New releases

★½ The Amazing Spider-Man The worst superhero movie since “Green Lantern,” this uninspired, unnecessary remake plays like the contract extension it is. Talented actors like Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, and Rhys Ifans are saddled with generic dialogue, and director Marc Webb (“(500) Days of Summer”) muffs the action sequences. Even the 3-D is obnoxious. This isn’t a movie, it’s a mugging. (136 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

★★Madea’s Witness Protection Tyler Perry returns as America’s least unbuttoned elderly black woman. The great Eugene Levy plays the CFO of a company that’s been used in a Ponzi scheme by organized crime. The feds stash Levy and his family with Madea. “My cousins,” she explains to a neighbor, “they lost all the pigmentation in their skin overnight.” The way Perry delivers the line, it actually is funny. (114 min., PG-13) (Mark Feeney)

★★ Portrait of Wally A documentary about the restitution of an Egon Schiele painting that had been stolen by the Nazis and ended up in the possession of a prominent Austrian collector. The film has an interesting story to tell but takes too long to do so. Worse, it’s lacking in nuance and not lacking in self-righteousness. In English and German, with subtitles. (90 min., unrated) (Mark Feeney)

★★★Ted Writer-director Seth MacFarlane’s debut feature is a crass, foul-mouthed, mostly hilarious, surprisingly sentimental bromance about a grown boy named John (Mark Wahlberg) and his bong-huffing teddy bear (voiced by MacFarlane). It’s really about that screw-up friend you want to outgrow but can’t. With Mila Kunis and a Boston vibe that feels close to the real thing. (100 min., R) (Ty Burr)

★★★½ The Turin Horse An elderly farmer, his adult daughter, and their bedraggled mare live in a farmhouse in the middle of a windswept nowhere. The Hungarian master Béla Tarr’s ninth feature film (he’s said he’s retiring from filmmaking) is a parable of life, death, and, especially, duration. Shot in a very gray black and white, the film is bleak, pure, forbidding, and often transfixing. In Hungarian, with subtitles. (146 min., unrated) (Mark Feeney)

Previously released

★★½ Bernie Jack Black dials back the boorishness to play Bernie Tiede, a real-life Texas funeral director and community pillar who in 1996 shot his aged companion (Shirley MacLaine) in the back. Richard Linklater directs it as a loopy black comedy with input from local “witnesses” — the movie’s bouncy, amusing, and lacking in a point. With Matthew McConaughey. (104 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

★★★ Follow Me: The Yoni Netanyahu Story If Colonel Yonatan “Yoni” Netanyahu has faded from public consciousness outside Israel since he died in the famous Entebbe hostage rescue mission he led in 1976, this documentary should rectify that. His brother, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and others recount Netanyahu’s childhood in Israel, his years at Harvard, and his military leadership. But his own words, in letters and poems, are the most memorable. (87 min., unrated) (Loren King)

★★ Hysteria A comedy-drama about the invention of the vibrator in 1880s London. Somewhere in here is an illuminating farce about a repressed society wracked by urges it doesn’t dare name. So why does director Tanya Wexler insist on stamping it out with moralizing? Stick with playwright Sara Ruhl’s “In the Next Room.” Starring Hugh Dancy and Maggie Gyllenhaal. (100 min., R) (Ty Burr)

★★ The Intouchables France’s second biggest film hit tells the story of a ritzy white quadriplegic (Francois Cluzet) who hires a bald, Senegalese-born thug (Omar Sy) to take care of him. All the white people do in this movie is flatter and spoil and humor the caretaker. He spouts his crass, egotistical crap, and all anyone does is laugh. America has a racial guilt problem. France’s might be more insidious. In French, with subtitles. (113 min., R) (Wesley Morris)

★★½ Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted There’s some bona fide big-top wonder in this team-up between ragtag European circus critters (notably Bryan Cranston and Martin Short) and our Central Park Zoo expat heroes (Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, and Jada Pinkett Smith). Cascading 3-D performance sequences are sufficiently dazzling that you may forgive an act wasted on convoluted setup, and relentless circus-afro ads. (93 min., PG) (Tom Russo)

★★★★ Moonrise Kingdom When two 12-year-olds (Kara Heyward, Jared Gilman) plot a secret getaway to a remote part of their fictitious New England island, the adults in their lives come looking for them. Wes Anderson directed and co-wrote the movie with Roman Coppola, and it feels utterly real, vividly dreamt, and totally remembered. Anderson’s dollhouse aesthetic acquires a long-overdue soul. With Frances McDormand, Bill Murray, Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton. (94 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)

★★ Prometheus Like opening a gift box from Tiffany’s to find a mug from the dollar store. Ridley Scott’s return to the “Alien” franchise is impeccably produced but increasingly scattered. It’s a prequel but feels like a remake: We’ve been here before, with lesser technology but more purpose. Starring Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, and Charlize Theron, all quite good. (119 min., R) (Ty Burr)

★★½ Rock of Ages For those who can’t stop believin’ and fans of bizarro Tom Cruise performances. This star-studded adaptation of the Broadway jukebox musical, dedicated to the enduring power of cheesy ’80s pop-metal, alternates plastic bombast with moments of comic invention. Cruise plays a rock god; Alec Baldwin, Russell Brand, and two ingénues also appear. (123 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

★★★ Safety Not Guaranteed
A small, charming shaggy-dog comedy about an oddball (Mark Duplass) who claims to have built a time machine and the alt-weekly intern (Aubrey Plaza) who wants to find out if he is crazy or not. The film sticks to its droll indie aesthetic while giving Plaza (“Parks and Recreation”) the star-making role a lot of us have been waiting for. With Jake M. Johnson. (94 min., R) (Ty Burr)

★★½ Snow White and the Huntsman Entertainingly schizophrenic, this re-engineering of the classic fairy tale feels like it was made from pieces of every fantasy-action movie ever made. It barely holds together but there are daft pleasures, from Charlize Theron’s rampant overacting as the evil queen to Kristen Stewart’s surprising underplaying as Snow. Directed by Rupert Sanders. (116 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

★½ That’s My Boy As a Somerville middle school kid, Donny scores with his teacher, gets her pregnant, and raises their son when she goes to jail. The loser-doofus grown-up Donny (Adam Sandler) tracks down his estranged offspring (Andy Samberg) on the eve of the son’s wedding. Cue the family reunion and Val Halen-infused soundtrack. Full of wooden writing and bodily fluids, this is more raunch-fest than comedy. (114 min., R) (Ethan Gilsdorf)

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