NOW PLAYING
Reviews of movies showing in theaters or streaming online
‘ARMY OF THE DEAD’:
Director Zack Snyder returns to his roots with this Vegas-set zombie heist movie. It’s a homecoming for Snyder, as his feature directorial debut, 2004’s “Dawn of the Dead,” a remake of the George Romero classic, is hailed by many as his best work. The film is an evolution of and homage to his first feature, with direct references and a return to its snarky and cynical tone. Much like “Dawn,” “Army of the Dead” is sarcastic, funny, shockingly bloody and almost unbearably bleak. 2:28. 3 stars. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
‘THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT’:
In 2013, a movie about a haunting called “The Conjuring,” starring the charismatic duo of Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson as real-life paranormal investigators Lorraine and Ed Warren, helmed by “Saw” and “Insidious” auteur James Wan, proved so popular it spun out into a multi-film universe with a signature style. The third Warren-focused film, “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It,” takes an investigative approach to a good old-fashioned demonic possession, covering the true case of Arne Johnson, the first murder suspect to plead “not guilty by virtue of possession.” 1:52. 3 stars. — Katie Walsh ‘CRUELLA’: For a while, “Cruella” gets by on the simpatico performance wiles of Emmas Stone and Thompson. Their wit and inventiveness may well hand Disney a hit. Many will like it, I suspect, because of the performances, all good, and because this PG-13 Disney spinoff gives pandemic-rattled audiences something theoretically new. I admire the craft but dislike the basic idea, which has become pure gold in early 21st-century American pop culture: the purportedly humanizing story behind villains we already know, or thought we knew. 2:14. 2 stars. Streams for an additional fee on Disney+. — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
‘THE DRY’: They say “you can always go home again,” but that doesn’t mean it’s not complicated. This is the conundrum faced by Aaron Falk (Eric Bana) in the slow-burn Australian thriller “The Dry.” The film opens with a tragic murder-suicide, as the cries of a young baby bleat plaintively against the harsh landscape of the drought-stricken Kiewarra, a (fictional) small town in the farming region of Victoria, Australia. The town hasn’t seen rain in 324 days, adding to the tense atmosphere after Karen, Billy and Luke Hadler are discovered shot to death, presumably at Luke’s hand. Baby Charlotte was spared. Luke’s parents (Julia Blake and Bruce Spence) accept the official conclusion of Luke’s responsibility, but questions nag. They urge Luke’s childhood friend Aaron, a federal agent now living in Melbourne, to return home to look into things. 1:57. 3 stars. In select theaters and on demand and digital. — Katie Walsh
‘A QUIET PLACE PART II’:
Three years ago, John Krasinski planted his flag as a big-budget genre filmmaker with the high-concept, sound-based monster movie “A Quiet Place.” The film, written by Bryan Woods and Scott Beck with Krasinski, was a piece of well-crafted schlock, impeccably sound-designed and shot, starring Krasinski’s wife, Emily Blunt, in an effortfully near-silent performance. Suffused with a deeply earnest sense of self-seriousness but not a shred of humor, camp or self-awareness, “Spirit Untamed” is the story of a girl and her connection to a wild mustang. “A Quiet Place” is Saw.” It’s a mess that knows hero’s journey story without horror for people who neither what it wants to relying on the extraordinary. don’t seem to like horror all be or what it’s trying to 1:28. 2 ½ stars. that much. “A Quiet Place say. 1:33. 1 ½ stars. — Katie — Katie Walsh Part II” offers the chance Walsh to take the concept and run with it, but Krasinski ‘SPIRIT UNTAMED’: “Spirit instead stays right where Untamed,” the second film he started, offering up a in the “Spirit” franchise, is film that would have been written by Aury Wallington the next 90 minutes of “A and Kristin Hahn and Quiet Place.” 1:37. 1 ½ stars. directed by Elaine Bogan — Katie Walsh (her co-director is Ennio
Torresan Jr.), and features a ‘SPIRAL’: Made by Aussie female producer, composer filmmakers James Wan and and other female department Leigh Whannell, “Saw” heads. One can’t help splattered onto screens but feel that the gender right before Halloween representation behind 2004, ushering in that the camera is an integral oh-so-gory 2000s trend part to the authentic known politely as “torture sense of girls’ empowerment porn.” Six sequels followed espoused by the film, every Halloween thereafter, the story of a young girl before the games-obsessed and her unique connection serial killer Jigsaw to a wild mustang, took a break. He returned Spirit. What’s also striking with his own movie in about “Spirit Untamed” is 2017, and now “Spiral,” the that the story is grounded first film “from the book within a (somewhat) realistic, of Saw,” has returned with recognizable world, in that ever-bedeviling question: the 19th century American “Would you like to Southwest. So many play a game?” Honestly? animated films tend toward Nah. Despite the return of the supernatural, the Darren Lynn Bousman, this folkloric, the magical. It’s blood-soaked police procedural somewhat refreshing to see is not an auspicious an animated film tell what debut “from the book of is essentially a formulaic
‘THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD’:
A pair of killers are in pursuit of a boy in “Those Who Wish Me Dead,” an action thriller with a neo-Western bend from the modern frontiersman of American action movies, Taylor Sheridan. Angelina Jolie’s name is above the title, and she plays Hannah Faber, a smokejumper in Montana who is the toughest, wildest member of a crew full of death-defying sons of guns. Yet Sheridan is more interested in his pair of killers, Jack and Patrick Blackwell, a father-son team of assassins played to the hilt by Aidan Gillen and Nicholas Hoult. They are killers, but they’re not out for the thrill: They’re paid to do a job. Connor Casserly (Finn Little) has a piece of information that is valuable to some important people, so he has to go. It’s Hannah’s job to keep him alive, as the killers pursue and a wildfire rages around them. Streaming on HBO
Max. 1:40. 3 stars. — Adam Graham, Detroit News
‘TOM CLANCY’S WITHOUT REMORSE’: Including “Tom Clancy’s” in the title for the film “Without Remorse” is a direct signal flare for fans of his Jack Ryan character, who has been depicted many times on screen before. Clancy’s 1993 bestseller “Without Remorse” is an origin story for one of the Ryan-verse characters, John Clark. Now, Michael B. Jordan takes on the origin story of Clark, nee Kelly, a highly trained Navy SEAL whose life is drastically altered by violence. The script is a loose adaptation and update of the book. The Vietnam setting is out, and Russia is in as the big bad, because everything old is new again. What remains is John’s thirst for vengeance, a white-hot rage engine revved by the murder of his wife, Pam (Lauren London). 1:49. 2 stars. — Katie Walsh
‘WRATH OF MAN’: Guy Ritchie’s “Wrath of Man” has a proper opening credits sequence, with classical illustrations of angels, lions and other dramatic biblical scenes juxtaposed over slow-motion images of anguished men, bass strings groaning relentlessly. It’s time for some heavy-duty masculine myth-making melodrama, a fable of men, guns, tragedy and revenge; a burly, entertaining entry into the “dudes rock” cinematic canon, as imagined by Ritchie in rare form. Set among the world of armored truck robberies in Los Angeles, “Wrath of Man” is a remake of the 2004 French film “Le Convoyeur” (“Cash Truck”). 1:58. 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.