Scene from The Hustle, in theaters May 10, 2019
The Hustle (Rated PG-13)
In The Hustle, a pair of scam artists team up to take down the men who wronged them. Glamorous, calculating Josephine (Anne Hathaway) is a seductive Brit. Free-form Penny (Rebel Wilson) is a fun-loving Aussie finding most of her marks in bars. The pair run afoul of one another in the south of France, where they discover they are competing to swindle a naïve tech billionaire (Alex Sharp). Although the women have wildly different styles, they decide to pool their talents and run a coordinated con. This remake of 1988’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels—itself, in fact, a remake of 1964’s Bedtime Story—switches the gender of the male con artists to female. This turnabout required a fresh perspective, meaning that both the jokes and cons got rewrites.
Pokémon Detective Pikachu (Rated PG)
After nearly two dozen cartoon movies, the Pokémon franchise delivers its first live-action film fleshed out with CGI characters. Voicing Pikachu, Ryan Reynolds brings sardonic wit, the extra joke being that a seemingly harmless, rosy-cheeked character is sarcastic and caffeine addicted. Having lost his memory and his human private detective partner Harry, Pikachu investigates Harry’s disappearance with the latter’s teen son, Tim Goodman (Justice Smith). Humans and Pokémon co-exist in the experimental city of Ryme, but it’s unusual that Tim understands Pikachu’s speech, since Pokémon-speak is normally unintelligible to humans. While fans should appreciate the live-action leap, much of the special effects lack polish.
