Opening Friday

Anna Asako I&II Be Natural Being Frank Child’s Play Ghost Fleet The Quiet One Toy Story 4 Aladdin This live action remake of the 1992 Disney animation is more than a pleasant surprise. It’s a complete delight that stands up on its own and is, in many ways, an improvement on the original. It adds a full 30 minutes to the running time, and yet it seems to fly by. Rated PG. 128 minutes.

— M. LaSalle American Woman Sienna Miller can be highly affecting as a woman whose teenage daughter goes missing, but she also can veer into the overwrought. So can the script, which piles on the drama as it follows Miller’s character over the course of several years, through bad choices and worse romances. Miller is best in scenes with Christina Hendricks, as her character’s down-earth sister. Rated R. 111 minutes. — C. Meyer Avengers: Endgame It’s three hours long, and it’s not boring, and that’s saying a lot for this final installment of the Avengers series. The new film, in which the irrepressible gang decides to go back in time, brings the Marvel series to a satisfying close. Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Hemsworth are particular standouts. Rated PG-13. 181 minutes. — M. LaSalle The Biggest Little Farm Absorbing, fascinating documentary about a city couple who chuck it all and buy an abandoned farm, but face constant struggle to realize their dream of a self-sustained biodiversity. A film with life lessons, as well as an implied commentary on modern agriculture and climate change. Rated PG. 91 minutes. — G. Allen Johnson Booksmart Two best friends, smart kids who’ve spent four years studying, go on a tear in their last day before graduation, hoping to pack four years of missed experience into one great night. Thought it has some lags, it’s a fairly fun movie, directed by Olivia Wilde and written by four female screenwriters. Rated R. 102 minutes. — M. LaSalle

Brightburn So it’s kind of like what happened to Clark Kent’s family, only different. This time the kid (who lands on the farm as a baby) grows into an evil monster, and there’s nothing his parents or anyone else can do about it. He’s just going to wreck everything — for a whole movie. Elizabeth Banks plays Mom, and that makes the movie bearable. Rated R. 90 minutes. — M. LaSalle Captain Marvel Brie Larson makes for a bland superhero in this latest from Marvel, but then the movie itself gives her a boring, indistinct character. The movie has its moments, but if this was meant as an answer to DC Comics’ Wonder Woman series, it’s a weak answer. Rated PG-13. 124 minutes. — M. LaSalle Chasing the Dragon II This Hong Kong thriller, a sequel to “Chasing the Dragon” (2017), is an efficiently made police action-drama, but it fails to give us anything we haven’t seen many times before. Focusing on an undercover cop who infiltrates a kidnapping gang, the film is full of the requisite car chases, shootouts etc., but there’s little fresh here. In Cantonese with English subtitles. Not rated. 100 minutes. — C. Darling

Dark Phoenix One of the best X-Men movies, this one explores the idea of mental illness: What happens if an all-powerful person becomes unstable and starts lashing out? Starring Sophie Turner in the title role and featuring a great villainess turn by Jessica Chastain, this is a more thoughtful sci-fi movie, albeit with the obligatory derailment in superhero battles in the last quarter. Rated PG-13. 113 minutes.

— M. LaSalle The Dead Don’t Die The latest from Jim Jarmusch has a good cast and moments of humor, but it’s terribly slow and pointless, a tongue-in-cheek movie that seems entirely without purpose. Co-starring Adam Driver, Bill Murray and Chloe Sevigny, among others. R. 105 minutes.

— M. LaSalle A Dog’s Journey This tearjerker sequel to 2017’s “A Dog’s Purpose” continues the story of canine reincarnation, as one pooch in various bodies protects a young woman throughout her life. Both films are based on novels by W. Bruce Cameron. There’s a modest girl-power theme here and a few sequences that could soften the hardest of hearts, but a sky-high saccharine quotient limits its appeal Rated PG. 108 minutes.

— W. Addiego Echo in the Canyon A highly entertaining look at the musical Golden Age of L.A.’s Laurel Canyon, around 1965 to ’67, when performers like the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield and the Mamas and the Papas were creating groundbreaking work. Narrated by Jakob Dylan (who also executive produced), the film uses archival footage from the glory days and recent interviews with musicians such as David Crosby, Michelle Phillips, Tom Petty, Brian Wilson, Ringo Starr and Roger McGuinn. The movie is certainly not a comprehensive history of the Laurel Canyon scene, but it’s great fun. Rated PG-13. 82 minutes. — W. Addiego 5B This documentary tells the story of the AIDS ward at San Francisco General, which began in 1983 and pioneered ways of comforting and treating AIDS, back in those terrible days when a diagnosis was the same as a death sentence. It’s a moving look at an important piece of medical and cultural