Movies: New and Noteworthy

COMING THIS WEEK

By Steven Rea

Our Brand is Crisis Sandra Bullock plays an American political consultant hired to help the hugely unpopular president of Bolivia with his reelection campaign. Billy Bob Thornton is the James Carville-esque consultant working for the opposition. Loosely based on the 2005 documentary of the same name. R

Suffragette The women's suffrage movement in early 20th-century Britain, with Carey Mulligan as a hard-pressed laundry worker - and wife, and mother - swept up in the fight for women's right to vote. With Helena Bonham Carter, Brendan Gleeson, and Ben Whishaw. Meryl Streep has a cameo as Emmeline Pankhurst, the history-making leader of the suffragette movement. PG-13

Truth The tainted 60 Minutes investigation into George W. Bush's military career, with Robert Redford as newsman Dan Rather and Cate Blanchett as producer Mary Mapes, is reexamined in this early-2000 period piece. Denis Quaid, Topher Grace, and Elisabeth Moss are part of the team. Adapted from Mapes' book, Truth and Duty: The Press, the President and the Privilege of Power. R

Burnt Bradley Cooper stars as a temperamental chef who tries to rebuild his career at a London restaurant after a bout with drugs.

Experimenter In the early 1960s, social psychologist Stanley Milgram (Peter Sarsgaard) tests the extent to which humans will obey authority.

Room A mother and her young son are kept captive in a small shed for years. Freedom brings new struggles for them.

Scouts vs. Zombies Three scouts on a campout are put to the test when their town faces a zombie outbreak.

Victoria A runaway girl with a taste for partying joins three men as they hit the town.

Reviewed by critics Steven Rea (S.R.), Tirdad Derakhshani (T.D.), Molly Eichel (M.E.), and Gary Thompson (G.T.). W.S. denotes a wire-service review.

Black Mass Johnny Depp utterly transforms himself in the role of James "Whitey" Bulger, the Boston mobster who racketeered and murdered his way to power in the '70s and '80s. Directed by Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart), with strong performances from Benedict Cumberbatch, Joel Edgerton, and Dakota Johnson. Dark, bloody, harrowing. 2 hrs. 02. R (violence, profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

Bridge of Spies Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance star in Steven Spielberg's taut Cold War thriller, a based-on-true-events spy-swap yarn set in New York and East Berlin, steeped in paranoia and period detail. 2 hrs. 22 PG-13 (violence, profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

99 Homes Drama about flipping and foreclosing Florida properties with Andrew Garfield as a construction worker who gets evicted, along with his mother and his little boy, from their family home. Michael Shannon is the real estate broker who forces them out. A wary alliance is forged in Ramin Bahrani's Great Recession tale. 1 hr. 48 R (profanity) - G.T.

Learning to Drive Patricia Clarkson and Ben Kingsley team up for a small, artfully crafted story of companionship, loneliness, resilience. She's a New York literary critic who has just been dumped by her husband; Kingsley is an Indian Sikh who gives the suddenly shell-shocked and single middle-age woman driving lessons. The driving metaphors don't need any added emphasis: Put the car (and your life) in forward; be aware and anticipate; control your rage; know where you're going. 1 hr. 30 R (profanity, sex, adult themes) - S.R.

The Martian Matt Damon gives a commanding, oftentimes darkly comic performance as an astronaut left for dead by his NASA crewmates when they beat a hasty retreat from Mars. With a limited supply of food and water and no means of communication, he has to figure out how to survive and how to contact Mission Control, hoping they can bring him home. Stirring, suspenseful, science-rooted stuff from director Ridley Scott; with Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, Kate Mara, and Michael Peña. 2 hrs. 21 PG-13 (profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

Crimson Peak ** A 19th-century Englishwoman (Jessica Chastain) discovers the man she has married is keeping dark secrets from her. 1 hr. 59 R (sex) - G.T.

Everest *** Dramatic thriller based on the true story of the struggle for survival faced by members of a Mount Everest climbing expedition when they are caught in a blizzard. 2 hrs. 01 PG-13 (intense peril and disturbing images) - G.T.

Goosebumps *** R.L. Stine's horror-for-kids books get a meta adaptation. Stine (played by Jack Black in full camp mode) is a character; the monsters he's created have leapt off the page and into real life and it's up to him, his daughter Hannah (Odeya Rush), neighbor Zach (Dylan Minnette), and Zach's bestie, Champ (a great Ryan Lee), to recapture them. 1 hr. 43 PG (scary situations, rude humor) - M.E.

He Named Me Malala *** Oscar-winner Davis Guggenheim's understandably deferential documentary about Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teen who was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman for her insistence that she, and all girls, had the right to an education. A polished piece of advocacy filmmaking. Inspiring, to say the least. 1 hr. 27 PG-13 (graphic news footage, adult themes) - S.R.

Jem and the Holograms ** The beloved 1980s cartoon, about young Jerrica Benton, who transforms into rock star Jem, is updated for the YouTube generation with director Jon M. Chu (Step Up 3D, Justin Bieber: Never Say Never) at the helm. 1 hr. 48 PG (reckless behavior, brief suggestive content and some profanity) - W.S.

The Last Witch Hunter ** Vin Diesel is a witch hunter cursed with eternal life (does that explain the Fast and Furious franchise?). Elijah Wood and Game of Thrones' Rose Leslie costar as his present-day cronies. 1 hr. 45 PG-13 (violence, profanity) - G.T.

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials *** The saga continues with the Gladers facing their most difficult challenge yet. 2 hrs. 11 PG-13 (violence and action, some thematic elements, substance use, language) - G.T.

Meet the Patels *** This adorable documentary about actor Ravi Patel trying to find a suitable wife also shines a light on what's it like to be the child of immigrants, wanting to live an assimilated life, while also honoring culture. 1 hr. 28 PG (thematic elements) - M.E.

Pan ** "Welcome to Neverland!" bellows Hugh Jackman's Blackbeard in Joe Wright's elaborate reworking of the J.M. Barrie children's fantasy. Rooney Mara swashes and buckles as Tiger Lily, Garrett Hedlund is Hook, and newcomer Levi Miller plays the boy hero, Peter. 1 hr. 51 PG (violence, profanity, some thematic material) - G.T.

Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (not previewed) A young family moves into a new house and begins recording its strange phenomena on an old video camera. In 3-D. 1 hr 35 R

Rock the Kasbah ** Bill Murray is a low-rent talent manager who discovers a singing sensation in war-torn Afghanistan - and discovers that getting her on an American Idol-like TV show is not necessarily a good idea. A gonzo comedy gone wrongzo from director Barry Levinson, with Zooey Deschanel, Kate Hudson, Leem Labuny, and Bruce Willis. 1 hr. 50 R (sex, profanity, drugs, violence, adult themes) - S.R.

Sicario *** Emily Blunt is an FBI agent who joins a task force of feds and freelancers in pursuit of drug lords and violent cartels. Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro also star in Denis (Prisoners) Villeneuve's bloody cross-border thriller. 2 hrs. 01 R (violence, profanity, sex, adult themes) - S.R.

Steve Jobs *** Directed with cinematic gusto by Danny Boyle from a theater-piece script by Aaron Sorkin, this twitchy anti-biopic takes the audience through three seminal product launches from the Apple co-founder and late, lamented, mythologized, criticized tech icon, revealing deep-seated flaws in Jobs' makeup in the process. Michael Fassbender practically sweats genius in the title role, Kate Winslet and Jeff Daniels are key players, and the movie satisfies in its boldness. But even putting aside questions of historical accuracy and psychological accuracy (there have been complaints), it doesn't entirely add up. 2 hrs. 02 R (profanity, adult themes) - S.R.