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Reviews of movies showing in theaters or streaming online
‘THE ADDAMS FAMILY 2’: The 2019 animated feature “The Addams Family” was a cute refresh of the classic Addams Family characters for a new, younger audience. The first film struck at the heart of what makes the Addams family unique: the way they embrace being different is actually more inclusive and loving than whatever usually passes for “normal.” That sentiment is repeated in the sequel, “The Addams Family 2,” but the whole endeavor unfortunately delivers diminishing returns. Lacking in narrative rigor, “The Addams Family 2” is merely a series of loose vignettes knit together by a family road trip format. Patriarch Gomez (Oscar Isaac) is inspired to take the whole crew on a vacation in order to encourage family bonding after Wednesday (Chloe Grace Moretz) starts to feel alienated from the rest of the Addamses, embarrassed by their overbearing affections at her school science fair. The suggestion, perpetrated by a persistent lawyer (Wallace Shawn) in hot pursuit, that Wednesday may have been switched at birth, has her questioning everything. Soon it comes to light that this lawyer has been hired by mysterious mogul Cyrus Strange (Bill Hader), but his conviction that Wednesday is his true progeny could be hiding a far more nefarious agenda. 1:33. 1 ½ stars. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
‘DEAR EVAN HANSEN’:
At his therapist’s urging, high school senior Evan, dealing with social anxiety disorder and a harsh self-image, writes letters of reassurance and encouragement to himself. After a tense encounter at school, one of these letters ends up in the hands of another troubled senior, a boy Evan hardly knows even though
Evan has been nursing a crush on the boy’s sister for what feels to Evan like forever. The boy, Connor, commits suicide very early in “Dear Evan Hansen.” His grieving parents assume Evan’s letter to himself, found in their late son’s possession, was written by Connor to Evan, and that the boys were supportive, understanding friends. The lie spirals. Evan doesn’t have the heart or the nerve to correct Connor’s family’s reading of the situation. Then the hash-tagged phenomenon #TheConnorProject, designed to help all sorts of kids in crisis and in need, goes viral, far beyond the intensely clique-y high school. Evan’s dodgy act of atonement builds up his own social capital. For most of the musical, which premiered on Broadway in 2016, we watch Evan as he’s singing, dodging, aching, riding for the inevitable fall. 2:17. 2 stars.
— Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
‘DIANA: THE MUSICAL’:
“Already “Diana: The Musical” has drawn slackjawed quality comparisons to the film version of “Cats.” But “Cats” was different — dubious material handled badly, a compilation of misjudgments and digital fur. This one’s a matter of shoddy material staged efficiently and fluidly by director Christopher Ashley, aided by a solid cast of pros swimming upstream, trying hard not to mentally rewrite librettist and lyricist Joe DiPietro’s words with every stroke. “Living rather large/ Yet feeling rather small”: That’s the plight of Lady Diana Spencer, whose alliance with Prince Charles and the attendant miseries of fame at age 19 give the musical its simple central idea. 1:57. 1 star. Streaming on Netflix. — Michael Phillips
‘THE GUILTY’: Very few films that came out since March 2020 were more obviously filmed during a global pandemic than “The Guilty.” Released recently via Netflix, the film was directed by Antoine Fuqua — his second release in less than four months after June’s Paramount+ sci-fi thriller “Infinite” — and stars Jake Gyllenhaal in a story that takes place entirely in the confines of a 911 dispatch center. “The Guilty” also happens to be a remake of the 2018 Danish thriller of the same name. Credit must be given to both Fuqua and Gyllenhaal for taking what could have been quite the slog and turning it into a tense cat-and-mouse game that only works because of their combined commitment to making the most out of pandemic-induced limits on the type of sequences they could safely stage. 1:30. 2 ½ stars. Streaming on Netflix.
— Joshua Axelrod, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
‘THE MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK’:
“I try to be good,” says Tony Soprano, Catholic high school
slacker, numbers-racket enthusiast and future mob boss in “The Many Saints of Newark.” Does he mean it? How hard is he trying? Does anyone in his world, his family, his middle-class gangster society, see much value beyond appearances in trying? These questions, among many, made the six seasons of “The Sopranos” all it was. An exquisite character dissection of a killer in torment; a richly comic nightmare of domesticity amid underworld morality; a gangster classic embracing the rewards and the costs of “my way” American entrepreneurship; and a worthy addition to the pantheon occupied, by force and violence, by the original “Scarface,” the first two “Godfather” pictures, “Goodfellas” and a fistful of others. The movie is a prequel, looking at the formation and destiny of young Tony, played by Michael Gandolfini, son of the late James Gandolfini. 2:00. 3 stars. Streaming on HBO Max.
— Michael Phillips
‘MASS’: Judy (Breeda Wool) fusses over the room, placing the table,
setting out too much food. She frets as a businesslike Kendra (Michelle N. Carter) scrutinizes the artwork and adjusts the chairs just so, strategizing the placement of the tissue box. These preparations, conducted in hushed tones, portend the anguished drama that is about to play out in this space. This simple side room of an Episcopalian church is neutral, a safe space if you will, but it’s also a healing space, adjacent to holiness, holding the confessions of many an Alcoholics Anonymous or Al-Anon meeting. It’s within this space that we will remain for the rest of this film, the directorial debut of actor Fran Kranz, who also wrote the script. 1:50. 3 ½ stars.
— Katie Walsh
As Robert Graves wrote when he was ridding himself of stultifying English conventions, a generation before Sir Ian Fleming created James Bond: Goodbye to all that. Watching the final Daniel Craig iteration of 007 settle his affairs and get right with his emotions in “No Time to Die,” the
‘NO TIME TO DIE’:
most plainly divided of all the Bond movies — nostalgic-retro, depressive-ashen, frisky-jokey, apocalyptic-sentimental — one can’t help but think a dozen hyphenated things at once. Let’s start with: Good-great job, Mr. Craig. As bittersweet farewells go, this one’s quite good. 2:43. 3 stars.
— Michael Phillips
‘VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE’:
Back in 2018, a delightful surprise was smuggled inside what would otherwise appear to be just another rote comic book movie. It was Tom Hardy’s performance in “Venom,” playing a San Francisco journalist, Eddie Brock, who becomes the host body for an alien symbiote affectionately known as Venom. As the possessed Eddie and the voice of Venom, Hardy’s funny, freewheeling and frequently unhinged performance felt like an alien parasite inside a Marvel movie itself. As a result, “Venom” was that much more entertaining, anarchic and frankly punk rock than any other comic book movie going. Watching Hardy splash around in a lobster tanks, ferociously chomping crustaceans, felt like we were getting away with murder, because in a sea of crushing sameness, Hardy dared to grab the wheel and steer “Venom” straight into the land of weird. The sequel, “Venom: There Will Be Carnage,” is directed by Andy Serkis, and now, host and alien have achieved symbiosis. The person quite obviously steering the ship is Hardy, who has a story by credit on the film. 1:30. 2 ½ stars. — Katie Walsh
RATINGS: The movies listed are rated according to the following key: 4 stars, excellent; 3 stars, good; 2 stars, fair; 1 star, poor.