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Reviews of movies showing in theaters or streaming online
‘AMSTERDAM’: The trailer for David O. Russell’s latest ensemble romp, “Amsterdam,” seems to promise some kind of 1930s-set caper about a dead body and a trio of friends who are fingered for a murder. Presumably, Amsterdam will figure in, but the premise presented is vague at best. As it turns out, the trailer is sly by design, and the film itself doesn’t even give away its own gambit — and reason for existing — until the very end. “Amsterdam” boasts all the markers of a prestigious project, including a cavalcade of movie stars, from Oscar winners (Christian Bale, Rami Malek) to stunt casting (Taylor Swift, Mike Myers). At its core, “Amsterdam” is a movie about friendship, and kindness, a theme that Russell underlines and italicizes in its last moments. But it’s a challenge to buy what he’s selling here when even he doesn’t seem to buy it. 2:14. 1 ½ stars. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
‘DON’T WORRY DARLING’: Everything not right with “Don’t Worry Darling” (starring Florence Pugh, Harry Styles and Chris Pine) wasn’t right from the beginning. Even a good director — and Olivia Wilde is that, though her hand in developing this material clearly wasn’t without some wrong turns — must deal with script problems if they’re there, in the story, lurking and waiting to mess everything up and send audiences out muttering, wait what? Filmed in Palm Springs, California, and environs, “Don’t Worry Darling” takes place in a planned community housing the employees of the Victory Project, a plainly sinister operation tasked with building … something in the desert, perhaps weapons, perhaps something else. “Progressive materials,” they call it. The husbands are sworn to secrecy; the wives know very little and are prized for their discretion and their smiling conformity. The story is set in peak Sinatra period, late ’50s/early ’60s. The two rules in “Don’t Worry Darling” are don’t worry and don’t venture beyond the community’s limits, certainly not anywhere near “Headquarters” up in the mountains. Contrary to popular opinion, Styles is not “the problem” with this movie; he’s not much, and Pugh has to act a lot to get something going with him in the dramatic scenes. But Wilde and screenwriter Katie Silberman should’ve seen the problems with their story, and its central, rusty hook, literal years before filming started. 2:03. 2 stars. — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
‘HALLOWEEN ENDS’:
Previously, in the “Halloween” franchise: The residents of Haddonfield, fed up with four decades of fear inflicted by their local mask-wearing serial killer, Michael Myers, descended into a pitchfork-wielding mob, chanting “Evil dies tonight.” Unfortunately, it was a forgone conclusion that they would not be successful in their crusade, because the film, “Halloween Kills,” was only the second installment in David Gordon Green’s trio of Hallo-reboots, and he still needed a Myers for the third film in the trilogy, “Halloween Ends.”
And end it does, not with a scream but with a whimper, or perhaps, a sigh of relief that it’s over — the franchise that is, at least for now. Streaming on Peacock. 1:51. 2 stars.
— Katie Walsh
‘LUCKIEST GIRL ALIVE’:
In 2017, the “Luckiest Girl Alive” bestselling author and, now, screenwriter Jessica Knoll wrote about what happened to her at age 15, and how it informed the writing of the book that became the Netflix adaptation. The opening of Knoll’s essay: “The first person to tell me I was gang-raped was a therapist, seven years after the fact. The second was my literary agent, five years later, only she wasn’t talking about me. She was talking about Ani, the protagonist of my novel, which is a work of fiction. What I’ve kept to myself, up until today, is that its inspiration is not.” For the screen version of “Luckiest Girl Alive,” starring Mila Kunis as Ani, Knoll made changes and added an upbeat epilogue. The essentials, however, along with the narrative particulars and the trauma underneath it all, remain much the same, which is how presold fans of the book prefer it. Streaming on Netflix. 1:55. 2 stars.
— Michael Phillips
‘LYLE, LYLE CROCODILE’: “Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile” is indeed a strange beast, both the animal — a city-dwelling croc with the voice of an angel — and the movie, which is also a sort of monstrous hybrid of unexpected tones. Based on the children’s book series by Bernard Waber, adapted by Will Davies, “Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile” is directed by Josh Gordon and Will Speck, who are known for more adult comedies like “Office Christmas Party,” “The Switch” and “Blades of Glory,” and they bring a bit of that ironic sensibility to the film, which is both a blessing and a curse. It’s clear every adult in the room is in on the joke in the over-the-top “Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile,” including Gordon and Speck, as well as Scoot McNairy and Constance Wu, who play Mr. and Mrs. Primm, the gobsmacked couple who find themselves cohabitating with Lyle in a Manhattan brownstone, after their son Josh (Winslow Fegley) befriends the creature. “Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile” goes for a kind of “Clifford the Big Red Dog” vibe, with the whole “fantastical pet in New York City” plot, but there’s not enough connective tissue in the writing, which feels choppy and abrupt. Benj Pasek and Justin Paul’s songs end up having to do much of the emotional heavy lifting, and the rest of the film feels cobbled together from random parts scavenged from other kids’ movies and pop culture ephemera. 1:46. 2 stars. — Katie Walsh
‘SMILE’: Writer/director Parker Finn’s feature debut “Smile” boasts the thinnest of premises based on a laundry list of horror movie trends and tropes. Based on his 2020 short film “Laura Hasn’t Slept,” Finn inserts the latest hot topic in horror — trauma — into a story structured around a death curse chain. All that’s needed to pass along the curse is a mere smile, but it’s the kind of chinlowered, eyes-raised toothy grin that communicates something far more devious than friendly. That’s pretty much the movie right there, but Finn fleshes it out with some dizzying cinematography by Charlie Sarroff, a creepily effective score by Cristobal Tapia de Veer, and a believably twitchy lead performance from Sosie Bacon. 1:55. 2 stars. — Katie Walsh
‘TILL’: The tragic story of Emmett Till is one of a face. The face of a 14-year-old boy, beaten and murdered in Mississippi, a battered and bloated face that his mother insisted be seen by the world. Chinonye Chukwu’s “Till” is a story of two faces: Emmett’s and that of his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler in a skilled and undeniably star-making screen performance. In imagining a way to tell Emmett Till’s story without focusing on the violence and torture the boy suffered, Chukwu, along with co-writers Michael Reilly and Till investigator and filmmaker Keith Beauchamp, focus on Mamie, whose decision to share her son’s face with the world had an indelible impact on the civil rights movement. 2:10. 4 stars.
— Katie Walsh
‘THE WOMAN KING’: When actor Maria Bello visited the West African nation of Benin in 2015, she learned the history of the Agojie, an all-female military regiment from the Kingdom of Dahomey. Recognizing the cinematic potential for this story, she developed the project with producer Cathy Schulman, and landed
“The Old Guard” director Gina Prince-Bythewood as director, as well as the formidable Oscar-winning actor Viola Davis as the star. The result is “The Woman King,” an epic, inspiring and beautifully made historical action film that puts women in the middle of the battle for Dahomey circa 1823. “The Woman King” is a remarkable, powerful film, and not to be missed. In English and Portuguese with English subtitles. 2:15. 3 ½ 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.