NOW PLAYING
Reviews of movies showing in theaters or streaming online
‘ARGYLLE’: For months, one question has plagued moviegoers: “Who is the real Agent Argylle?” It’s a query posed by Samuel L. Jackson in the ubiquitous trailer for Matthew Vaughn’s spy action-comedy “Argylle,” though there are more pressing questions that the trailer presents, like, “Who thought a flat-top on Henry Cavill was a good idea?” and, “Why are we spelling argyle with two Ls?” Those latter questions remain a mystery, but the film does take up the former, delving into the convoluted identity of the real Agent Argylle for an absolutely unbearable 2 hours and 19 minutes. It’s remarkable, really, “Argylle” has bonedeep structural issues on a fundamental level, but it is also a failure of directorial execution from top to bottom, resulting in what has to be one of the most expensive worst movies ever made. It’s honestly fascinating, this thing should be studied in a lab. 2:19. 1 star. ‘THE BEEKEEPER’: For a certain type of action movie fan, it’s the most wonderful time of the year: pulp trashterpiece season. This year, it’s the “John Wick” ripoff “The Beekeeper,” starring Jason Statham and directed by David Ayer. The PSA-like premise centers on a highly organized phishing scam targeting elderly folks. A warning message pops up on their computers, they call the number, and a sleazy dude in a call center walks them through handing over all of their passwords to their bank accounts. But the scammy schemers go up in flames when they target Eloise (Phylicia Rashad), who happens to have an FBI agent daughter, Verona (Emmy Raver-Lampman), and a gruffly quiet tenant, Adam Clay (Statham), who just wants to tend to his beehives. Ayer brings a colorful tactility to “The Beekeeper” and surrounds Statham’s stoic avenging angel with a big, interesting cast. But the character himself is a cipher and the lore isn’t exactly deep, so without Ayer putting everything into the locations, sets, cinematography, casting and stunts, it seems that sequels would provide diminishing returns. But
this wacky and self-aware bit of action fun is wildly entertaining and zips by with the good-natured buzz of a bumblebee. If this is your kind of dumb action movie honey, it’s delectable. 1:45. 2 ½ stars. — Katie Walsh
‘BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE’: How can you contain the meaning of Bob Marley in a single biopic? The pioneering reggae artist’s life was all too short, but his music has persisted infinitely, reaching far beyond the blue mountains of his native Jamaica, and he continues to be a global icon and a posthumous ambassador for Rastafarian culture 40 years after his death. But the man himself has been abstracted into an image for sale, a mere signifier adorning a dorm room poster, his songs of peace and freedom the dutiful standards of beach bar cover bands across the globe. Is it possible to tell the story of his life in a way that feels truthfully human? These are the questions with which one wrestles in contending with the new biopic from director Reinaldo Marcus Green, “Bob Marley: One
Love.” But unfortunately, the film itself does not undertake these complex matters. Though the film promises to tell a culturally and politically specific story, what could have been daring is ultimately trite, relying on familiar music biopic tropes. It’s a shame, because at the center is a bravura performance from Kingsley Ben-Adir as Marley. 1:44. 2 stars.
— Katie Walsh
‘LISA FRANKENSTEIN’:
It seems like these days, teenage girls only want one thing, and that’s a longdead Victorian boyfriend roused from his grave by an ardent wish and a strike of lightning. He’s sweet, he’s chivalrous, his tongue has fallen off so he can’t speak — dreamboat alert! It’s a setup that’s a little bit “Freaky Friday” and little bit “Night of the Living Dead,” but in “Lisa Frankenstein,” writer Diablo Cody and director Zelda Williams take Mary Shelley’s iconic horror text and juice it up with “Heathers”-inspired dialogue and a romantic hero in the mold of “Edward Scissorhands.” But this spooky-ooky 1980sset romance has a thoroughly modern sensibility, and it’s about to be the new obsession of quirky teens everywhere. 1:41. 3 stars. — Katie Walsh
‘MADAME WEB’: “Madame Web” is the first Marvelaffiliated movie for which I feel truly sorry. Most of its problems are qualityrelated. But some aren’t; some relate to audience fatigue and “OK, well, here’s another one.” Sony Pictures’ piece of the Marvel pie, separate from the official, Disneybranded Marvel Cinematic Universe, includes the “Spider-Man” movies plus “Venom” and a few others. That pie has been sitting out on the counter, unrefrigerated, for a long time now. This is not “Madame Web’s” fault. The director and co-writer S.J. Clarkson makes her feature debut here; her extensive TV credits include the Marvel series “The Defenders” and “Jessica Jones.” “Madame Web” feels like it should not have been conceived as a movie — with its modest visual scale, the wobbly dramatic stakes, Dakota Johnson’s small performance, Sydney Sweeney’s small performance, Tahar Rahim’s small performance. It plays like a bland, third-season Marvel series as watched on a 12-yearold TV set playing in the wrong dramatic aspect ratio, which I realize isn’t a real thing. But now it is. During a corporate event a few years ago, Sony used the phrase “Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters” in reference to its future slate, with an acronym of SPUMC. It’s fun to say, but it evokes something less than fun to watch. 1:57. 1 ½ stars. — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
‘MEAN GIRLS’: Tina Fey’s 2004 screenplay started from a 2002 nonfiction book, “Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boys, and the New Realities of Girl World.” The first film version of “Mean Girls” offered a quippy, cleverly two-faced demonization/embrace of toxic female teardown behavior. The story, you may know already. It concerns how homeschooled Cady Heron, the new kid at a Chicago area high school, became a pet makeover project of “the Plastics.” This trio of “apex predators” is led by fearsome, manipulating, deeply insecure Regina George, the gold standard of bullying condescension at North Shore High. “Mean Girls” became a 2018 Broadway musical, nominated for 12 Tonys. And now, “Mean Girls” the musical is “Mean Girls” the movie musical. The core of Fey’s storyline hasn’t changed, even if technology has. It embraces, with trace elements of sincerity, the juicy comic extremes of mean-girldom, complete with an 11th-hour repudiation and a reminder to be nicer — before it’s too late. 1:52. 2 ½ stars. — Michael Phillips
‘THE TASTE OF THINGS’:
It starts humbly, a gnarled turnip emerging from the soil in the early morning light; carrots and lettuces collected and assembled alongside fish and poultry and cream in a large country kitchen. These plants and animals pulled from the earth, ready to be transformed with the precise applications of fat and heat. Thus begins Tran Anh Hung’s “The Taste of Things,” which opens with a spectacular sequence of cooking performed by Juliette Binoche, portraying a cook named Eugénie. But she’s much more than a cook, she’s the collaborator and companion of Dodin Bouffant (Benoît Magimel) a famed (fictional) gourmand in 1885 France, called the “Napoleon of the culinary arts.” Though he gets the hefty moniker, Eugénie is his muse, his sounding board, and his inspiration. “The Taste of Things” is an adaptation, of sorts, of Marcel Rouff ’s 1924 novel “The Passionate Epicure,” fleshing out the relationship between the gastronome and his cook. The film is a celebration of food, the kind that achieves a balance between simplicity and decadence. But food is just a vessel for the love story in “The Taste of Things,” one we don’t see often enough, of a sweet, egalitarian love, built on respect and companionship, savored sweetly in the autumn of life. In French with English subtitles. 2:15. 4 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.