New and Noteworthy: Movies

Opening Wednesday

Horrible Bosses 2 Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, and Jason Sudeikis, no longer toiling for jerks, form a start-up and hawk a product. They actually have some Shark Tank-like entrepreneurs who are interested in backing them - and who turn out to be just as lousy to work for as the first movie's titular tyrants. With Chris Pine, Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Aniston, and Jamie Foxx. R

Penguins of Madagascar DreamWorks Animation's Madagascar franchise spins off into slapstick spy mode as waddling seabirds Skipper, Kowalski, Rico, and Private get caught up in an espionage caper, with Benedict Cumberbatch providing the voice of their overseer, and John Malkovich the villain. PG

Opening Friday

Antarctica: A Year on Ice And speaking of the far-off and frosty regions of the Southern Hemisphere and the aquatic birds that inhabit it, here's a documentary about the human beings who, facing ice and isolation, live and work on base camps near the South Pole. Not to be confused with Werner Herzog's 2007 doc, Encounters at the End of the World. (Although Herzog is one of the voice talents in Penguins of Madagascar, so it is kind of confusing.)

Reviewed by critics Steven Rea (S.R.), Tirdad Derakhshani (T.D.), Dan DeLuca (D.D.), and David Hiltbrand (D.H.). W.S. denotes a wire-service review.

Read complete reviews at www.inquirer.com/movies.

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 into the head of a man in deep trouble. An exhilarating, out-of-the-blue masterwork that ranks as not just one of the best films 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.

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 Book of Life This animated adventure about a young man's journey is set against the colorful backdrop of the Mexican Day of the Dead. Guillermo del Toro is one of the toon's producers. 1 hr. 35 PG (mild action, rude humor, brief scary images) - W.S.

Force Majeure Sweden's 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.

Gone Girl David Fincher pulls off a cannily crafted adaptation of Gillian Flynn's best seller, a whodunit and a who-are-you- gonna-believe mystery about the disappearance of a wife (Rosamund Pike) and the husband (Ben Affleck) who becomes the prime suspect. With Tyler Perry, Kim Dickens, Neil Patrick Harris. 2 hrs. 29 R (violence, sex, nudity, profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

Keep On Keepin' On This impressive documentary examines jazz legend Clark Terry and his mentorship of blind piano prodigy Justin Kauflin. 1 hr. 26 R (profanity) - D.D.

The Theory of Everything 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. 03 PG-13 (adult themes) - S.R.

Whiplash 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. 1 hr. 46 R (violence, profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day ** Ed Oxenbould plays the boy who unintentionally jinxes his parents (Steve Carell and Jennifer Garner) and siblings. Comic mayhem ensues . . . predictably. An adequate if artificial kids' comedy. 1 hr. 21 PG (profanity, acts of recklessness) - D.H.

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.

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. PG-13 profanity, crude and sexual humor, nudity, and drug references) - D.H.

Fury *** Brad Pitt leads a Sherman tank crew through battle-scarred Germany in the waning months of World War II in David Ayer's visceral, violent combat film. 2 hrs. 15 R (violence, profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

The Homesman *** Tommy Lee Jones stars with Hilary Swank, and directs, this strangely affecting western, about the wary partnership between a grizzled claim jumper and the farm woman, a spinster, who agrees to take three mentally disturbed women from Nebraska to Iowa - a rugged journey of many weeks across land occupied by Indians and thieves. 2 hrs. R (profanity, violence, sex, adult themes) - S.R.

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, which has 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, default-mode dialogue, and 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.

John Wick **1/2 Keanu Reeves plays a legendary hit man who takes on the Russian mob in New York, guns ablazin'! A slick if often preposterous action film with more shooting than a Civil War reenactment. 1 hr. 41 R (intense violence, language, drug use) - D.H.

Nightcrawler *** Creepy satire about a young Los Angeles man (Jake Gyllenhaal) who finds his way into the seedy world of freelance crime journalism. 1 hr. 57 R (graphic violent images, profanity) - T.D.

Ouija * A group of friends unleash dark forces when they play with a Ouija board. It's a duller-than-dull 89 minutes you'll never get back. 1 hr. 29 PG-13 (violent content, frightening horror images) - W.S.

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.