Nowshowing

movies at local cinemas

ART THIEF

Not rated, 94 minutes. Starts Friday at Madison.

Through today only at Mystic.

After stealing a painting from a local museum, a passionate-but-untalented artist is thrust into the midst of the biggest art theft in modern history. Inspired by true events. A review wasn’t available.

ARTHUR THE KING

PG-13, 107 minutes. Westbrook, Lisbon.

This inspirational film is based on a true story, originally a quirky human interest sports news item about an Ecuadorian stray dog who bonded with a team of Swedish adventure racers in the middle of a grueling six-day trek, following them to the finish line, and eventually back to Sweden with racer Mikael Lindnord. This is fairly standard, and often treacly heartwarming dog fare.

— Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service

CABRINI

PG-13, 145 minutes. Westbrook.

“Cabrini,” an illuminating if workmanlike portrait of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, tells the story of the woman behind the name that has graced hundreds of shrines, hospitals, parks and schools. In this handsomely filmed chronicle of Cabrini’s rise. She was woman who at first glance was a modest, physically frail nun but who emerges as a fiercely determined figure who battled sexism, xenophobia and her own ailments to give radical meaning to the words “on Earth as it is in heaven.”

— Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

CIVIL WAR

R, 169 minutes. Mystic, Waterford, Westbrook,

Lisbon, Madison, United Westerly.

The United States is crumbling in Alex Garland’s sharp new film “Civil War,” a bellowing and haunting big screen experience. The country has been at war with itself for years by the time we’re invited in, through the gaze of a few journalists documenting the chaos on the front lines and chasing an impossible interview with the president. In “Civil War,” starring Kirsten Dunst as a veteran war photographer named Lee, Garland is challenging his audience once again by not making the film about what everyone thinks it will, or should, be about. All we really know is that the so-called Western

Forces of Texas and California have seceded from the country and are closing in to overthrow the government. We don’t know what they want or why.

— Lindsey Bahr, Associated Press

DUNE: PART TWO

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PG-13, 166 minutes. Waterford, Westbrook, Lisbon.

There’s a moment late in Denis Villeneuve’s sweeping sci-fi epic “Dune: Part Two,” when the camera lingers on a hand emerging out of desert sand, forming into a fist. It’s a small but apt visual metaphor for this sequel’s story, which takes all of the foundational exposition aid in “Dune: Part One,” and kicks the plot of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel into spice-powered motion. Power, and violence, rise from the desert sand of the planet Arrakis, where Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) has found his true path. This film is a spectacular feat of science-fiction filmmaking.

— Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service

THE FIRST OMEN HHH

R, 120 minutes. Through today only at Waterford, Westbrook. Still playing at Lisbon.

I hate to call “The First Omen” unexpectedly well-crafted and a little surprising, even. But for an essentially unnecessary prequel to “The Omen,” the 1976 hit about one satanically minded child, two unfortunate parents and three sixes, its virtues point to an auspicious feature debut from director/co-writer Arkasha Stevenson. Young Margaret (Nell Tiger Free) is a novitiate soon to take the veil. “The First Omen” imagines what a powerful subset of Catholic leadership might resort to in order to get lapsed believers back into the pews and praying for their lives.

— Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE

PG-13, 115 minutes. Waterford, Westbrook, Lisbon.

It doesn’t feel good to beat up on a movie like “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” which is a film with the right intentions: to entertain families looking for spectacle that will please both kids and their Gen X/millennial parents. It’s at least slightly better than its ghoulish predecessor, “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” because at least there aren’t any holograms of deceased actors in this one, which is a relief. What else could one possibly say about “Ghostbusters” in general, and this perfectly fine, but incredibly dull installment specifically? It does exactly what it needs to do for die-hard fans and families seeking a night out at the movies.

— Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service