Friday’s openings: All movies great and small

Above : Michelle Yeoh stars as a woman unstuck in time and place in “Everything Everywhere All At Once.” (Photo/A24)

Three movies are opening nationwide on Friday, which means that all have a good chance to play on local screens. One is a fantasy thriller, one is an action-packed drama and one is an animated children’s film based on a videogame.

Or, one stars Michelle Yeoh , one was directed by Michael Bay and one is the sequel to a children’s film that’s based on a videogame.

The three films are:

“Everything Everywhere All At Once”: Yeoh plays a woman who, caught up in the multivverse, is called upon the save the world while experiencing all the different lives she could have had.

A.O. Scot t of the New York Times wrote, “Yes, the movie is a metaphysical multiverse galaxy-brain head trip, but deep down – and also right on the surface – it’s a bittersweet domestic drama, a marital comedy, a story of immigrant striving and a hurt-filled ballad of mother-daughter love.”

“Ambulance” : Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen star as adopted brothers who, desperate for money, rob a bank and then hijack an ambulance (plus the EMT and wounded cop inside it) in an attempt to escape. Note: This is Bay’s first film since 2019’s “6 Underground.”

Clarisse Loughrey of the (UK) Independent wrote, “It’s as exhausting as it is exhilarating, in the way you both expect and desire from a Bay film.”

“Sonic the Hedgehog 2” : Jim Carrey returns as the villain in this sequel to 2020’s original, this time with our blue hero battling Carrey’s Dr. Robotnik for an emerald that has the power to destroy civilizations.

Leslie Felperin of The Guardian wrote, “There’s not very much to say about it, other than it’s mildly amusing and reasonably competently assembled.” Damn a movie with faint praise much?

More may be coming. I’ll update as the week progresses.