Aladdin
Disney's live-action remake of 1992’s Aladdin is a loud, obnoxious concoction of demographic targeting, corporation-backed nostalgia pandering, and ugly CGI. It has all the urgency of a (very expensive) piece of community theater and all the artistry of a quarterly earnings report. Yet this ungainly, garish thing is not as detestable as these ingredients would lead you to believe. Mind you, it’s not good—lord, it is not that—but this Aladdin is like a messy, smelly dog that belongs to somebody you don’t like very much. You’re not overjoyed when it jumps up and slobbers on your face or sheds on your couch, and its witless barking is truly deafening (sweet Christ, this movie is so loud). But you’re not going to hold any of that against the dog. It’s a dog. It just wants to be loved. (Opens Thurs May 23, various theaters) NED LANNAMANN

Babylon
Until this year, director Franco Rosso’s 1980 feature debut Babylon had never been officially released in the US. The reasoning, it would seem, would have to do with the fact that this story of Jamaican expats in Thatcher’s England is told in either thick, occasionally indecipherable patois or British slang. The subtitles added to this re-release do clear up some of the details, but the raw truth of a group of young Black men seeking brief moments of liberation through reggae, ganja, and friendship—all amid crushing economic inequality and ugly flare-ups of bigotry—need no translation. (Fri May 24-Sun May 26, Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium) ROBERT HAM

★ Booksmart
Booksmart is about Molly and Amy (Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever), two accomplished girls who are currently enjoying their final day of high school—and realizing that they've alienated all of their peers by focusing only on school and each other. When Molly decides the pair needs a party experience before graduation, it kicks off an epic night of social awkwardness, attempted hook-ups, accidental drug use, and inescapable theatre kids. The love-you-to-death friendship between Molly and Amy is the heart of director Olivia Wilde's movie, and major credit is due to Dever and Feldstein for crushing that chemistry. They’re lifted up by a brilliant supporting cast of fellow teen misfits (including Billie Lourd, who steals every scene she barreled through) and fuckup grownups (Jason Sudeikis, Jessica Williams, and Mike O’Brien) who round out a laugh-inducing, cry-inducing, and utterly relatable high-school universe that I both wanted to inhabit and also gave me PTSD. (Opens Thurs May 23, various theaters) ELINOR JONES

Brightburn
A horror-movie riff on Superman, produced by James Gunn. (Opens Thurs May 23, various theaters)

★ Deadwood: The Movie
Long-running shows rarely end well—the slow-simmering mysteries and ever-evolving relationships that make great TV so addictive are also the things that are hardest to conclude. For every Breaking Bad that goes out with a satisfying bang, countless others flail and whimper—remember Lost, or Battlestar Galactica, or (oof, this wound is fresh) Game of Thrones. But Deadwood: The Movie both continues and concludes the show while bringing back it’s inimitable feel. There are punches and shoot-outs, and fiery speeches and glimpses of tenderness, and it’s all beautiful and ugly, welcoming and dangerous. It’s Deadwood, and it’s great to be back, if only for a few hours. (Fri May 31, HBO) ERIK HENRIKSEN

Godzilla: King of the Monsters
The first film in Warner Bros.’ “MonsterVerse” was 2014’s Godzilla, which showcased director Gareth Edwards’ ability to create legitimately awe-inspiring imagery and his propensity for leaving great actors hopelessly stranded. Director by Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ follow-up, 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, was a rocket-propelled freight train full of superheated stupid, seemingly made as a direct response to the criticisms of Edwards’ ponderous, ungainly epic. And if you could enter films into a calculator, and you divided Godzilla by Kong, you would arrive at Godzilla: King of the Monsters. It is literally the average of the two approaches, which makes a sort of perversely pragmatic sense in this Moneyball era of big-budget movie-making. (Opens Thurs May 30, various theaters) BOBBY ROBERTS

Good Omens
Michael Sheen and David Tennant as an angel and demon, respectively, are the highlights of the BBC/Amazon adaptation of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s novel about the apocalypse. The rest is a mess, with ugly special effects, useless characters, and—despite a plot hinging on stopping the end of the world—no sense of urgency. (Fri May 31, Amazon) NED LANNAMANN

Grindhouse Film Festival: Vigilante
The latest installment of the Hollywood Theatre’s monthly exultation of exploitation cinema is William Lustig’s 1983 revenge drama Vigilante, a Death Wish knockoff that miraculously manages to be less repugnant and more nuanced than the film it’s stealing from. (Tues May 28, Hollywood Theatre) BOBBY ROBERTS

★ John Wick: Chapter 3— Parabellum
In the first few minutes, John Wick kills people with a library book, about 14 zillion knives, and A HORSE. Highly recommended. (Now playing, various theaters). ERIK HENRIKSEN

★ Krzysztof Kieƛlowski’s Three Colors Trilogy
KieÅâ€șlowski may have aimed bigger prior to his Three Colors series (Dekalog, for example) but these three films, all centered on themes of liberty, equality, and fraternity, represent the best of not just his skills as a filmmaker, but the best of film itself. (Fri May 24-Sun May 26, Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium) BOBBY ROBERTS

Ma
Octavia Spencer stars as an Annie Wilkes-esque figure who, instead of kidnapping shitty authors out of the woods, prefers to spend time as a molly-poppin’ party mama throwing ragers and dismembering teenagers with the same vivacious aplomb. (Opens Thurs May 30, various theaters)

Non-Fiction
If you got ensnared by the silent psychosexual mysteries of Olivier Assayas’ masterful Personal Shopper, his latest is a bit of a cold, chatty fish. Set amid a Parisian world of self-centered authors, publishers, and actors, Non-Fiction uses the crisis of declining book sales and the rise of audiobooks and e-readers as a metaphor, or something, for the fickle vagaries and vicissitudes of love. Anchored by two married couples (Guillaume Canet, Juliette Binoche, Vincent Macaigne, Nora Hamzawi) who wander in and out of fidelity, Assayas’ script is a series of dinner parties and bedroom encounters, in which everyone laments the lack of human connection as we increasingly rely on technology—something Non-Fiction undercuts with irony, as it is, in practice, a non-stop series of face-to-face conversations. It’s all very witty and wry, even if it evaporates on impact. (Opens Fri May 24, Cinema 21) NED LANNAMANN

NW Animation Festival Farewell Show
An experimental, independent, and often just plain-fuckin’-weird era closes with this farewell to the NW Animation Festival. After almost 10 years of promoting creativity, spotlighting new artists, and loosing a deluge of indelible images upon adventurous eyes, their noble watch has ended. (Fri May 24, Hollywood Theatre)

Portland Horror Film Festival
Portland’s horror fest returns with indie frights. More coverage in the next issue of the Mercury. (Wed June 5-Sat June 8, Hollywood Theatre)

★ Re-Run Theater: 1989— The Year in Videos
Every now and again, Re-Run Theater takes a break from its classic television necromancy and turns its resurrective powers to the glory days of MTV. This installment travels exactly 30 years back in time to 1989. (Wed May 29, Hollywood Theatre)

Rocketman
Rock biopics tend to focus a little too heavily on the “creative process,” acting almost like VH1 Classic Albums reenactments and estranging laypeople who might not necessarily care how their favorite records were made. But Rocketman doesn’t only presuppose that its audience doesn’t know about Elton John’s music, it assumes they wouldn’t even care. The result is insulting not only to the intelligence and taste of moviegoers, but to Elton John’s legacy as a songwriter, showman, and immensely significant queer idol. Rocketman’s Elton John (Taron Egerton) is, instead, a coke-addled asshole who’s basically indistinguishable from any other rich guy whose ordinary problems are elevated and romanticized by our narrative-obsessed society. (Opens Thurs May 30, various theaters) MORGAN TROPER

★ Shadow
Once you get through the table-setting of Shadow’s first hour, the action kicks in, and the movie becomes every bit the equal of Zhang Yimou’s past triumphs Hero and House of Flying Daggers. (Now playing, various theaters) NED LANNAMANN

The Souvenir
Somewhere, either on a forgotten hard drive or in pieces on the floor of an editing room, is the movie that The Souvenir should have been. What writer/director Joanna Hogg instead gives to audiences seems to be made up of all the moments before and after the actual scenes of tension and romance between a budding filmmaker (Honor Swinton Byrne, daughter of Tilda Swinton) and her older, heroin-addicted lover (Tom Burke, entirely charmless). It feels like a dull reflection of real life with all the interesting bits snipped out. In that way, the film almost becomes experimental, but viewing it from that perspective is hardly enough to make up for its slow pace, grindingly boring conversations, and a relationship that lacks any sort of chemistry, sexual or otherwise. Supposedly there’s a sequel on the way, co-starring Robert Pattinson. There’s nowhere to go but up. (Opens Fri May 31, Fox Tower 10) ROBERT HAM