like our furry friends, movies about man’s best friend come in all shapes and sizes: lost dog movies, talking dog movies, military dog movies, reincarnated dog movies. “The Call of the Wild,” directed by Chris Sanders and based on the classic novella by Jack London, is what one might call a literary dog movie, even if there is technically no actual dog in it. The star of “The Call of the Wild,” Buck, is a CGI creation. And it’s only through the technology that his dangerous and harrowing adventures in the Alaskan wilderness during the Gold Rush, as outlined by London, could be realistically brought to the big screen, for better or for worse. Known for his work on the most recent “Planet of the Apes” films (and who thrilled and terrified in an ape-inspired performance art piece in “The Square”), accomplished motion capture performer Terry Notary brings Buck’s movements to life, and it’s a truly skilled performance. But Buck’s digital nature is noticeable right away. It’s initially off-putting, and something you can never quite shake throughout the film. The computer-generated creation doesn’t have the weight, the heat, the feel of a real dog (or any creature for that matter), though the movements, gestures and expressions are accurate. Fortunately Buck plays opposite several solid human actors who can hold up their end of the tale. After the rambunctious Buck is kidnapped from his comfortable family home and sold as a sled dog in Alaska, he luckily finds himself in the employ of Perrault (Omar Sy), who teaches Buck the way of the sled while delivering mail across the Yukon. Sy brings a warmth and joy to the role that’s infectious and a necessary element in the otherwise terrifying story. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service

DOLITTLE

PG, 106 minutes. Westbrook. In 1967, Twentieth Century Fox undertook an expensive and complicated production of “Doctor Dolittle,” based on a series of children’s books by Hugh Lofting, about a doctor in Victorian England who talks to animals. Starring Rex Harrison, “Doctor Dolittle” was a notoriously doomed production, troubled by quarantined animals, Harrison’s behavior and a budget that ballooned three times its size. “Doctor Dolittle” received terrible reviews and tanked at the box office, though Fox was able to buy off a few Oscar trophies for special effects and song. Refusing to learn from the past some five decades later, Universal is condemned to repeat it with their own “Dolittle,” starring Robert Downey Jr. in the title role, boasting a cool $175 million budget (or maybe more?!), plus rumors of production woes and multiple reshoots. And after getting a gander at the at-best mediocre, at-worst deeply upsetting dreck that “Dolittle” director Stephen Gaghan managed to get on screen, it’s official. With the exception of the successful Eddie Murphy film series that borrowed the name and conceit, faithfully adapting Dolittle is simply a cursed endeavor. Do little? They could not have done less. The only appropriate adjective for this “Dolittle” is “hasty.” Everything feels slapdash and half-rendered. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service

DOWNHILL

1/2 R, 86 minutes. Through today only at Westbrook. Watching Swedish director Ruben Östlund’s deeply uncomfortable absurdist relationship drama “Force Majeure,” one can’t help but think that this bleakly obtuse and existentially unbearable film is the type that would never be greenlighted in the United States. So it’s a bit of a shock that the award-winning 2014 film has now been remade in English as “Downhill,” with beloved comedy stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell, directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, who co-wrote the script with “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong. A “force majeure” is a legal term referring to natural and unavoidable catastrophes that absolve parties from fulfilling any obligations interrupted by said event. That title is a bit more complex than “Downhill,” but then again, so is everything about it. The themes that are unspoken, gestured at and repressed in “Force Majeure” are drawn out and made broad, obvious and slapstick in “Downhill,” which spoon-feeds the lessons of the dark-ish comedy and cuts short the plot for the easiest-to-digest ending. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service

FORD V FERRARI

1/2 PG-13, 152 minutes. Westbrook. This infectious and engrossing story of the 1966 showdown on a French racetrack between car giants Ford and Ferrari is a high-octane ride that will make you instinctively stomp on a ghostly gas pedal from your movie seat. But you don’t need to be a motorhead to enjoy Matt Damon and Christian Bale as a pair of rebels risking it all for purity and glory. Yes, director James Mangold takes you down onto the raceway, with cameras low to the ground and care to show the crack of gear shifts and feet on pedals. Yet he’s not created a “Fast and Furious” film — this is more a drama about a pair of visionaries who fight against a smarmy bureaucracy. That vision happens to be on a track. — Mark Kennedy, Associated Press

1/2 R, 113 minutes. Through today only at Stonington, Lisbon. Guy Ritchie’s latest British gangster yarn, “The Gentlemen,” opens with a bartender pulling a beer tap printed with a logo reading: “Gritchie’s English Lore.” It’s oh-so-appropriate branding for this return to roots for Ritchie, who burst onto the scene in the late 1990s with the rollicking London crime flick “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.” With “The Gentlemen,” co-written with Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies, Ritchie invites the audience to belly up to his bar for a full pint of his signature brew: a wordy, bloody, Cockney-accented blend of colorful criminals. As you might expect, despite the title, these gentlemen aren’t gentlemanly in the least. This time, Ritchie expands his horizons to England’s upper crust (the “toffs,” if you will). The lords and ladies are a means to an end for the protagonist, Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey), an American Rhodes scholar-turned-weed dealer who has worked out a deal with the landed gentry. They have the land he needs for his grow operation; he has the money they need to sustain their titled lifestyles. Now Mickey wants to get out of the game. — Katie Walsh, Tribute News Service

1/2 PG-13, 123 minutes. Through today only at Stonington. Still playing at 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

PG, 135 minutes. Westbrook. Also, Fri. and Sat. only at Garde. Fresh off “Lady Bird” (2017), a wonderful movie about a young writer leaving home, the writer-director Greta Gerwig has made another wonderful movie about a young writer leaving home, although she ends up there. Gerwig has taken on Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women,” which she begins with a title card featuring Alcott’s own words: “I had lots of troubles, so I write jolly tales.” With an established and frequently adapted classic, it’s useful to tip your hand and let the audience