Some releases may not be showing locally this week.

2 DAYS IN NEW YORK (R) Julie Delpy continues the story of Marion from her directorial debut, 2 Days in Paris. Now happily coupled with Mingus (Chris Rock) and their children from previous relationships, Marion has her cozy personal life challenged by a visit from her father (Delpy’s real life dad, Albert), her oversexed sister, Rose (Alexia Landeau), and Rose’s boyfriend Manu (Alexandre Nahon). With Kate Burton (who will always be Margo from Big Trouble in Little China) and Dylan Baker. (Ciné)

THE ABCS OF DEATH (NR) This 26-chapter anthology film boasts 26 different directors, each assigned a letter of the alphabet to tell a distinct story about death. The film’s biggest names include Angela Bettis (“E is for Exterminate”), Ti West (“M is for Miscarriage”), A Horrible Way to Die’s Adam Wingard (“Q is for Quack”), Kill List’s Ben Wheatley (“U is for Unearthed”) and Frontier(s)’s Xavier Gens (“X is for XXL”). This horror flick should make a great seasonal bookend to accompany V/H/S.

AGE OF CHAMPIONS (NR) This award-winning documentary follows five competitors at the National Senior Olympics. When one athlete loses a spouse and another is diagnosed with cancer, they dig even deeper to make their Olympic dreams come true. (Ciné)

AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY (NR) As China’s most famous international artist and dissident, Ai Weiwei has suffered massively for his art. Chinese officials have physically abused him, stifled his critical voice by shutting down his blog, destroyed his studio and secretly jailed him. Ai Weiwei won several awards including the Special Jury Prize from Sundance and was an official selection of the Berlin International Film Festival and was opened both the Hot Docs Film Festival and the Human Rights Watch Film Festival. (Ciné)

ALEX CROSS (PG-13) I’ve never read one of James Patterson’s bestsellers featuring police detective/forensic psychologist Alex Cross, but I did see Kiss the Girls, which I recall enjoying. Alex Cross is no Kiss the Girls. In Detective Dr. Cross’ third cinematic case, Tyler Perry takes over for the much more capable Morgan Freeman, who portrayed Cross in Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider. Perry’s Cross must hunt down Picasso (a muscular skeleton that once was Jack from “Lost”), a professional assassin-cum-serial killer whose first murder is a mass one. When Picasso makes his mission personal, Cross goes off the reservation, which, judging by Perry’s emotional acting playbook, is little different from being on the reservation. A strong supporting cast—Edward Burns, Rachel Nichols, John C. McGinley, Jean Reno, Cicely Tyson and Giancarlo Esposito—prove no match for Perry’s lack of screen presence, Rob Cohen’s mindless action direction and the laughable script by Marc Moss and Kerry Williamson. This movie would have been more entertaining had Perry also donned his fat suits and pursued Picasso as Cross, Madea and her brother, Joe; Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Alex Cross is a bad movie idea I could get behind.

ARGO (R) Ben Affleck’s career revival continues with what might be his best directing effort yet; as life-or-death as the tension gets, the movie is ultimately a less grueling entertainment experience than either The Town or Gone Baby Gone. Revealing the once classified story of how the CIA rescued six American hostages in the midst of the Iranian Revolution, Argo is both an intriguing modern history lesson and a compelling, old-fashioned Hollywood thriller. The first-act scenes of the revolution terrify with present day relevance; the middle sequence that sets up the outlandish rescue op humorously skewers late-'70s Hollywood, thanks to excellent work by John Goodman as real life, Oscar-winning makeup artist John Chambers, as well as Alan Arkin; and the climactic escape epitomizes edge-of-your-seat suspense. Affleck has collected one hell of a cast—Bryan Cranston, Kyle Chandler, Victor Garber, Scoot McNairy, Chris Messina and many more recognizable faces—but the movie isn’t dominated by any one showy actor, and certainly not its tightly controlled director-star. Its greatness is certainly a sum of all parts—directing, writing (by first-time scripter Chris Terrio) and acting. The Academy will certainly recognize Argo, the year’s best, most accessible release to date, in its expanded best picture race.

THE BOURNE LEGACY (PG-13) Tony Gilroy has been scripting exceptional Bourne films for a decade now. His first time directing one plays exactly like his previous two directing efforts (Michael Clayton and Duplicity); well-crafted but unexciting. Matt Damon’s unseen Jason Bourne is on the run, but another enhanced secret agent, Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner, who’s an adequate replacement for Damon), is in the crosshairs of some nasty government spooks, led sociopathically by Edward Norton. Cross and pretty scientist, Marta Shearing (Academy Award winner Rachel Weisz), travels across the globe to find the means to permanently enhance the superspy’s mental abilities. This admirable, modern action franchise has always lacked in the fun department (I’ve never wanted to rewatch a Bourne); now it misses Paul Greengrass’ kinetic, athletic, handheld style. Legacy is more desk jockeying than spy gaming. (Call the undergrads; Cross proves to be one hell of a fake ID crafter.) Its respectable action set pieces lack the ooh ahh moment. Still, I’m curious to see the franchise advance with a Bourne/Cross faceoff or team up, but I’d prefer if Gilroy returns to scripting and Greengrass to behind the camera.

BRAVE (PG) A good, not great, Pixar film, Brave strays into traditional Disney territory after a tremendously magical first act. Headstrong Scottish Princess Merida (wonderfully voiced by the lovely Kelly Macdonald) wants to choose her own destiny. She does not want to marry the first-born of the clans allied with her father (v. Billy Connolly), but her mother, Queen Elinor (v. Emma Thompson), will hear none of her complaints. In typical stubborn teenage fashion, Merida short-sightedly asks a wood-carving witch (v. Julie Walters) for a spell to change her mother. The aftermath of the spell leads to some heartwarming and charming derring-do, but the sitcom-ish mix-up is a bit stock for what we’ve come to expect from the studio that gave us Wall-E and Up, two animated features that transcended their cartoonish origins.

BRINGING UP BABY (NR) 1938. Hailed by the American Film Institute as the 97th greatest American movie of all time, Howard Hawks’s screwball comedy is inarguably one of the best. While waiting for a bone for his collection, paleontologist David Huxley (Cary Grant) gets into all sorts of farcical misadventures with heiress Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) and Baby, Vance’s pet leopard who gets mistaken for an escaped vicious lookalike. Entertainment Weekly lists Bringing Up Baby as the twenty-fourth greatest film of all time. (UGA Tate Theater)

THE CAMPAIGN (R) One expects big laughs from a Will Ferrell-Zack Galifianakis political comedy, but one merely hopes for a sharp enough satirical framework to build upon. Austin Powers director Jay Roach has honed his political teeth on HBO’s “Recount” and “Game Change” and provides the proper support for Ferrell/Galifianakis’s silly showdown as North Carolina congressional candidates. Ferrell’s helmet-haired Democratic incumbent Cam Brady, loosely based on John Edwards, peddles to the “America, Jesus and freedom” crowd as he takes on Galifianakis’s oddball Republican challenger, Marty Huggins (His pants! His sweaters! His run!). Both comics are at their recent best; Ferrell had time to hone his Southern shtick on “Eastbound & Down,” and Galifianakis was born in NC. But the real meat of this comedy is how serious it is about campaign finance reform. As the Motch Brothers, Dan Ackroyd and John Lithgow are a not even thinly veiled shot at the Koch Bros. Dylan McDermott enjoys his rare comedic turn as the Motch’s hired gun. The rather rancorously funny movie ends with a surprisingly optimistic view of American politics that might not be tonally consistent with the previous acts, but is certainly pleasingly patriotic.

• CHASING MAVERICKS (PG) A young surfer, Jay Moriarty (Johnny Weston), enlists a local legend named Frosty (Gerard Butler, who is often more appealing than the projects in which he chooses to star) to train him to tackle one of the biggest waves on the planet, a mythic Maverick. One expects more from the sports drama that results from a teaming of two of Hollywood’s more interesting filmmakers, Curtis Hanson and Michael Apted, than Chasing Mavericks delivers. The surfing cinematography glides and roils as expected; the drama regurgitated by Kario Salem’s script is so by-the-numbers it can be predicted from scenes in advance. The clichés that Salem offers as characters don’t give Butler, Weston, Elisabeth Shue or the cast of mostly unknowns much with which to work. Landlocked, wannabe surfers might enjoy the movie; most anyone else can expect one long day at the beach.

• CLOUD ATLAS (R) It’s become widely accepted that the Wachowskis have disappointed with every release since 1999’s The Matrix. For the ambitious Cloud Atlas, the siblings have excitedly teamed up with Tom Tykwer, whose only great film was 1998’s stunning Run Lola Run, so while expectations for the trio’s three hour epic run high, they should rightly be tempered. The trio has masterfully adapted David Mitchell’s award winning novel, intermingling six disparate stories, spanning 1849 to 106 Winters After the Fall. Each anecdote stars Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Susan Sarandon, Hugh Grant and more in varying layers of makeup. While none of the stories warrants their own full-length feature, the six interconnected narratives are interwoven so skillfully and at such a swift pace that no one has enough time to overstay its welcome. If you don’t care for Sturgess’ sea tale, Berry’s nuclear mystery will be along shortly to take its place. The pidgin English future tale not your bag? Enjoy Broadbent’s broad English comedy. The lush, imaginative film’s most serious flaw is its repertory, several of whom (Oscar winners Hanks and Berry, most notably) seem out-of-place in the film’s fantastical future bookend.

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (PG-13) Fanboy expectations of all-time greatness aside, The Dark Knight Rises concludes filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy as satisfyingly as one can hope. Having taken the fall for the murder of Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight, Batman is no longer welcome in Gotham City, which is all right with shut-in Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), the eccentric billionaire who continues to mourn the death of his love, Rachel. (Interestingly, The Joker is never mentioned.) But a new evil, the muscle-and-respirator-clad Bane (Tom Hardy, finally doing the great Bat-breaker justice), has risen, requiring Batman to return to action. Meanwhile, a pretty cat burglar named Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway, making audiences forget both Michelle Pfeiffer and Halle Berry) has targeted Gotham’s elite. Nolan delivers the dense blockbuster we expect after TDK and Inception. He plays a masterful game of cinematic chess, knowing how to perfectly place every component—script, actors, action set pieces—on the board. A brilliant blockbuster, TDKR cannot best its immediate predecessor; the three-quel lacks the Ledger zeitgeist and shockingly needs more Batman. Still, The Dark Knight Rises darkly comic-bookends the movie summer that blissfully began with Joss Whedon’s candy coated Avengers. I’m sad Nolan’s time in Gotham is over. (UGA Tate Theater)

THE EXPENDABLES 2 (R) This sequel sharpens its blunt bludgeon of a predecessor by promoting Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis (who, let’s be honest, knows he does not belong in these movies) to slightly more than glorified cameos and adding Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme. The title is honest; the main team of Expendables—save Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham—is expendable, slowing the brisk flick whenever tasked with doing more than blowing the heads off a nameless opposing army. The nominal plot involves a mission of vengeance after JCVD’s Eurotrash villain, Vilain (yep, that’s how it’s spelled), kills the youngest, prettiest, newest Expendable. For no narrative reason, fellow mercs Trench (Ah-nuld, who still has that unfathomable screen appeal) and Booker (Norris) show up along the way to assist the Expendables when they’re in trouble and wind up brightening the movie with more personality and wit, despite their witless dialogue, than regulars Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews or Randy Couture. With a climactic mano-a-mano showdown between Sly and JCVD that is the absolute apotheosis of mindless action, this sequel is the superior guilty pleasure in every way except one. No Eric Roberts.

THE DETAILS (NR) Raccoons feasting on worms in the backyard of Jeff and Nealy Lang (Tobey Maguire and Elizabeth Banks), whose 10-year marriage is on the brink of collapse, leads to a dark comic tale of domestic unrest, betrayal and murder. Writer-director Jacob Aaron Estes follows up his well-received debut, Mean Creek, with this intriguing black comedy. Maguire and Banks are joined by Kerry Washington, Ray Liotta, Laura Linney, Dennis Haysbert and Sam Trammell (“True Blood”’s Sam Merlotte).

FLIGHT (R) Flight’s one of those films whose trailer I’ve seen so many times it seems like I’ve already watched it five times. Denzel Washington stars as airline pilot Whip Whitaker, who heroically saves a crashing plane. But complications arise when Whitaker’s blood test shows he was drunk at the time of the crash. Forrest Gump director Robert Zemeckis returns to live-action filmmaking in his first team up with the Oscar winning Washington. With John Goodman, Don Cheadle, Bruce Greenwood and Melissa Leo.

FRANKENWEENIE (PG) I’m not going to tell you Tim Burton is back, but Frankenweenie is his best film since the 1990s. Going back to his animation roots and his love of classic horror invigorates the blockbuster auteur. Frankenweenie is certainly his best genre film since 1999’s underrated James Whale love letter, Sleepy Hollow. This classic horror movie homage, itself a remake of Burton’s lovely black and white 1984 short film of the same name, will please both adult genre fans and their indiscriminate children. This family horror flick easily bests recent release Hotel Transylvania and probably has a slight edge on ParaNorman. Sweet Victor Frankenstein reanimates the family dog, Sparky, after he’s hit by a car. Unfortunately, the townspeople of New Holland, especially his classmates, either don’t understand the power Victor has discovered or are simply afraid of science in general. Fans of Burton’s original short will be pleased with the narrative additions made in John August’s script. The last act of monster mayhem enjoys a silly Gremlins-meet-Godzilla showdown at the town fair that is a sheer horror delight. One excellent family friendly horror film this year (ParaNorman) was cause for excitement; two is cause for celebration.

• FUN SIZE (PG-13) This teen Halloween comedy is the cinematic equivalent of getting those orange and black wrapped peanut butter candies while trick or treating at some old lady’s house. Wren (Victoria Justice, “Zoey 101”) loses her Spider-Man-costumed little brother, Albert (Jackson Nicoll), on Halloween and enlists her shallow BFF, April (Jane Levy), and the nerdy kid who’s crushing on her, Roosevelt (Thomas Mann, Project X), in her quest to find lil’ bro. Director Josh Schwartz tapped the teenage zeitgeist twice on TV (“The O.C.” and “Gossip Girl”), but his small screen talents fail to translate to the big screen in his feature directing debut. Fun Size is not funny at any size, despite a script from “The Colbert Report” writer Max Werner. When Johnny Knoxville is excruciating and Chelsea Handler is a highlight, something is way off, comedically. 

HERE COMES THE BOOM (PG-13) Adam Sandler’s made plenty of pictures worse than this Kevin James vehicle about outlandish ways to save education. James’ Scott Voss is a high school biology teacher who turns to MMA to fund the extracurriculars at his struggling school. An appealing supporting cast includes Salma Hayek, Henry Winkler, Greg Germann and real life MMA fighter Bas Rutten (after an appearance in Paul Blart: Mall Cop and voice work in Zookeeper, he’s becoming a James regular) to assist the extremely likable James in an odd, family-friendly mash-up of educational messages and inspirational sports, where the sports are extremely vicious. It doesn’t NOT work, but more refined audiences will cringe at the movie’s genial attitude toward violence.

HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA (PG) Unlike the superior ParaNorman, which was a genuinely, safely frightening family horror flick, Hotel Transylvania is an amusing, run-of-the-mill animated family movie where the main characters are harmless monsters. (The lesson that monsters aren’t dangerous is a terrible, hazardous message to teach children.) To protect monsters and his daughter, Mavis, from their dreaded enemies, humans, Dracula (genially voiced by Adam Sandler) sets up a hotel in the safe confines of Transylvania. On the eve of Mavis’ 118th birthday, a human named Jonathan (v. Andy Samberg) discovers Drac’s hideaway. Thank goodness director Genndy Tartakovsky (“Dexter’s Laboratory,” “The Powerpuff Girls” and “Samurai Jack”) brings his visual creativity to this rather rote tale of prejudice and cross-cultural romance. The sequences that work best are the ones that have fun with the conventions of Universal’s classic movie monsters. Samberg’s saddled with a rather boring character, but Selena Gomez’s Mavis has spunk. The adults—Kevin James as Frankenstein, Steve Buscemi as the Wolfman, David Spade as the Invisible Man and CeeLo Green as the Mummy—are even better as cartoon monsters than their usual human cartoons. Horror movie fans will prefer ParaNorman, but the kids will love checking into Hotel Transylvania.

A LATE QUARTET (NR) Another star-filled, late year release hoping for some awards love, A Late Quartet stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken, Catherine Keener and Mark Ivanir (Schindler’s List) as a world-renowned string quartet struggling to stay together amid egos, death and lust. Director Yaron Zilberman (the documentary Watermarks) makes his directorial debut, from a script he co-wrote with Seth Grossman (The Elephant King and the third Butterfly Effect). With the awkwardly named Imogen Poots and the incomparable Wallace Shawn.

THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS (R) The directorial debut of Wu-Tang Clan mastermind RZA certainly sounds like an oddity, but it’s an oddity I’m excited to see. An eclectic band of warriors, assassins and Russell Crowe (as an opium addicted British soldier named Jack Knife) seek a fabled treasure in the feudal Chinese village, whose blacksmith (RZA) creates elaborate weapons. Hostel filmmaker Eli Roth produced and co-wrote this flick with RZA, which also stars Lucy Liu, Jamie Chung and Pam Grier.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 (R) While the quality of Paranormal Activity 4 is little changed from its three predecessors (they are all above-average examples of how to shoot found footage flicks), the tense atmosphere, where the scares collectively imagined and anticipated by the audience are so much more terrifying than anything delivered by the film, is utterly absent. No imminent danger is established as the 15-year-old protagonist, whose name I cannot recall (Kathryn Newton, who resembles a young Jane Krakowski), and her equally unmemorable boy-who’s-just-a-friend tape every uninteresting moment of their tame not-quite-courtship. Some creative set-ups never pay off; the Kinect bits epitomize the movie’s wasted potential for terror. Even the anticipated return of the original’s statuesque Katie Featherston disappoints, as she’s barely around. The climactic sequence finally ramps up the scary but only for maybe five of the movie’s 88 minutes. PA4 also fails to develop the intriguing mythology introduced by its immediate predecessor. Boo on all counts. Skip this exceedingly weak entry in what, for three movies, had been a smart, effective horror franchise. If you ignore this advice, stick around through the credits for what looks like a teaser of the next installment.

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER PG-13. Stephen Chbosky directs the adaptation of his 1999 book of the same name about a high school freshman dealing with isolation, new friends and a disturbed past. The book is one of the best modern stories about less than golden high school experiences.

PITCH PERFECT (PG-13) Infectious is the best word to describe the a cappella college comedy Pitch Perfect. Barden University’s women's singing group, the Barden Bellas, need some fresh blood after a devastating loss in the national finals of collegiate, competitive a cappella. Freshman Beca (Anna Kendrick, delightful as ever even if her character is an overly pouty teen), Fat Amy (rising star Rebel Wilson) and several interchangeable coeds join seniors Aubrey (Anna Camp, “True Blood”) and Chloe (Brittany Snow, “American Dreams”) as they battle their way back to the top. In their way are Barden’s resident a cappella badboys, The Treblemakers, led by Bumper (Adam Devine of the devious “Workaholics”) and new guy/Beca’s love interest, Jesse (Skylar Astin). It’s understandable that many, many people, especially males, are going to see the “Glee”-ful previews or read the synopsis and instantly decide, “I’m out.” That rush to judgment will deprive them of a decidedly anti-“Glee” experience. The movie lacks any message stronger than a cappella is a lot of fun, and the comic ensemble, including John Michael Higgins and Elizabeth Banks, lend a spiteful, humorous edge to what could have just been a bland radio friendly hit.

RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION (R) Well, the lesser breed of Resident Evil—movie rather than video game—returns with a fifth entry that is the (relative) best yet. Writer-director Paul W.S. Anderson finally (sort of) embraces the series’ video game origins, even favoring franchise favorite characters over actors in the opening credits (we know from the get-go that the movie features Sienna Guillory as Jill Valentine, Johann Urb as Leon S. Kennedy, Kevin Durand as Barry Burton, Bingbing Li as Ava Wong and Shawn Roberts as the series’ big bad, Albert Wesker) and tossing Las Plagas into the T-virus mix. Monotonous B-grade action dominates the C-grade, cosplay acting and writing for the next hour and a half. Fans will find it hard to believe the acting—mostly stiff, strange action poses filmed for minimal 3D effect—is worse than the original Resident Evil’s poor voice acting. Still, this fan of every canonical entry in Capcom’s flagship series would respect the movies much more were this relatively more faithful film the initial entry.

THE SALT OF LIFE (NR) Writer-director-actor Gianni Di Gregorio follows up his 2010 sleeper hit and directorial debut, Mid-August Lunch, with 60-year-old Gianni finding retirement not so fulfilling. Tired of feeling invisible to everyone, especially his wife (Elisabetta Piccolomini), Gianni starts chasing younger ladies like his old codger pals. (Ciné)

SAMSARA (NR) Director Ron Fricke and producer Mark Magidson are reunited some 20 years after their award winning collaboration on Baraka and some 27 years after their first film, Chronos. Samsara (Sanskrit for “the ever turning wheel of life”) took nearly five years to film and covers sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial sites and natural wonders in twenty-five countries on five continents. Talk about epic; it was also shot on 70-millimeter film. Winner of the Dublin Film Critics Award for Best Documentary. (Ciné)

SHAKESPEARE'S GLOBE THEATRE: MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (NR) Carmike Theaters stream a live feed of the play performed in London's Globe Theatre.

SIDE BY SIDE (NR) Keanu Reeves produces this documentary about both the digital and photochemical filmmaking process. Christopher Kenneally’s second feature documentary (his first was Crazy Legs Conti: Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating) boasts interviews with an impressive list of filmmaking luminaries including James Cameron, David Fincher, David Lynch, Robert Rodriguez, Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderbergh, Danny Boyle, Richard Linklater, George Lucas, Christopher Nolan, the Wachowskis (Andy and Lana) and Lars von Trier. Any film geek should find this doc compelling, given the current digitalization of film. (Ciné)

• SILENT HILL: REVELATION 3D (R) Adapting videogames to the big screen is tricky. Christophe Gans and Roger Avary’s 2006 Silent Hill set the (admittedly low) bar for a great videogame adaptation. Rose Da Silva’s trek to save her daughter Sharon from the titular town’s evil cultists was creepy and atmospheric, yet utterly nonsensical. In writer-director Michael J. Bassett’s sequel, Sharon has grown up to be Heather Mason (Michelle Williams lookalike Adelaide Clemens), who must return to Silent Hill to find her dad, Chris-now-Harry (Sean Bean). Bassett overreaches, attempting to right the narrative wrongs of Gans/Avary, reward fans of Silent Hill 3 and open up the weird, confusing town of Silent Hill for the uninitiated, all in three, terrifying dimensions. The psychological scares that dominate the games are slight, though Bassett provides a couple of memorable monsters (the mannequin spider deserved more screen time). Bassett’s story makes more sense than his predecessor’s, thanks to dialogue that is 99 percent expository (and 100 percent awful); most of the acting stinks too. Indiscriminating horror fans may enjoy a second trip to Silent Hill, but the outing is probably best enjoyed by experienced gamers looking to take a shortened trek through Heather’s six (or so) hour gaming adventure.

SINISTER (R) Sinister, the new film from Scott Derrickson (I really liked his The Exorcism of Emily Rose and don’t hate his rather boring remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still), is my favorite theatrical horror experience since The Strangers. Ethan Hawke intensely stars as true crime novelist Ellison Oswalt, who has moved his family—pretty wife, tween son, young daughter—into the murder house for the latest crime he is investigating. What he discovers is much deadlier and more demony than he could have imagined. Sinister utilizes found footage—Ellison finds a box of home movies in the attic of his new home—more uniquely than any of the glut of the latest (fading?) horror fad. These little short snuff films and Ellison’s drunk, terrified reactions supply some of the movie’s scariest moments, and Derrickson shows a lot of ingenuity in how he subtly shows the grisly kills. Extra points for James Ransone (HBO’s “Generation Kill” and “Treme”) as the not-as-dumb-a-deputy-as-he-seems comic relief. Released amid a lot of buzz in the horror community, this terrific October chiller delivers.

SOMEBODIES (NR) 2006. UGA alumnus Hadjii’s feature writing, directing and starring debut gets its Athens premiere courtesy of the 2012 Spotlight on the Arts at UGA. A Georgia college student must deal with his religious family and his hard-partying college pals. This movie led to a short-lived, entertaining BET series. The screening will be introduced by Hadjii and costar Kaira Akita, both of whom will be present for a post-film Q&A. A catered reception will follow the screening. (Ciné)

TAKEN 2 (PG-13) Most movies fail to encapsulate the description “unnecessary sequel” as perfectly as Taken 2. (I wish it had had some silly subtitle like Taken 2: Takenier, but alas.) As a consequence of the violent methods he employed to retrieve his kidnapped daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace), in the first movie, retired CIA operative Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson), must face off against the Albanian dad (played by go-to Eastern European baddie Rade Serbedzija) of one of the sex traffickers he killed during his rescue mission. Once Bryan get himself and Kim to safety, he must go after some more Albanians and save his estranged wife, Lenore (Famke Janssen). The scenery—Bryan must clean the Eurotrash from the bazaars of Istanbul as opposed to the streets of Paris—isn’t the only thing that’s changed. While writer-producer Luc Besson returns, he replaces Taken director Pierre Morel with Transporter 3’s Olivier Megaton. Unfortunately, that substitution brings with it action choreography/cinematography that is far less comprehensible. Add a far too slow opening act to the jumbled action and Taken 2 falls far below the bar set by its surprise success of a predecessor.

TERRA BLIGHT (NR) The EcoFocus Film Festival is sponsoring a free screening of Isaac Brown (“Gimme Green”) and Ana Habib’s 55-minute documentary about computer consumption and the waste our pursuit of new technology creates. The filmmakers, Brown and Habib, will be present to participate in an audience discussion. Snacks will be provided, and small prizes can be won by donating old laptops, cell phones and charging cords. Cosponsored by Go Green Alliance, UGA Office of Sustainability, Athens-Clarke County Recycling Division, and the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts with community partners Free IT Athens and KP Surplus. (UGA Circle Gallery)

THIS MUST BE THE PLACE (NR) A retired rock star, Cheyenne (Sean Penn), returns to New York to seek the Nazi war criminal who tormented his recently deceased father during World War II. Filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino (Il divo: La spettacolare vita di Giulio Andreotti) makes his English language debut, and Harvey Weinstein has provided him (and Penn) with an awards-friendlier release date. Awesomely, the Talking Heads’ David Byrne provides the music. With Frances McDormand, Judd Hirsch and Harry Dean Stanton.

WRECK-IT RALPH (PG) A classic videogame’s bad guy, longing to be a hero, wreaks havoc on his home arcade after unleashing a new baddie in the popular new first person shooter. Will this non-Pixar developed Disney flick be a strong enough holiday tentpole for the House of Mouse? Director Rich Moore is a veteran of “The Simpsons,” for what that is now worth. Featuring the voices of John C. Reilly, Jack McBrayer (the Georgia native currently starring on “30 Rock”), Jane Lynch and Sarah Silverman.