San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Opening Friday
Fighting With My Family
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World Alita: Battle Angel Go for the action, stay for the emotion. This film about a young cyborg, brought back to life in a benighted time, becomes a touching story of dislocation and the search for identity, with the lead role beautifully acted by Rosa Salazar, whose performance is rendered digitally. Rated PG-13. 122 minutes. — M. LaSalle Aquaman The latest “Justice League” spinoff is filled with awkward dialogue, a poorly conceived visual-effects plan and a soul-crushing and bladdercrushing 139-minute run time. Jason Momoa returns as Aquaman, and Nicole Kidman and Willem Dafoe are among the Atlantis residents. Director James Wan has some decent land-based thrills, but this is a shallow-end DC movie. Rated PG-13. 139 minutes. — P. Hartlaub Arctic Mads Mikkelsen has the screen to himself in this intelligent, well-placed survival film, about a man stranded in the Arctic, trying to find a way of being discovered and rescued. Rated PG-13. 97 minutes. — M. LaSalle Bohemian Rhapsody Big and splashy, sentimental and not completely true, this is the biopic that Freddie Mercury deserved, an absorbing story about an outsider who was either going to be a weirdo or an artist, and so he became a very flamboyant artist. The soundtrack is full of Queen songs, and even if you’re not a big Queen fan, you’ll find they sound better in the movie than they do on the radio. Rated PG-13. 135 minutes. — M. LaSalle Bumblebee The latest installment in the “Transformers” series, about an alien robot that befriends an angst-ridden teenager, has wit, charm and likable characters. It’s as if the often unwatchable franchise has pleasantly mutated into a robotic version of “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” — and become a decent popcorn movie for the holidays. Rated PG-13. 114 minutes.
— D. Lewis
Can You Ever Forgive Me? Melissa McCarthy is terrific in this real-life story of the writer Lee Israel who, after the collapse of her literary career, found a lucrative second career as the forger of letters by historical people. Directed by Marielle Heller, it’s a film of wit and atmosphere and about the most twisted rags-to-riches story you could ever hope to see. Rated R. 106 minutes. — M. LaSalle
Capernaum Programmed, slick and maudlin neo-neorealist film about the mean streets of Beirut. With a gripping lead performance by 14-year-old Zain Al Rafeea, a Syrian refugee; his energy recalls Jean-Pierre Léaud in Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows.” The filmmakers have not made a call to action, but a calling card for themselves. Rated R. 123 minutes. — C. Valladares
Cold Pursuit This latest Liam Neeson action thriller has the big guy seeking revenge for the death of his son, but the usual Neeson formula is undercut by a sardonic tone in the direction, and some overplotting stalls the action. Rated R. 118 minutes. — M. LaSalle
Cold War Polish actress Joanna Kulig
gets the role of a lifetime, and she responds with passion and ferocity, in this latest from director Pawel Pawlikowski, about a couple who are obsessed with each other but can’t get along. It’s set in Europe in the 1950s and shot in gorgeous, glossy black and white. Rated R. 88 minutes. In Polish and French with English subtitles.
— M. LaSalle Escape Room This thriller, about six people trapped in a series of lethal escape rooms, aspires to do nothing more than unsettle us — but it succeeds beautifully in doing so. It’s a pure diversion, but rather nicely staged, with decent performances. It’s pretty good, which, for a movie like this, is practically the brass ring. Rated PG-13. 100 minutes. — M. LaSalle Everybody Knows Asghar Farhadi’s latest family drama takes place in Spain, with a terrific ensemble including Javier Bardem, Ricardo Darin and Penelope Cruz, in the story of buried secrets becoming unearthed in the midst of a family crisis. It’s a film in Farhadi’s usual pattern, and it’s up to his usual high standard. Rated R. 133 minutes.
— M. LaSalle
The Favourite Olivia Colman, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz are brilliant in this comedy-drama set during the reign of Queen Anne. Brilliantly directed by Yorgos Lanthimos on the knife edge between farce and drama, historical truth and anachronism. Rated R. 119 minutes. — M. LaSalle
Free Solo Thrilling, vertigo-inducing documentary that chronicles Alex Honnold’s quest to scale the 3,000-foot vertical rock face of Yosemite’s El Capitan — with just his hands and feet — no ropes. It’s never been done; will he be the first? The photography is incredible, as is its subject. Rated PG-13. 100 minutes.
— G. Allen Johnson Glass A sequel that combines elements from two previous M. Night Shyamalan films (“Unbreakable” and “Split”), this one is just awful — a rumination on superhero delusion syndrome that consists mostly of long, witless conversations (in a mental hospital), leading to a dead, clumsily executed climax on the hospital lawn. A complete waste of time. Rated PG-13. 129 minutes.
— M. LaSalle
NGreen Book Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali are ideally paired as an Italian American driver and an African American pianist on a concert tour through the deep South in 1962. Mortensen completely transforms and won an Oscar nomination. Rated PG-13. 130 minutes. — M. LaSalle Happy Death Day 2U The sequel to “Happy Death Day” can be a mess, but it’s a joyful one. It’s a slasher movie filled with so many other plot intrusions that you forget about the slasher. But writer-director Christopher Landon and star Jessica Rothe both return, and have a great time that is infectious. That counts for something, with the gore and scare limitations of a PG-13 horror film. Rated PG-13. 100 minutes. — P. Hartlaub
Holiday Danish feature about a wealthy gangster who takes his girlfriend on an expensive yachting vacation in Turkey. Some reviewers and exhibitors have noted that the movie contains a highly disturbing scene of sex and violence. Not reviewed. Not rated. 90 minutes. Isn’t It Romantic Rebel Wilson stars in this total misfire, the story of a woman who bangs her head and ends up trapped inside a romantic comedy. The movie places Wilson, a comic force, in a straight man role, reacting to others’ zaniness. There are almost no laughs. Rated PG-13. 88 minutes. The Kid Who Would Be King They almost had something here — a kid is chosen to fight King Arthur’s battles in modern-day England — but at two hours this movie is at least 40 minutes too long. It overstays
its welcome and then settles in and overstays it some more. Rated PG. 120 minutes.
— M. LaSalle The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part This sequel to “The Lego Movie” has lost the element of surprise, and the narrative is too close to a repeat of the original. But the filmmakers understand what made the first movie work, and endeavor to give us a lot more of that. “Lego Movie 2” does nothing to elevate the form — yet it doesn’t disappoint. Rated PG. 93 minutes.
— P. Hartlaub Mary Poppins Returns She returns, but she’s different this time. She’s Emily Blunt and looks worried. And the songs she sings are pretty lousy. Still, if you don’t mind weak songs and a clinically depressed Mary Poppins, this one has things to offer — great visuals and Lin-Manuel Miranda as a jolly lamplighter. Rated PG. 130 minutes. — M. LaSalle Miss Bala This is a real surprise. “Miss Bala” seems to promise an exploitative genre movie, about gangsters and drug deals, and it delivers on that, but it’s something more. Director Catherine Hardwicke and screenwriter Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer have taken a Mexican thriller, with a female victim at its center, and have turned it into an intelligent feminist film. Rated PG-13. 103 minutes. — M. LaSalle Never Look Away Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (“The Lives of Others”) directs his first German-language film in 13 years with this absorbing, epic but predictable story of an artist — a fictionalized Gerhard Richter — surviving Nazi Germany, World War II and Soviet-controlled East Germany to become a great painter. Rated R. 188 minutes.
— G. Allen Johnson On the Basis of Sex The early life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, from her entry into Harvard Law School through her first landmark case dealing with discrimination on the basis of sex, is the subject of this engaging drama, which becomes increasingly involving until, by the last half-hour, it’s goose bumps all around. Felicity Jones is likable and compelling in the lead role. Rated PG-13. 120 minutes.
— M. LaSalle Roma Writer-director Alfonso Cuaron’s memoir of his childhood, as seen through the eyes of a beloved domestic servant, makes up for an almost stagnant narrative — and a near soporific first hour — through inspired virtuoso filmmaking of the highest order and a story that livens up, somewhat, in its second half. Rated R. 135 minutes.
— M. LaSalle Shoplifters This Japanese gem concerns an odd assortment of grifters who live happily together in a cramped, dilapidated residence — until fate intervenes. It’s both a gentle examination of what makes a family tick and a harsh dissection of Japan’s faltering social landscape. Rated R. 121 minutes. In Japanese with English subtitles. — D. Lewis Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse What a pleasure to get blindsided by “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” The brazen new action-adventure, with six Spider-people from different dimensions, is everything we should want from both our superhero movies and animated films, with bold visuals, and a story that supports its dozen-plus central characters. Rated PG. 112 minutes. — P. Hartlaub A Star Is Born The first half is glorious; the second, a little slow, a little muddled. Yet somehow flaws don’t matter. This fourth version of the old showbiz story is enormously appealing and represents a success for Bradley Cooper, who wrote, directed and stars, and a triumph for Lady Gaga, who owns the movie from beginning to end. Rated R. 135 minutes. — M. LaSalle Vice Christian Bale’s transformation into former Vice President Dick Cheney is remarkable, one of the best Halloween costumes in history, but it can’t compensate for a tonally insecure, scattershot hatchet job that isn’t satirically pointed, funny or dramatically compelling. It’s a disappointment from writerdirector Adam McKay. Rated R. 132 minutes. — M. LaSalle What Men Want Funny and heartfelt, this reboot of the 2000 Mel Gibson film “What Women Want” is an unexpected pleasure. Yes, it’s ridiculous and occasionally crass. Yes, a condom stuck to a woman’s jacket is played for laughs. But it’s a very steep uphill climb from there. Taraji P. Henson stands out as the sports agent who can hear men’s thoughts, proving she’s an excellent physical comedian. Rated R. 117 minutes.