Now Showing
Some reviews originate at newspapers that do not award star ratings; some movies are not screened in advance for critics. Ratings range from zero to four stars.
OPENING TODAY
“Ex Machina” * * *
R. Reviewed on 8C.
“Little Boy PG-13. Reviewed on 4C.
“The Age of Adaline”PG-13. Reviewed on 2C.
“The Mafia Only Kills in Summer” Not rated. Reviewed on 8C.
“The Water Diviner”R. Reviewed on 8C
continuing
Selected mini-reviews of films in theaters, listed alphabetically:
“Danny Collins” Dramedy. * * *
R.
The beginning of the new Al Pacino flick has a familiarity that teases contempt. Oh no, please, not another aging rock-star saga, not another post-midlife-crisis tale. And while director-writer Dan Fogelman’s movie is in many ways just that, hang with Danny on his conscience-cleansing sojourn.
At the Chez. (Lisa Kennedy, The Denver Post) 105 minutes
“Furious 7” Action. PG-13. “Furious 7” provides both a satisfying chapter in the movies’ pre-eminent gearhead soap opera and a tactful, touching memorial to the late Paul Walker. (Scott Foundas, Variety) 137 minutes
“Get Hard” Comedy. * ½ R. Goofball Will Ferrell and the appealing, ascendant Kevin Hart are sure to survive the idiocy of this triple R-rated comedy about a fund manager sentenced to hard time who seeks out a black tutor in prison survival before he heads to the pen. Are there laughs? Some.
(Kennedy) 100 minutes
“Home” Children’s adventure. * * PG. In “Home,” the latest adventure from DreamWorks Animation, the misfit alien protagonist is called Oh (“The Big Bang Theory’s” Jim Parsons) simply because that’s the resigned reaction everyone has when he’s around.
(Lindsay Bahr, The Associated Press) 112 minutes
“Insurgent” Dystopian sequel. * * ½ PG-13.
While “The Divergent Series: Insurgent” is shorter than the original — which introduced us non-readers to Tris Prior, a Divergent in a five faction, post-cataclysmic world — it is not better. The essential thematic tensions remain. How does one understand oneself within society’s many hierarchies and then be true to that self?
In 2-D, 3-D, IMAX 3-D.
(Kennedy) 115 minutes
“Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter” Adventure. PG-13. Our desire that life should be more like it is in the movies beats at the heart of “Kumiko the Treasure Hunter,” a wonderfully strange and beguiling adventure story. With its Midwestern setting, its quixotic, fortune-seeking protagonist and the presence of Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor as executive producers, “Kumiko” will inevitably draw some comparisons to Payne’s own recent “Nebraska,” though in actuality the Zellners have been trying to make this movie for the better part of a decade, inspired by the urban legend surrounding Takako Konishi, a young Japanese woman found dead in a snowy field in northern Minnesota in 2001. Rinko Kikuchi is cast in the title role. At the Sie FilmCenter. (Scott Foundas, Variety) 104 minutes
“The Longest Ride” Drama. PG-13. As spring perennials go, a new Nicholas Sparks movie has come to seem as inevitable as tax day. Though the character names and faces may change, the place (coastal North Carolina) remains the same, as do the trials facing the star-crossed lovers who traverse its shores. “The Longest Ride” parallels the fates of two couples from different eras navigating the gauntlet of war, class relations, cataclysmic accidents and life-altering medical conditions. Scott Eastwood, Lolita Davidovich, Britt Robertson, Alan Alda and Oona Chaplin star.
(Foundas) 129 minutes
“Monkey Kingdom” Docu-fiction. G. The eighth entry in Disney’s eco-minded Disneynature series may well be its cheekiest, funniest and most purely entertaining. Tracking a tale of forbidden love and literal social climbing amidst a macaque clan in Sri Lanka, this Mark Linfield-directed docu-fiction contains typically top-shelf nature photography, an uncannily relatable cast of primate characters, and an anthropomorphic narrative. (Andrew Barker, Variety) 82 minutes
“The Salt of the Earth” Documentary. PG-13. Wim Wenders’ mastery of the documentary form is again on display in this stunning visual ode to the photographer Sebastiao Salgado, co-directed by the shutterbug’s documentary-making son Juliano Ribeiro Salgado. Long recognized as one of the camera’s great artists, Sebastiao’s sculptural use of light and space is combined with a deep empathy for the human condition, resulting in richly complex black-and-white images that capture the dignity within every subject. “Salt” guides the viewer on a visual odyssey through the photographer’s career, enriched by Wenders’ monochrome footage and Juliano’s color. At the Chez. (Jay Weissberg, Variety) 110 minutes
“Seymour: An Introduction” Documentary. PG. Although clearly designed as a reverent tribute from one artist to another, this first documentary directed by Ethan Hawke grants full expression to Seymour Bernstein’s wise and witty commentary on a craft that he’s spent decades honing. At the Sie FilmCenter. (Justin Chang, Variety) 81 minutes
“True Story” Crime drama. * * * ½ R. Whether you’re a James Franco-phile or a hater, this drama based in on former New York Times journalist Michael Finkel’s memoir “Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa” is worth seeing. Franco portrays Christian Longo, an Oregon man accused of killing his wife and their three children in 2001. Jonah Hill proves once again his dramatic mettle as Finkel, who is alerted to the fact that when Longo was apprehended in Mexico he was using his name. An interesting choice on Longo’s part, not least because Finkel had been fired from the Times for cooking facts in a piece on slavery in Mali. His reputation had taken a grievous, self-inflicted wound. Brit theater ace Rupert Goold directs this engrossing story of ambition, psychological transference and malevolence with gravity and a telling respect for subtlety and for the moral hazards of true crime tales. Felicity Jones portrays Finkel’s wife, Jill, who, less enamored with Longo, delivers one of the most satisfying moments in “True Story.” (Kennedy) 100 minutes
“Unfriended” Thriller. R. A victim of cyberbullying gets her revenge on the teens responsible for her suicide in “Unfriended” (originally titled “Cybernatural”), a horror movie distinguished by the device that everything takes place on one character’s computer screen. Simultaneously clever and exasperating, the film puts a novel spin on the genre Roger Ebert dubbed “the Dead Teenager Movie,” wherein frustratingly dim adolescents defy even the most obvious survival instincts, getting themselves eliminated in a series of creatively gory ways. Here, rather than shouting, “Don’t go up those stairs!” at the screen, audiences may find themselves screaming, “Don’t click that button!” as the characters make ill-informed decisions on their computers that lead to death by handgun, knife and blender. Our vision is limited to whatever a character named Blaire (Shelley Hennig) sees on her Mac laptop.
(Peter Debruge, Variety) 82 minutes
“What We Do In the Shadows” Comedic horror. * * *
R. You’ve got to love a thing to skewer it as well Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement do in their delightfully silly vampire mockumentary. The film’s writers, directors and stars lovingly impale bloodsucker mythology with the sharpened stick of comedy.
At the Chez. (Michael O’Sullivan, The Washington Post) 86 minutes
“While We’re Young” Comedy. * * * ½ R. Writer-director Noah Baumbach works wonders with actor Ben Stiller’s more prickly qualities in this charmer about generational envy and affection. Sure, New York documentary filmmaker Josh Srebnick (Stiller) can be difficult, narcissistic even, but his self-doubt is touchingly believable — and funny. Even more poignant and just as amusing is Naomi Watt’s portrayal of Cornelia, Josh’s wife. When the pair meet and fall for 20-somethings Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried), their routine takes a holiday, for better and complicated. Adam Horovitz and Maria Dizzia) play Josh and Cornelia’s best friend couple and brand spanking new parents Fletcher and Marina, whom they basically begin to cheat on with the hipster young ‘uns. Charles Grodin hits understated, compassionate notes as Cornelia’s father — a legend in documentary circles.(Kennedy) 94 minutes
“White God” Drama. R. The words “release the hounds” take on vibrant new meaning in this thrillingly strange update of the “Lassie Come Home” formula in which one lost mutt’s incredible journey to sanctuary evolves into a full-scale man-vs.-beast revolution. Otherwise given no explanation in the film, the title “White God” may be a tip of the hat to Samuel Fuller, whose 1982 race-relations allegory “White Dog” takes a similarly conflicted view of the relationship between man and his supposed best friend. Every human character in Mundruczo’s film stands as either a threat or an obstacle to our canine antihero.
(Guy Lodge, Variety) 117 minutes
“Woman in Gold” Art drama. PG-13. Director Simon Curtis’ “good taste” account of how a determined Jewish exile (played by Helen Mirren) sought the restitution of a Gustav Klimt painting seized by the Nazis. This compelling true story forbids any room for reasonable audiences to question Maria Altmann’s case, striking back at the anti-Semitism of the time with a oxious caricature of modern Austrians as law-bending, art-thieving monsters. At the Esquire. (Debruge) 111 minutes
