Brad Pitt (left) and Jonah Hill in the baseball tale “Moneyball.’’
(Sony)
New releases 
Abduction Taylor Lautner (“Twilight’’) plays a high-schooler who finds out he’s on a missing-kids website, then learns he’s spent his whole life unwittingly tangled in a web of international black-ops intrigue. The movie is an opportunity to assess Lautner’s potential as a general-purpose action hero once his emo-goth run wraps. Not a good bet. (106 min., PG-13) (Tom Russo)
Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame It’s a title worthy of a ’30s matinee serial, with a sensibility to match. Set in seventh-century China, this combination of martial arts extravaganza and mystery is slambang in pacing, if bald in exposition. Andy Lau has fun with the title character. In Mandarin, with subtitles. (123 min., PG-13) (Mark Feeney)
Dolphin Tale An excellent family film that lightly fictionalizes the tale of Winter, the wounded Florida dolphin with a prosthetic tail. Nathan Gamble plays the boy who befriends her, and Ashley Judd, Harry Connick Jr., and Morgan Freeman play the nearby adults. Winter plays herself, winningly. Charles Martin Smith directs in unobtrusive 3-D. (113 min., PG) (Ty Burr)
Happy Happy The material here about two couples in a snowy rural town in Norway is obvious yet light and perceptive. But while the grown-ups cavort, their sons play “slave,’’ which mires everything in a mess it’s too self-congratulatory and naive to climb out of. In Norwegian, with English subtitles. (95 min., PG) (Wesley Morris)
Killer Elite Based on a true story and about a half-dozen Jason Statham movies. Conveniently, it stars Statham as an assassin-for-hire who wants out of the assassin-for-hire business but is dragged back in for One More Job after an Oman sheik kidnaps his old buddy and partner in vigilantism (Robert De Niro). Any scene that fails to involve the revving of motors or the breaking of bones is dead. With Clive Owen as a peevish British agent. (100 min., R) (Wesley Morris)
Moneyball A tersely hilarious baseball drama set in the front office. Adapting Michael Lewis’s book about the 2002 season of the Oakland A’s, director Bennett Miller shows where love of numbers connects with love of the game, and Brad Pitt does his best and sneakiest work yet as general manager Billy Beane. (133 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)
My Afternoons With Margueritte In Jean Becker’s fine little movie, Gérard Depardieu plays a small-town handyman who forges a bond with a tiny, elegant older woman (Gisèle Casadesus). Depardieu operates on the quiet side of his stardom. We tend to think of him at his best when he’s pouring it on. Here, he holds the sauce and gets as much done. In French, with English subtitles. (88 min., unrated) (Wesley Morris)
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