A QUIET PASSION

outside of rabid Marvel fandom knew about that had heart, humor and a cool soundtrack. What’s not to love? “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” feels less like a fresh discovery and is far more self-conscious about its quirkiness. Director/co-writer James Gunn returns with what’s essentially more of the same; there’s nothing particularly surprising and, at 15 minutes longer than its predecessor, it has moments that sag. Still, “GotG 2” at its best is a lot of fun, even if it now seems the “Galaxy” formula has been set for the many sequels surely to come. Much as with that other behemoth of a franchise starring Vin Diesel, “The Fast and the Furious,” “GotG” is all about misfits finding familial bonds with each other. This time around our reluctant hero from the last film, Peter Quill/Star Lord (Chris Pratt), is reunited with his father, Ego (Kurt Russell), who abandoned him many years before and Peter never knew why. Peter gets to put the missing puzzle pieces together as Ego re-enters his life, promising him things that just may be too good to be true. It turns out Ego can do pretty much whatever he pleases and even has an entire planet of his own where he lives with a female empath, Mantis (Pom Klementieff). How cool is that? Meanwhile, Gamora (Zoe Saldana) is dealing with an angry sister, Nebula (Karen Gillan), who wants her dead. Groot (voice of Diesel), who’s now Baby Groot since he’s a twig from the character in the previous movie, wants love and attention from his adoptive parents, aka the rest of the Guardians crew. Separately, Yondu (Michael Rooker), the thief who raised Quill, can’t stand that he’s fallen out of favor with his father figure, gang boss Stakar Ogord (Sylvester Stallone). There’s also the 1970s-flavored soundtrack which, as in the last movie, is something of a character itself. While using Looking Glass’ 1972 pop hit, “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl),” to open an intentionally cheesy movie about space adventurers or having Groot dance to Electric Light Orchestra’s “Mr. Blue Sky” might seem like just a knowing wink to boomer grandparents, by the time the film ends sweetly with Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son,” the music has taken on an unexpected emotional resonance. It’s perhaps a too-obvious choice in a film about the importance of family and finding strength in those around you but it works and, besides, how much subtlety do you want in a movie with a talking raccoon? — Cary Darling, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD

PG-13, 126 minutes. Niantic, Waterford, Stonington, Westbrook, Lisbon. It’s bold, it’s daring, it’s a black metal acid trip. It will most likely give you motion sickness. It’s Guy Ritchie’s take on the King Arthur story, so naturally, this King Arthur (Charlie Hunnam) is really into bare-knuckle boxing, (see Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes” and “Snatch”). “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword” is unlike any other medieval warfare and sorcery movie ever committed to film, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good. This King Arthur superhero origin story is strange, invigorating, often outright bad, confusing, and totally wild. In this version of the well-known story (sword, stone, wizards, etc.), the film isn’t so much written as it is edited within an inch of its life. Most people assume that movies can’t tell an effecting story with rapidly edited montages alone, but what “King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword” presupposes is — maybe it can? It can’t, but it’s a noble effort. In the first half, Ritchie and editor James Herbert manage to nail a delicate balance in the aggressive edit. The film flashes forward, back, sideways and through time, slashing through hypotheticals, plans, nightmares, memories, and tall tales. By the thinnest thread, they maintain character, tone, place and time. But the second half of the film devolves into a fetid stew of muddled timelines and mushy details. About two-thirds of the way through, at about the point where Ritchie has attached cameras to his actors’ shoulders so the audience can jog along, looking at the underside of someone’s chin as they run and jump and hurtle through space, it all becomes a bit exhausting and disorienting. Ritchie, Herbert and the writers don’t establish character well enough in the early part of the film, but they attempt to achieve touching character moments in the second half, which is difficult when we barely have a grasp on each character’s name, who they are, and what they’re doing. That’s a shame for the story since it revolves around the themes of friendship and male companionship. With no Guinevere or love triangle, Arthur is only motivated by a desire to protect his friends and loved ones, which distinguishes him from his evil uncle, King Vortigern (Jude Law), who has no problem slashing relatives down one by one if it makes him more powerful. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service

KONG: SKULL ISLAND

PG-13, 120 minutes. Westbrook.

Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts has said in interviews that he pitched “Kong: Skull Island” to Warner Bros. as “King Kong” meets “Apocalypse Now.” Working with an 84-year-old cinematic character, Vogt-Roberts has injected new life into the property by borrowing heavily from a Francis Ford Coppola New Hollywood classic that’s now 38 years-old. The result shows its influence — it could have easily been titled “Apocalypse Kong” — but it’s surprisingly fun and fresh. It’s only March, but with the one-two punch of “Logan” and now “Kong,” have blockbusters become great again? “Kong: Skull Island” takes place in 1973, when a motley crew of scientists, cartographers, a photojournalist and a tracker get a military escort to an unknown island from a group of soldiers on their way out of Vietnam. The plan is to check things out before the Russians do, naturally. Kong is isn’t the only game in town on this island, as they discover from kooky, long-lost American pilot Marlow, (John C. Reilly) shot down in 1944, who survived thanks to the native tribe. Kong is the protector against what he calls the “skullcrushers,” serpentine dragon-monsters that come up from the earth’s hollow core. The film is as overflowing with characters as it is with prehistoric monsters, which keeps things moving at a rapid clip. When their helicopters are initially swatted out of the air by the mountain-sized primate, everyone scatters into different groups — there are the soldiers, lead by Col. Packard (Samuel L. Jackson), who goes dark, fast. Denied a satisfactory culmination to Vietnam, he swears revenge on Kong. The other group is led by the peaceniks, if you will, a British tracker named Conrad (Tom Hiddleston) and photojournalist Mason Weaver (Brie Larson), who preach co-existence over obliteration. “Skull Island” is never boring, but it never sits still. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service

THE LOST CITY OF Z

1/2 PG-13, 141 minutes. Through today only at Niantic. In 2005, The New Yorker magazine published a piece by journalist David Grann, a journey through Brazil, retracing the steps of English explorer Percy Fawcett, who mapped the uncharted depths of the Amazon in the early 20th century. Grann later expanded this piece into a book, “The Lost City of Z,” published in 2009, and now the cinematic adaptation of Fawcett’s adventures has been brought to the screen with a richly detailed specificity by writer-director James Gray. Though Fawcett’s story is known, it’s almost better if one embarks on this voyage with as little knowledge about him as possible, as Gray weaves this tale of Fawcett’s incredible journey and restless soul with a sense of intimate immediacy. Charlie Hunnam stars as Fawcett, resplendent of mustache and swaggering of spirit. He’s a man with ambition beyond his circumstances, born with a poor choice of ancestors in terms of his hopes to move up in the ranks. It’s only through sheer force of will and talent that Fawcett can establish his own good name for himself, so he takes a position on a mapping expedition to Bolivia, in the realm of Amazonia, a word that he will come to utter with the utmost reverence, like a lost lover’s name. With his aide-de-camp Mr. Costin (Robert Pattinson), Fawcett bushwhacks through the thickest jungle, tangles with cannibalistic tribespeople, barely survives piranha feedings, and develops a sort of addiction to the steamy, foreboding land, filled with the promise of mystery and discovery. Fawcett becomes convinced that there’s a lost ancient city to be found in Amazonia, a belief that sends him back again, and again; the vision tempts him all the way to the trenches of World War I, filled with chlorine gas and bloody mud. It’s a belief scoffed at in the halls of the Royal Geographic Society, populated by pasty men in stuffed shirts who believe themselves superior to the primitive folk of the Amazon. But if anyone has a vested interest in disrupting hierarchies of power and equality, it’s Fawcett. This is possibly Hunnam’s best role and best performance to date. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service

NORMAN: THE MODERATE RISE AND TRAGIC FALL OF A NEW YORK FIXER

R, 117 minutes. Madison Art Cinemas, Mystic Luxury Cinemas. Subtle, unsettling, slyly amusing, “Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer” takes some getting used to because it’s the kind of film we’re not used to seeing. Starring an unexpectedly persuasive Richard Gere and the first English-language film from top Israeli filmmaker Joseph Cedar, this delicate, novelistic character study is what more American independent films would be like if more were made by thoughtful grown-ups who gravitated toward nuance and complexity. The gifted Cedar, a writer-director whose last two works, “Beaufort” and “Footnote,” were Oscar nominated, never makes the same film twice. Here he’s come up with an entirely involving drama about means and ends, illusion and delusion and the price having your dreams come true can extract, all of it centering on a man named Norman. Norman’s last name, Oppenheimer, is Cedar’s acknowledged tribute to Joseph Suss Oppenheimer, an influential and ill-fated 18th century “court Jew” who was a banker and behindthe-scenes mover and shaker for a powerful German duke. Impeccably played by Gere, who has completely immersed himself in a very unlikely role, this Oppenheimer starts out without even a thimbleful of money or influence. A pusher, a hustler, an eternal searcher for the exploitable angle, Norman has nothing to go on but his drive. In a wise but unorthodox move, Cedar doesn’t try to explain or psychoanalyze Norman, doesn’t provide his back story or reveal his secrets, doesn’t even tell us where Norman lives or whether his claims of family beyond his nephew Philip (the protean Michael Sheen) are true or not. It simply presents his actions in their confounding single-mindedness. Always dressed in the same camel-hair topcoat and gray flat cap over a serviceable black suit, a bag slung across his body and phone earplugs at the ready, Norman is a one-man army. Constantly walking and talking on the streets of Manhattan, unless he’s taking a herring-and-crackers break at a synagogue run by trusting Rabbi Blumenthal (an unexpected Steve Buscemi), Norman is fighting to promote himself at all costs. Told he’s like “a drowning man trying to wave at an ocean liner,” he insists “but I’m a good swimmer.” — Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times PG-13, 125 minutes. Through Thursday only at Madison Art Cinemas. Still playing at Mystic Luxury Cinemas. “A Quiet Passion,” Terence Davies’ masterful new movie, plays out in the sunny gardens and lamp-lighted drawing rooms of 19th century Amherst, Mass., where Emily Dickinson spent most of her 55 years patiently making her monumental contribution to American literature. At first glance, the film, with its lovingly appointed interiors and its excerpts of poetry on the soundtrack, might strike you as a dull and dutiful enshrinement of Dickinson’s brilliance, another ordinary film about an extraordinary artist. But Davies, one of the leading lights of contemporary British cinema, is temperamentally incapable of doing anything ordinary, and he has little interest in advancing the reductive narrative of a troubled, reclusive genius. His eye for lighting, color and movement — the way his camera prefers to inhabit a room, rather than simply follow the action — would distinguish this picture alone, though his chief inspiration turns out to be verbal as well as visual. In contrast with the solo approach taken by William Luce’s 1976 play, “The Belle of Amherst,” Davies’ screenplay anchors Dickinson’s gift within a well-populated social context that, for all its rules and constraints, feels wildly alive with the possibilities of language. Emily, played with steely wit, tremulous vulnerability and astonishing openness by Cynthia Nixon, speaks in a declarative, formal register, as do her family members, friends and acquaintances. The stately rhythms of the dialogue — drawn out by the particulars of Davies’ blocking, framing and editing — become a kind of music. The effect is bewildering at first, then absorbing, then transfixing. Its purpose, in line with the loftiest ideals of poetry itself, is to clear the mind and stir the soul. If that sounds forbiddingly austere, rest assured that Davies also wants to make you laugh. The first half of “A Quiet Passion,” in particular, is a riotous assemblage of drawing-room banter to rival Whit Stillman’s recent adaptation of the

Jane Austen comedy “Love & Friendship,” though the line readings here are more deliberate than effervescent, and even throwaway witticisms prove intimately revealing of character, milieu and circumstance. — Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times

SMURFS: THE LOST VILLAGE

1/2 PG, 89 minutes. Westbrook, Lisbon. In the first few minutes of the animated film “Smurfs: The Lost Village,” I couldn’t help but wonder if this was going to be a terribly long version of the 1980s TV cartoon series. Fortunately, “Lost Village” found its own path and became a sweet story about Girl Power. If you’re not familiar with the characters, the tiny blue Smurfs live in a remote village that’s hidden from their nemesis, the evil Gargamel (Rainn Wilson). Led by Papa Smurf (Mandy Patinkin), the blue boys are aptly named by their characteristics, a la “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” So, there is a Clumsy Smurf (Jack McBrayer), a Hefty Smurf (Joe Manganiello) and a Brainy Smurf (Danny Pudi). This is annoyingly spelled out in the beginning of the film, in case you don’t get the point that Nosey Smurf (director Kelly Asbury) is the creepy one. One Smurf is different from the rest — the lone female of the bunch named Smurfette (Demi Lovato). Her backstory is that she was actually created by Gargamel from blue clay to infiltrate the Smurfs and lead him to their secret home. But Gargamel’s dastardly plot was upended by Papa Smurf, who turned Smurfette into a “real Smurf.” (This was spelled out in the TV series, so there are no spoilers here for true fans.) “The Lost Village” deals with Smurfette’s journey to find out what kind of Smurf she really is. — Maricar Estrell, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

SNATCHED

H1/2 R, 91 minutes. Niantic, Waterford, Stonington, Westbrook, Lisbon. The promising young writer Katie Dippold, who wrote “The Heat” and “Ghostbusters,” strikes out with her third feature, “Snatched.” This mother-daughter kidnapping comedy starring Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn is a huge disappointment, and for Schumer, this is a low moment of a career that’s been peaking. As Emily, Schumer plays her characteristic problematic white girl character, a selfish, selfie-taking narcissist. But there’s no sharp satire to puncture that image, as some of the best work from her Comedy Central show “Inside Amy Schumer” has managed

to pull off. Instead, “Snatched” feels like a rough sketch of a movie rather than a fleshed-out, joke-dense script. Perhaps it’s a bad match of writer and star, with Schumer and Dippold working together for the first time. The story follows Emily, in the wake of a bad breakup, as she brings her mom, Linda, on a nonrefundable vacation to Ecuador, for lack of a better option (all of her friends seem to hate her). “Put the fun back in ‘nonrefundable,’” she whines to Linda, and one can’t help but wonder how an audience member might want to do the same. On their second day in Ecuador, Emily manages to get herself and her mom kidnapped while trying to impress an attractive Brit, James (Tom Bateman). The two hapless blondes set off on an unlikely journey while trying to escape their captors, and along the way, learn a little something about themselves. The story has about as much suspense as it does laughs, which is to say: not much at all. The script can’t decide whether we’re supposed to like Emily or hate her — she’s a bad person who treats her loved ones poorly, and leans on her perceived stupidity and naivete to make her way in the world. The film eventually abandons that thread, steering into girl-power territory and resolving the story with the message that women can rely on themselves, because men are usually either useless or evil. Directed by Jonathan Levine, “Snatched” lacks energy and punch. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service

THE ZOOKEEPER’S WIFE

PG-13, 124 minutes. Through today only at Lisbon. The Holocaust film has become a genre unto itself, and sadly, there are more than enough stories from that era to continue the trend. Against ever-shifting, polarized political landscapes, the lessons gleaned from the horrors of this very recent past are never not relevant. But too often, many of these biopics fall prey to well-trod norms and conventions. In Niki Caro’s “The Zookeeper’s Wife,” the backdrop of a Warsaw zoo offers a new angle, and features a show-stopping performance from Jessica Chastain as the real life Antonina Zabinski, but it otherwise follows a familiar path. Caro, working from script by Angela Workman adapted from Diane Ackerman’s book, smartly places the focus on Antonina. The rest of the plot may go a bit muddy, but when we’re trained on our protagonist, it’s all crystal clear. In an opening sequence, we witness her unique bond with the animals of the zoo, the power she holds over them with her simple approach of open-hearted love and empathy for all. With tenderness and bravery, she calms an elephant and rescues its baby, and those same qualities make her a hero for humans in the face of unspeakable evil. The story is one we know, of ordinary people choosing to do extraordinary things to preserve a shred of humanity in times of war and human destruction. Antonina and her husband, Jan (Johan Heldenbergh), decide to harbor Jews from the Warsaw ghetto in the basement of their home while their zoo is occupied by Nazi forces. They hide these “guests” in plain sight with a system of signals, transporting them from Jan’s garbage collecting truck to underground tunnels. Caro never quite achieves the razor’s edge suspense that such a scenario engenders, as their ruse is only one sneeze, one bad lie, one snitch away from discovery.