New Movies Jan. 10-12: 'Her,' Hercules and Navy SEALs

This week the box office comes back to life after several long, cold weeks without a compelling new release. Since early December, "Frozen" and "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" have been trading the first-place trophy back and forth between themselves, but on Friday, two well-reviewed films expand into wide release and one bombastic action pic debuts.

The first expanding film is "Her," the sci-fi-ish comedy from director Spike Jonze. In it, Joaquin Phoenix plays a lonely writer who falls in love with the alluring software-generated voice of his computer. The film is getting nearly unanimous praise from critics, although Apple's Siri personal assistant is reportedly less than thrilled with the film's fictional artificially intelligent heroine.

The second sort of new face at the box office is "Lone Survivor," director Peter Berg's fictionalized account of a real Navy SEAL battle in Afghanistan. The film stars Mark Wahlberg, and it's getting much better reviews than Berg's last film, the 2012 bomb "Battleship."

The lone new wide release is "The Legend of Hercules," a mythological action/adventure film from director Renny Harlin and starring Kellan Lutz. Harlin has been working in TV lately, but he's a very prolific director of both high-profile ("Die Hard 2") and B-grade ("Exorcist: The Beginning") action fare.