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Reviews of movies showing in theaters or streaming online
‘ASTEROID CITY’: Director Wes Anderson and his frequent co-writer Roman Coppola set their tale(s) in 1955. In black-and-white, and a boxy aspect ratio, we’re presented first with a “Playhouse 90”-type TV program, hosted by Bryan Cranston. Tonight’s play, he tells us, is “Asteroid City,” in his words “an imaginary drama created expressly for this broadcast. The characters are fictional, the text hypothetical, the events an apocryphal fabrication — but together they present an authentic account of the inner workings of a modern theatrical production.”
So: It’s a play, written by a Wyoming-bred variation on Tennessee Williams or William Inge, played by Edward Norton. It’s also the story of the people staging this televised world premiere, under the creative sway of Actors Studio-style methods of psychological exploration and performance techniques. Adrien Brody plays the director. Jason Schwartzman plays the leading actor; Scarlett Johansson plays the nominal female lead. There are moments in “Asteroid City” when the playwithin-a-play-within-amovie strategy recalls a line spoken by Matt Dillon’s town mechanic character: “Everything’s connected, but nothing’s working.” 1:45. 3 stars. — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
‘BARBIE’: In Greta Gerwig’s hands, Barbie is a weapon. The director wields the iconic doll like a broadsword in “Barbie,” cleaving through culture with gleeful spirit and savage humor. Written by Gerwig and her husband, filmmaker Noah Baumbach, “Barbie” works in broad story strokes, which allows Gerwig to experiment with style and humor, creating the safe space for their pointed commentary on patriarchy, misogyny and perfectionism. Barbie (Margot Robbie) has to leave the comfort of Barbie Land in an attempt to stem the tide of irrepressible thoughts of death that start to creep through her cotton-candy consciousness. On the advice of Kate McKinnon’s Weird Barbie (scribbled-on makeup, crazy haircut, always in the splits), Barbie sets out to find the girl who’s playing with her, to close the portal between Barbie Land and the Real World. Ken (Ryan Gosling) tags along. But it’s Barbie’s awakening, a process of shock, sadness and acceptance, that is the spine of this story. Throughout her roller-coaster ride to the Real World and back, Barbie discovers that feminism is about seeing the humanity in everyone, even Ken, but most importantly, in herself, despite the arduous challenges of the Real World. 1:54. 4 stars. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
‘INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY’:
“Dial of Destiny” marks the fifth and probable final “Indiana Jones” movie with Harrison Ford front and center. It’s also the first one not directed by Steven Spielberg. Most of “Dial of Destiny” takes place in 1969. We meet Indy living humbly, doggedly, alone in New York City on the brink of retirement from his post at Hunter College. Indy and Marion, estranged for a while now, we learn, teeter around the edges of their divorce paperwork, still unsigned. The screenplay patiently grinds through explanations of what Indy calls the “ancient hunk of gears” everyone’s after. The gears belong to the Antikythera, both miraculously interlocking halves of it; it’s the potential world-changing artifact invented by the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes, imagined by “Dial of Destiny” to be a predictor of “fissures in time.” Many will enjoy the new film well enough, for the payoff of seeing Ford, the fedora, the bullwhip and the John Williams “Raiders” march theme one more time. At this point in the life of this ol’ archaeologist, Indy’s theme song has become not just a sound, but practically a sight to behold — even in a movie that isn’t. 2:34. 2 stars.
— Michael Phillips
‘JOY RIDE’: “Joy Ride” arrives courtesy of Seth Rogen’s Point Grey Pictures, with Adele Lim (co-writer of “Crazy Rich Asians”) making her feature directorial debut. Lifelong friends Audrey (Ashley Park) and Lolo (Sherry Cola) grow up together as the only two
Chinese girls in a town called White Hills. Years later the adopted Audrey, now a lawyer, is sent to China, and if she closes a deal for her firm, she makes partner. Problem: Her Mandarin is shaky. Solution: Lolo, a sculptor specializing in sex-positive erotic pottery, knows the language and joins Audrey as translator. But because two does not an ensemble spree make, they’re joined by Lolo’s morose, socially maladroit cousin Deadeye (Sabrina Wu, really funny in both deadpan and sudden-rage modes) and by Audrey’s college roommate Kat (Stephanie Hsu), now a popular Chinese soap star. The movie’s good and thirsty, and while many of the jokes push their luck, the movie doesn’t have a mean bone in its body. Is it for everyone? Who cares? Comedies engineered for every sensibility and sensitivity level have a funny
(or, rather, not-funny) way of daring you to guess whether they’re AI-generated. The on-screen talents, savvy and fine company all, have been ready for something like this far longer than the opportunity has been available. 1:35. 3 stars. — Michael Phillips
‘MISSION IMPOSSIBLE — DEAD RECKONING PART ONE’:
Whether “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One” turns out to be a massive hit or merely a hit, it’s certainly the franchise action picture of the year, the one that truly knows what it’s doing, front to back. It’s full of
sound and fury and Tom Cruise (again as Ethan Hunt), running, cliffhanging, flying, with periodic rest stops for brooding.
The brooding looks the toughest, at least for him. At this point in his movie stardom, Cruise plainly feels most himself when defying death for semi-real. So far, so good! Cruise was 59 when filming on “Dead Reckoning” started. He’s 61 now. His roll has not slowed. “Dead Reckoning Part Two” arrives next year. I’m ready already. 2:43. 3 ½ stars. — Michael Phillips
‘OPPENHEIMER’: Filmmaker Christopher Nolan has presented us with so many dark splendors and unsettling displays of destruction in his career — in science fiction, in Gotham City or in “Dunkirk,” his first realworld historical thriller. Now we have “Oppenheimer,” his second in that real-world category. People will be talking about it for a long time; they already are, largely because of what it’s not: not a sequel, not
an overbudgeted franchise product, not junk.
It’s Nolan’s most haunted film to date, and with this subject — J. Robert Oppenheimer, theoretical physicist, “father of the atom bomb,” anguished, conscience-stricken victim of America’s errantly shifting political winds — a filmmaker cannot treat the sight, and the fallout, of the dawn of our catastrophic nuclear age as mere spectacle. Well, they can. But it’d be a mistake. It stars a pitch-perfect Cillian Murphy as the thin man in the famously oversized fedora, with Nolan freely adapting Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s superb 2006 Oppenheimer biography “American Prometheus.” This is a film about terrible risks and a planet likely destined to destroy itself someday. And we see it, and feel it. 3:00. 3 ½ stars. — Michael Phillips
RATINGS: The movies listed are rated according to the following key: 4 stars, excellent; 3 stars, good; 2 stars, fair; 1 star, poor.