Friday’s openings: Schumer hits the big screen, Rudd gets small

The last few weeks have unleashed a number of incredible creatures into area theaters – minions, emotions, velociraptors, talking teddy bears, dutiful Army dogs, Channing Tatum. Friday’s releases bring a new batch of characters, some more human than others. Here are the movies currently scheduled to open this week at the AMC:

“Ant-Man”: “Avengers: Age of Ultron” is still in theaters, and yet here comes the Marvel factory with another 3-D CGI spectacle certain to be, despite its title character’s size, a mammoth hit. The studio has had a lot of success transforming sardonic, atypical leading men into plausible superheroes, so here’s hoping Paul Rudd can deliver the action as well as the laughs.

“Mr. Holmes”: What’s this – another spin on Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary sleuth? This one at least has the benefit of starring the incomparable Ian McKellen as a retired Holmes, who must return once more into the fray to reopen a decades-old cold case. Directed by Bill Condon, who previously got an Oscar-nominated performance out of McKellen in 1998’s “Gods and Monsters.”

“Trainwreck”: Director Judd Apatow has turned plenty of actors into bankable movie stars, and here he tries his hand with comedian Amy Schumer, who also penned this film’s script. She plays a magazine writer who, having avoided romantic commitment all her life, starts to fall for a charming sports doctor (Bill Hader). Promises to be unapologetically R-rated.

The Magic Lantern continues its current schedule and plans to open “The Wolfpack,” Crystal Moselle’s odd but compelling documentary, next Friday.

The trailer for “Mr. Holmes”: