New Releases

Ratings:

**** Excellent

*** Good

** Fair

* Poor

Reviewers: S.R., Steven Rea; D.D., Dan DeLuca; T.D., Tirdad Derakhshani; M.E., Molly Eichel; G.T., Gary Thompson; W.S., Inquirer wire services.

New This Week

Contracted: Phase 2 See Tirdad Derakhshani's review on Page 12.

Learning to Drive See Steven Rea's review on Page 4.

The Perfect Drive See story on Page 5.

The Second Mother See Molly Eichel's review on Page 10.

Steak (R)evolution See Molly Eichel's review on Page 6.

The Visit See Steven Rea's review on Page 4.

Wolf Totem See Tirdad Derakhshani's review on Page 11.

American Ultra **1/2 Stoner Mike (Jesse Eisenberg) is Bourne again when his deeply buried training as a CIA agent is activated. He becomes a killing machine when his girlfriend Phoebe (Kristen Stewart) is kidnapped by a rogue agent (Topher Grace). The romance is played straight, which doesn't work when the violence is played for laughs. 1 hr. 37 R (violence) - G.T.

Amy An extraordinary documentary about Amy Winehouse, the British singer who died in 2011, at age 27, a victim of too much drink, too many drugs and too much fame. 2 hrs. 08 R (drugs, profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

Ant-Man Paul Rudd, droll and deadpan, is a cat burglar with an electrical-engineering degree who puts on a weird, retro getup and can suddenly shrink himself to the size of an ant - and communicate with them, too. 1 hr. 57 PG-13 (violence, profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl 1/2 A 15-year-old girl in freewheeling '70s San Francisco has an affair with her mother's boyfriend in this honest and personal and unblurred examination of a tricky voyage into womanhood. It may sound scandalous, or exploitive, or deeply inappropiate, but the film - written and directed by Marielle Heller, adapted from Phoebe Gloeckner's graphic novel - is none of those things. Instead, it's a revelation. Bel Powley stars, with Kristin Wiig and Alexander Skarsgård. 1 hr. 41 R (sex, nudity, profanity, drugs, adult themes) - S.R.

The End of the Tour 1/2 Infinite Jest author and literary star David Foster Wallace is interviewed by a writer for Rolling Stone, and the two men bat around ideas big and small for five days in this beautiful, brainy, funny, poignant road movie. Jason Segel stars as the grungy, self-deprecating Wallace. Jesse Eisenberg plays the New York journalist David Lipsky, whose memoir about his conversations with the late Wallace became a book - and now this film. 1 hr. 46 R (profanity, adfult themes) - S.R.

Fantastic Four It's overstating things to say this Marvel Comics reboot stars Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, and Jamie Bell, because rarely has a group of actors appeared less invested in the movie they've signed up for. A long, tedious origin story, introducing the quartet of hangdog superheroes, who work best together when they're not bickering, brooding, or running away to South America. 1 hr. 40 PG-13 (violence, profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

The Gift The lives of a happily married couple take a dark turn after a mysterious former acquaintance of the husband shows up. Jason Bateman, Rebecca Hall, and Joel Edgerton star. 1 hr. 48 R (Profanity) - G.T.

Grandma 1/2 Lily Tomlin is at the top of her game in the title role of Paul Weitz's rich, biting character study, playing a lesbian, a feminist, a prize-winning poet, and a failure as a nurturer. And then her high-school age granddaughter (Julia Garner) shows up in desperate need of help. 1 hr. 20 R (profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. 1/2 If looks could kill, this dashing reboot of the '60s TV spy series would be lethal. The perfectly tailored period piece (funny Eastern Block automobiles, bold French couture) stars a trio of exceedingly handsome actors - Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander - dashing and deadpanning their way around some exceedingly handsome locales. A lot of energy and effort has gone into the endeavor, and some of it is fun. But more of it, alas, is tedious. 1 hr. 56 PG-13 (violence, adult themes) - S.R.

Meru **1/2 Filmmaker Jimmy Chin documents his ascent - along with friends Conrad Anker and Renan Ozturk - to the top of Meru, a Himalayan mountain range harder to climb than Everest. But the facts are a bit too wishy-washy for documentary standards. 1 hr. 27 R (profanity) - G.T.

Minions A spinoff of, and prequel to, the Despicable Me movies, starring a trio of yellow, pill-shaped pipsqueaks who speak in an undecipherable tongue and find themselves in the merry employ of a supervillain bent on usurping the British throne. It's 1968 (when else?) and mayhem rules the day. 1 hr. 31 PG (cartoon mayhem, adult themes) - S.R.

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation 1/2 Not nearly as much fun as its 2011 predecessor, Ghost Protocol, which played like a live-action Road Runner movie, Rogue Nation nonetheless does the job of moving Tom Cruise's impossibly spry spy guy Ethan Hunt around the globe, putting him in the thick of one outlandish action set piece after another. 2 hrs. 11 PG-13 (intense action, violence, adult themes) - S.R.

Mistress America A screwball comedy about female friendship, betrayal, and theft, starring the crazily gesticulative Greta Gerwig as a know-it-all New Yorker who decides to mentor a lonely college freshman new to the big city, played by Lola Kirke. 1 hr. 24 R (profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

Mr. Holmes 1/2 Ian McKellen is brilliant as the aging Sherlock Holmes, retired to the countryside, where he keeps bees and tries to keep what's left of his memory from slipping away. A sad, lovely film, reuniting the star with his Gods and Monsters director, Bill Condon. 1 hr. 52 PG (adult themes) - S.R.

No Escape A taut, violent thriller with a xenophobic bent, about an American family who show up in an unnamed Southeast Asian capital just as a bloody coup erupts. "Dad, are people trying to kill us?" wonders the cute little girl. Owen Wilson, as her pop, tries to answer that one. Lake Bell and Pierce Brosnan also star. 1 hr. 43 R (intense violence, profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

Phoenix The formidable Nina Hoss stars in this post-Holocaust noir, playing a jazz singer, and a "Jewess," looking for her spouse in the rubble of Berlin. Hoss' Barbara collaborator, Christian Petzold, directs. 1 hr. 38 PG-13 (violence, adult themes) - S.R.

Pixels ** 1/2 Adam Sandler and buddies (including Frozen's Josh Gad, frequent collaborator Kevin James, and Game of Thrones' Peter Dinklage) band together to fight an alien race that has appropriated videogame characters to attack the human race. 1 hr. 46 PG-13 (language, suggestive comments) - W.S.

Ricki and the Flash Finally - and the news should really come as a relief - here's a role Meryl Streep shouldn't have tried, in a movie that shouldn't have been made. As a rock-and-roller fronting a So-Cal bar band, the actress with the most Oscar nominations of anyone in history can carry a tune, but she can't carry the character of a tattooed, tart-tongued woman who long ago left her family behind in Indiana. 1 hr. 42 PG-13 (profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

Rosenwald The remarkable story of Julius Rosenwald, a high school drop-out, the son of German Jews, who became the president of Sears Roebuck and gave millions of his own money to help build schools for African Americans in the Jim Crow South of the early 20th century. No MPAA rating (adult themes) - S.R.

Shaun the Sheep 1/2 Shaun takes the day off and winds up with more action than he bargained for in this Claymation family feature. 1 hr. 25 PG (rude humor) - G.T.

Southpaw Jake Gyllenhaal is fierce and muscular, in and out of the ring, in this shameless boxing melodrama about a champ who loses everything and then fights to get his everything back. With Rachel McAdams, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, and Oona Laurence. 2 hrs. 03 R (violence, profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine 1/2 Academy Award-winning documentarian Alex Gibney probes and parses the biography of the man behind Apple, the "paradigm shifter" who shepherded the iPhone, iPad, and iTunes into the world. A provocative film that explores the deeply conflicted, contradictory nature of its subject. 2 hrs. 07 R (profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

Straight Outta Compton *** Legendary gangsta rappers N.W.A get the biopic treatment. The film follows Ice Cube (played by the real rapper's son, O'Shea Jackson Jr.), Dr. Dre, Eazy E, and crew as they come up in Compton - easily the movie's best part - through their record-company-related woes, featuring Paul Giamatti wearing cinema's worst hairpiece. 2 hrs. 02 R (profanity) - G.T.

Trainwreck 1/2 Amy Schumer stars in (and wrote) this deft Judd Apatow-directed comedy, about a commitment-phobic New York magazine writer who unexpectedly tumbles for a sports-medicine doc (Bill Hader) she has been assigned to profile. 2 hrs. 05 R (sex, profanity, drugs, adult themes) - S.R.

The Transporter: Refueled ** Frank Martin, replacing Jason Statham in the series, is rocker-turned-actor Ed Skrein, aiding a small squad of hookers seeking revenge on the Eastern Bloc(head) pimps who put them on the streets as preteens - and borrowing extensively from Alexandre Dumas. 1 hr. 35 PG-13 (violence, sexual material, language) - G.T.

Vacation ** A crass remake of the beloved original features Ed Helms as Russ Griswold, taking over where Clark (Chevy Chase, who makes a cameo) left off, bringing his family to the storied Walley World. It's an unnecessary remake that has its laughs. 1 hr. 39 R (language, sexuality, brief graphic nudity) - M.E.

A Walk in the Woods 1/2 Robert Redford plays real-life travel writer Bill Bryson, who decides to hike the Appalachian Trail - no, really, hike it, not going to visit his mistress - with his pal (Nick Nolte), a chubby, wheezing, recovering alcoholic. Redford gets a chance, long overdue, to be funny during the charmingly hopeless endeavor. 1 hr. 38 R (language) - G.T.

Z for Zachariah *** Ann (Margot Robbie) is living alone after a mysterious event has wiped out humanity, until John (Chiwetel Ejiofor) enters her quiet existence. 1 hr. 37 PG-13 (profanity, sexual situations) - M.E.