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Reviews of movies showing in theaters or streaming online
‘ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S
ME, MARGARET’: At the end of “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” the hugely rewarding film version of Judy Blume’s
1970 classic book, the characters played by Abby Ryder Fortson and Rachel McAdams have just shared a momentous private moment, through tears and laughter, in the close quarters of the family bathroom. No spoilers, but the depth of feeling in this scene isn’t what you find in most commercial movies, certainly not most coming-of-age films, and certainly not most coming-of-age films made in America. Blume’s novel threw millions of real-life Margarets a lifeline. It remains, in some parts of our world, a banned and controversial book. It talks plainly about menstruation, bras and a protagonist who uses God as an unseen counselor and sounding board. This book deserved a really good film version, and writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig captures Blume’s humane wit and spirit, while adding some new emotional and narrative wrinkles. 1:45. 3 ½ stars. — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
‘BOOK CLUB: THE NEXT CHAPTER’: It seems like everyone’s going to Italy these days. Thanks to a strong dollar and pandemicinduced wanderlust, it’s not just influencers, old friends and exes filling up their Instagram feeds with gelato and pasta. “Succession” Season 3 took a trip to Tuscany for a wedding, “The White Lotus” Season 2 checked in for a stay in Sicily, while Toni Collette landed in Rome to become the “Mafia Mamma.” And now the “Book Club” gals — Jane Fonda, Mary Steenburgen, Diane Keaton and Candice Bergen — take off for a winesoaked adventure off the page in the fluffy and fantastical “Book Club: The Next Chapter.” Ultimately, the film is about finding balance: between reading the signs and controlling your own narrative, between taking a leap of faith and putting in the hard work, and most importantly, putting your own desires first and having the bravery to take the reins, whether that means marriage or a rendezvous in a canal with a handsome professor of philosophy. Either or both can be the right choice. It may be treacly and unrealistic, but “Book Club: The Next Chapter” has heart and soul, and it’s as sweet and quaffable as an Aperol spritz on a hot day. 1:47. 2 ½ stars. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
‘FAST X’: In the last exciting installment of the “Fast and Furious” franchise, 2021’s “Fast 9,” the gang drove a car into space, tangled with a long-lost brother and pushed the physical limits of various vintage Dodge Chargers in far-flung locations around the globe, as Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) is wont to do. Since then, there have been a few external shake-ups in the “Fast” world: longtime director Justin Lin departed the franchise only a week into filming on “Fast X,” which is now being billed as part one of a three-part finale, and he has been replaced with a franchise super fan: “The Transporter” director Louis Leterrier, who swooped in to save the day. But rest assured, family, in “Fast X,” the Coronas are cold, the booties are shaking and the sleeves remain optional. Leterrier, working with a script credited to Lin and Dan Mazeau, takes to his turn behind the wheel with the enthusiasm of a kid who just got a new set of toys, crashing together cars and characters excitedly, but without much sense. And if Leterrier is making “Fast” fan-fiction, then Jason Momoa is doing parody as the franchise’s wildly flamboyant new villain Dante Reyes. In the opening of “Fast X,” Momoa has been ret-conned into the finale of Lin’s “Fast Five,” in which Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) and Dom dragged a bank vault full of drug money belonging to Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida) out of a Rio de Janeiro police station with cables attached to Chargers, naturally. Dante is Reyes’ son, and now he’s seeking revenge on Dom’s family because his own was destroyed. 2:21. 2 ½ stars.
— Katie Walsh
‘GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3’:
“Guardians of the
Galaxy Vol. 3” pulses with a manic energy soundtracked to a predominantly ’90s playlist (though it dips into the ’80s and 2000s as well). At times it’s convoluted and busy, and it tries to do all too much at once, thereby sidelining characters like Adam Warlock. It ruminates on rather uninteresting relationships between a wounded Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) and strident Gamora (Zoe Saldana), and the entirely too silly chemistry between Drax (Dave Bautista) and Mantis (Pom Klementieff ). But director James Gunn manages to achieve true pathos in the flashbacks to Rocket’s experiences at OrgoCorp as a lab raccoon under the High Evolutionary, especially in the cruelty he and his animal friends experienced as abandoned experiments. It’s not perfect, but the moral of “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” is that striving for perfection is not only a fool’s errand, but it’s also inherently toxic. Gunn exhorts the audience to embrace the quirky, the messy, the flawed, to strive for connection, not precision in this world and beyond. It’s a resonant message at the center of all the din. 2:30. 2 ½ stars. — Katie Walsh
‘GUY RITCHIE’S THE COVENANT’: Swinging back to a more serious register, Guy Ritchie presents his first film grounded in harsh realworld politics, “Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant,” and it’s the best film he has made in years. While not based on a true story, the film is inspired by the many true, tragic stories of Afghan interpreters who worked with the United States military for over 20 years, who were promised visas and then left to fend for themselves in a hostile country after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Ritchie and co-writers Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies have crafted a story about the
U.S. military that fits into his auteurist point of view, about the deals made between men and the sacred responsibility to hold up one’s end of the bargain. 2:03. 3 stars. — Katie Walsh
‘HYPNOTIC’: There’s something strange about “Hypnotic,” the new action thriller from writer/ director Robert Rodriguez, starring Ben Affleck. There’s a sheen of inauthenticity to the trailer for this film, in which Affleck stars as a detective working a bank robbery while wracked with guilt over the kidnapping of his young daughter. Things aren’t what they seem in “Hypnotic,” as Detective Danny Rourke (Affleck) discovers when he descends down the rabbit hole of this inexplicable bank robbery, one that ends in him finding a Polaroid of his missing daughter in a safe deposit box. He follows the signs to a local psychic,
Diana Cruz (Alice Braga), who unloads a baffling spiel about the “hypnotic constructs” that have been weaponized by a mysterious man at the scene of the robbery who they’re calling Dellrayne (William Fichtner), based on an inscription found on the Polaroid. Thus unfolds Rodriguez’s “Hypnotic,” a mashup of “Inception,” “The Truman Show,” “Rashomon” and “X-Men.” As a film fan, you have to respect the continued indie spirit with which Rodriguez works, grinding out these projects outside of the traditional Hollywood system and forging his own path in the industry. It’s fun to see him color in new shades of film genre, but the script and performances in “Hypnotic” are too laughably absurd to take seriously. 1:32. 2 stars. — Katie Walsh
‘MASTER GARDENER’: It springs from many inspirations, notably Robert Bresson’s “Pickpocket,” but writer-director Paul Schrader has made the components his own and then some: an isolated man, alone in a room, writes in his diary while ruminating about the forces of darkness outside that room and inside his soul. Travis Bickle in “Taxi Driver,” written by Schrader, connects directly to Schrader’s most recent trio of pictures begun with the excellent “First Reformed” starring Ethan Hawke, the Oscar Isaac-headed drama “The Card Counter” and now “Master Gardener” starring Joel Edgerton. Old-fashioned in its pacing, but not really part of any fashion, new or old, other than Schrader’s, it’s a steely, flawed but fascinating affront to most anything else playing theaters right now. 1:50. 3 stars.
RATINGS: The movies listed are rated according to the following key: 4 stars, excellent; 3 stars, good; 2 stars, fair; 1 star, poor.