New Releases

Reviews

Ratings:

**** Excellent *** Good

** Fair * Poor

Reviewers: C.R., Carrie Rickey; S.R., Steven Rea; D.D., Dan DeLuca; T.D., Tirdad Derakhshani; D.H., David Hiltbrand; W.S., Inquirer wire services.

Big Eyes

See Steven Rea's review on Page 5.

The Gambler See Tirdad Derakhshani's review on Page 6.

The Imitation Game See Steven Rea's review on Page 4.

Into the Woods See Steven Rea's review on Page 4.

Unbroken See Steven Rea's review on Page 5.

Annie 1/2 Ho-hum remake, and update, of the movie musical about a plucky orphan and the moneyed patriarch whose icy heart is toasted like campfire marshmallows once he lets the girl into his life. Beasts of the Southern Wild's Quvenzhané Wallis is a charmer in the title role, Jamie Foxx, as the Daddy Warbucks-ian Will Stacks, is a cell phone mogul who, sadly, appears to be phoning in his performance. 1 hr. 58

PG

(adult themes) -

S.R.

Beyond the Lights 1/2 A superstar singer finds help in dealing with her new-found fame from a young police officer who is assigned to protect her. 1 hr. 56 PG-13 (sexual content including partial nudity, language, suggestive gestures) - W.S.

Big Hero 6 1/2 Set in a wonderfully realized near-future San Francisco, this animated feature follows an adolescent robotics inventor and his puffy, inflatable companion. Disconcertingly violent and mature for a Disney kids' film. 1 hr. 48 PG (violence) - D.H.

Birdman Michael Keaton is a faded Hollywood star trying to reclaim his career by mounting a Broadway drama in Alejandro G. Iñárritu's fierce, funny, breathless dive inside the head of a man in deep trouble. An exhilarating, out-of-the-blue masterwork that ranks as one of the best films not just of the year, but of the decade, the century. With Edward Norton, Emma Stone, and Naomi Watts. 1 hr. 59 R (profanity, violence, sex, adult themes) - S.R.

Dumb and Dumber To Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels reprise their roles as the intelligence-challenged Lloyd and Harry. Don't ask why. Just get down in this trough of crude humor and root around. 1 hr. 50 PG-13 (profanity, crude and sexual humor, nudity and drug references) - D.H.

Exodus: Gods and Kings Ridley Scott's big and curious cinematic retelling of the story of Moses, the parting of the Red Sea, the burning bush, the march of the Israelites out of Egypt. All the impressive CG effects in the world can't make up for clunky dialogue and one-note thespian-izing. With Christian Bale as the bearded, beleaguered Hebrew prophet, Joel Edgerton as his shiny-domed, eyelinered adoptive sibling, Ramses, and a cast of thousands - most of them virtual. 2 hrs. 30 PG-13 (violence, plagues, adult themes) - S.R.

Force Majeure 1/2 Sweden's official entry in the foreign-language Oscar race finds a family vacationing in the French Alps, where husband and wife are put to the test following a jarring event. Cannes-winning filmmaker Ruben Östlund shows us that sometimes there is an unbridgeable gap between image and reality. 1 hr. 58 R (profanity, brief nudity) - T.D.

Foxcatcher Steve Carell, sporting an aquiline nose and a marionette's gait, morphs into Newtown Square multimillionaire John du Pont, a self-styled coach and sponsor of American wrestling. By inviting Olympic gold medalists Dave and Mark Schultz (Mark Ruffalo and Channing Tatum) to live and train on his estate, du Pont invited disaster, too. Bennett Miller directs this slow-burning, brilliant account of a real-life tragedy. 2 hrs. 14 R (violence, profanity, drugs, adult themes) - S.R.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies The third and final installment in Peter Jackson's bloated adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's wondrous 1937 children's book takes the climactic conflagration and turns it into a giant screen videogame of clashing CGI legions, of dialogue as hoary as it is hilarious. "We attack at dawn!" 2 hrs. 24 PG-13 (violence, adult themes) - S.R.

Horrible Bosses 2 Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, and Charlie Day return as pals completely unsuited to the life of crime they are driven to. (This time it's kidnapping.) The comedy starts with verve and ends with nothing. 1 hr. 48 R (pervasive profanity; crude sexual content) - D.H.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part I Quieter and less flashy than its predecessors, the satisfying third installment in the four-parter based on Suzanne Collins' mega-selling trilogy finds Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss poised to lead the rebellion against the imperious fancypants in the Capitol. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julianne Moore, and Chris Hemsworth are ready to give her an assist. 2 hrs. 4 PG-13 (violence, adult themes) - S.R.

Interstellar Matthew McConaughey leads an intergalactic expedition, searching for a new home for humankind, having turned our planet into a Dust Bowl of doom. Anne Hathaway is along for the ride, and Michael Caine, Jessica Chastain, and Casey Affleck figure into the equation back on Earth. A cinematic experience, to be sure, but lofty queries about quantum physics and the human spirit are weighed down in sci-fi cliches, in default-mode dialogue, and in characters rendered in two dimensions, never mind the fourth and fifth dimensions everyone is talking about. 2 hrs. 49 PG-13 (violence, intense space travel sequences, adult themes) - S.R.

Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb 1/2 The third and promised final chapter in the hit franchise about a bunch of museum figures come to life and the adventures that ensue. Ben Stiller leads the cast, making a trip to London so new characters and new scenarios can transpire. Robin Williams is back as Teddy Roosevelt, and newcomers include Dan Stevens as Lancelot and Rebel Wilson as a museum guard. 1 hr. 37 PG (monkey urination, adult themes) - S.R.

Penguins of Madagascar **1/2 Insistently antic and intermittently clever spinoff of the DreamWorks Animation Madagascar franchise, with feathered, flappered, flightless heroes Skipper, Kowalski, Rico, and Private caught up in global intrigue and groaningly bad punnery involving a gigantically obnoxious purple octopus (the voice of John Malkovich) bent on revenge. 1 hr. 32 PG (cartoon mayhem, adult themes) - S.R.

St. Vincent Bill Murray owns the title role, as a crusty curmudgeon whose world is upended when a single mom (Melissa McCarthy) and her 12-year-old (a terrific Jaeden Lieberher) move in next door. The kid needs a caretaker, and Vincent needs cash. Life lessons, and inappropriate behavior, ensue. A charming comedy, and Murray keeps pulling it back from the cornball abyss. 1 hr. 43 PG-13 (profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

The Theory of Everything 1/2 The life, and loves, of British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking are given keen, poignant treatment in Oscar-winner James Marsh's film, starring Eddie Redmayne as Hawking, and Felicity Jones as Jane Wilde, the student he meets at Cambridge and falls for (and vice versa). Then, the challenge of the disease that cripples Hawking's body. 2 hrs. 3 PG-13 (adult themes) - S.R.

Top Five 1/2 Chris Rock proves he's as brilliant a film auteur as a stand-up comic with this sharp romantic dramedy, which he also wrote and directed. He plays a disillusioned comic who's in N.Y. to promote his first serious film, an earnest if terrible story about slavery. Rosario Dawson is terrific as a reporter who forces the self-indulgent star to face up to his demons. Gabrielle Union is wonderfully sleazy as Rock's narcissistic reality-star fiancée. 1 hr. 41 R (strong sexual content, nudity, crude humor, profanity, drug use) - T.D.

Whiplash 1/2 Miles Teller (the student) and J.K. Simmons (the teacher) star in Damien Chazelle's propulsive drama about an aspiring jazz musician's torturous mentorship at a prestigious New York conservatory. It's a hyperventilated nightmare about artistic struggle and ambition - as much a horror movie as it is a keenly realized indie about jazz, about art, about what it takes to claim greatness. 1 hr. 46 R (violence, profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

Wild Reese Witherspoon, wholly committed and wholly convincing, is Cheryl Strayed, the best-selling memoirist who hiked 1,100 miles, from the Mojave to the Cascades, to try to right a life gone terribly wrong. Blistered, bloodied feet were a sure thing; self-discovery less so. In the end, Strayed got both. 1 hr. 55 R (sex, nudity, profanity, drugs, adult themes) - S.R.