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Reviews of movies showing in theaters or streaming online
‘DOCTOR STRANGE’: This latest Marvel Cinematic Universe bid to keep the MCU going until we’re all moldering underground is not business as usual. It is a paradox: a glumly playful experiment in testing the story limits of multiverse travel, while dramatizing all the wrong ways of dealing with grief, guilt and a broken heart (Doctor Strange’s and the Scarlet Witch’s). The script’s a messy sort of mess. There are also clear signs of a nervy director at work. We begin with a bittersweet wedding. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), who nearly destroyed our world in order to save it from Thanos, attends the nuptials of his one true love (Rachel McAdams), who is marrying another. All of a CGI sudden, a one-eyed giant octopus from another dimension appears on the Manhattan streets below, in violent pursuit of a new character, young America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez). This teenager is blessed/ cursed with the ability to move in and out of other universes. And this makes her valuable to Wanda Maximoff, aka the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen, whose grief has turned to monomaniacal rage). In “Doc Strange 2” Wanda has lost touch with her better instincts, having availed herself of the “Darkhold,” which sounds like something Baron von Raschke used to try in the wrestling ring. The antidote to the Darkhold is the hallowed Book of the Vishanti, which is the very thing Strange and America are after in the nightmare vision of the prologue. All this determines the fate of the multiverse, while factoring into an audience’s enjoyment of the movie not much at all. 2:06. 2 ½ stars. — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
‘HAPPENING’: Audrey Diwan’s masterly second feature, “Happening,” is the story of a young woman trying to save her own life; a harrowing, tense and utterly riveting survival story. The question of whether or not our young hero, Anne (Anamaria Vartolomei), racing against the clock, will make it out with her future intact is the urgently dramatic question at hand. “Happening” is the story of an abortion, one that the French writer Annie Ernaux underwent in her early 20s as a college student, in 1960s France, when abortion was illegal there. It was an experience that she documented in her 2000 memoir “L’événement,” which Diwan and Marcia Romano adapted for the screen. “Happening,” which won the Golden Lion at the 2021 Venice Film Festival, is a powerful argument for life: for Anne’s life, in fact, and her right to live hers how she chooses. In French with English subtitles. 1:39. 4 stars. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Services
‘HATCHING’: In the fantastical Finnish horror fairytale “Hatching,” the directorial debut of Hannah Bergholm, a young girl hatches a murderous bird monster out of an egg that she secretly nests in her bed, and that’s not even the scariest part — her perfectionist mommy blogger mother strikes the truest terror in the film. Like many great monster movies, “Hatching” uses a monster as a metaphor for repressed emotion, and the creature at the center of this film is one of the most uniquely grotesque creations seen on screen in a long time. In Finnish with English subtitles. 1:27. 3 stars. — Katie Walsh
‘THE INNOCENTS’: The babes in the woods of Eskil Vogt’s “The Innocents” are some of the scariest kids you’ll see on movie screens this year. Bored over the summer holidays and living in a large Norwegian housing development, they while away the long summer hours inflicting a kind of casual cruelty on animals and other children, motivated by childish curiosity, subconscious trauma and newly discovered psychic abilities. With a careful economy of storytelling, Vogt lays out how and why these kids end up trapped in this destructive cycle. In Norwegian with English subtitles. Available via video on demand. 1:57. 3 stars. — Katie Walsh
‘MEMORY’: Back in 2001, Guy Pearce starred in Christopher Nolan’s “Memento,” a film about a man tracking down his wife’s killer while suffering from memory loss, using notes and tattoos on his body to remember clues in his search. In 2022, he’s co-starring in a film in which a contract killer suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s uses similar methods in order to keep track of details. But that’s where the comparisons between “Memento” and Martin Campbell’s “Memory” end. The former was a groundbreaking neo-noir classic; the latter is best forgotten as soon as possible. “Memory” is yet another entry in the Liam Neeson Gets Revenge sub-genre, a sprawling body of work that sprung up after the surprise success of the 2008 actionthriller “Taken.” You know the drill: a child or some other vulnerable person is threatened, his character has got a very particular set of skills, rescue and/or vengeance ensues. That’s at least one of the plots of “Memory,” a tangled mess of intertwining storylines and too many two-dimensional characters. In English and Spanish with English subtitles. 1:53. 1 ½ stars. — Katie Walsh
‘THE NORTHMAN’: In 1982, “Conan the Barbarian” enticed audiences with a poster promising four phases of a rough man’s rough life: “Thief. Warrior. Gladiator. King.” “The Northman,” which wanders narratively but, as cinema, basically eats “Conan” for breakfast, follows what might be considered a similar career path: Prince, followed by Slave, then Viking Marauder, and finally Newly Sensitized Lover and Potential Family Man. Alexander Skarsgard takes the title role, as well as taking a fair bit of on-screen punishment en route to a climactic battle at the Gates of Hel. There, at Hel, Amleth, played by Skarsgard, wields his mighty sword against his kingdom-usurping uncle (Claes Bang) surrounded by rivers of flaming molten lava. They’re nude, discreetly silhouetted, and as in much of “The Northman” the scene’s melding of digital and practical effects and design strategies doesn’t lead to the usual fantasy generica. Robert Eggers creates worlds that used to be, or never were, but thanks to his chosen medium, there they are, vivid and alive. 2:16. 3 stars. — Michael Phillips
‘ON THE COUNT OF THREE’: Comedian Jerrod Carmichael is officially a triple threat. The writer and performer can now add director to his bio, making his debut with the pitchblack suicide comedy “On the Count of Three,” in which he co-stars opposite Christopher Abbott. The film, which Carmichael directed from a script written by “The Carmichael Show” writer Ari Katcher, who co-wrote with Ryan Welch, premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The film opens in medias res, with lifelong best friends Kevin (Abbott) and Val (Carmichael) about to shoot each other in the head outside of a strip club at 10 in the morning. Rewinding a few hours, we come to find out how these best friends found themselves there, which begins with Val getting a promotion at the Feed & Seed shop where he works, and attempting to hang himself in the bathroom while his co-worker sings Travis Tritt’s “It’s a Great Day to Be Alive” at the urinal. Val’s failure leads him to break Kevin out of the psychiatric