New movies this week: The Comedian, Rings

RALEIGH, N.C. — A look at what's new in theaters this week.

The Comedian (Comedy, R, Starring Robert De Niro, Leslie Mann, Danny DeVito, Edie Falco, Veronica Ferres) - An aging comic icon, Jackie has seen better days. Despite his efforts to reinvent himself and his comic genius, the audience only wants to know him as the former television character he once played. Already a strain on his younger brother and his wife, Jackie is forced to serve out a sentence doing community service for accosting an audience member. While there, he meets Harmony, the daughter of a sleazy Florida real estate mogul, and the two find inspiration in one another resulting in surprising consequences.

Rings (Drama, Horror, PG-13, Starring Johnny Galecki, Aimee Teegarden, Zach Roerig, Laura Wiggins, Alex Roe) - A young woman becomes worried about her boyfriend when he explores a dark subculture surrounding a mysterious videotape said to kill the watcher seven days after he has viewed it. She sacrifices herself to save her boyfriend and in doing so makes a horrifying discovery: there is a movie within the movie that no one has ever seen.

The Space Between Us (SciFi/Fantasy, PG-13, Starring Gary Oldman, Asa Butterfield, Carla Gugino, Britt Robertson, BD Wong) - In this interplanetary adventure, shortly after arriving to help colonize Mars, an astronaut dies while giving birth to the first human born on the red planet. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Gardner Elliot - an inquisitive, highly intelligent boy who reaches the age of 16 having only met 14 people in his very unconventional upbringing. While searching for clues about his father, and the home planet he's never known, Gardner begins an online friendship with a street smart girl named Tulsa. When he finally gets a chance to go to Earth, Gardner is eager to experience all of the wonders he could only read about on Mars. But after his explorations begin, scientists discover that Gardner's organs can't withstand Earth's atmosphere. Gardner joins with Tulsa on a race against time to unravel the mysteries of how he came to be, and where he belongs in the universe.