11 movies to check out on Netflix this May

Adapted from a New York Times Magazine feature story by Nathaniel Rich titled “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare,” Todd Haynes’ legal thriller Dark Waters stars Mark Ruffalo as environmental attorney Robert Bilott. The A.V. Club’s writes: “The waters in question can be found in Parkersburg, West Virginia, near one of the chemical plants at which DuPont produced the nonadhesive coating used in Teflon products. When cattle start dying and residents’ teeth turn black (around 1998), the victims turn to Rob Bilott (Mark Ruffalo), a big-city lawyer who originally hails from that region, unaware and unconcerned that Bilott’s job involves defending large corporations from accusations of malfeasance.”

The official synopsis for Manolo Caro’s comedy-drama Down The Rabbit Hole reads: “Raised in opulence and culture, 10-year-old Tochtli’s lavish life contrasts with the darkness that seeps in from his father’s criminal activities.” The movie stars Debi Mazar, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Teresa Ruiz, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Raúl Briones, Fabiola Stevenson, Mercedes Hernández, Pierre Louis, Lizeth Selene, and Alfredo Gatica. Mexican director Caro is known for the film Tales Of An Immoral Couple and the Netflix series The House Of Flowers and Someone Has To Die.

Maybe viewers will give 2019's Hellboy another chance now that Stranger Things fans know that it’s David Harbour underneath all that red latex and makeup. The A.V. Club’s writes about the Neil Marshall-directed reboot starring Milla Jovovich and Ian McShane: “Hellboy digs relatively deep into the series’ mythology, emphasizing the Arthurian aspects of the comic’s lore. The main villain also comes from the comics: Nimue (Milla Jovovich), aka the Blood Queen, a fifth-century witch with a Magneto-esque plan to wipe out humanity and create a new civilization run by monsters. She wants Hellboy to be her king, and manages to get far enough into his head that he questions his loyalty to his adoptive father Professor Broom (Ian McShane) and the Bureau Of Paranormal Research And Defense in general. But first, Hellboy has to fight vampires, giants, witches, and, most terrifying of all, duplicitous one-percent types.”

Director Simon McQuoid’s pandemic hit  is a reboot of the martial arts fantasy franchise based on the video game of the same name. The movie follows Cole Young (Lewis Tan), an MMA fighter unaware of his family lineage or why the assassin Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim) is after him. Mortal Kombat also stars Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Tadanobu Asano, Mehcad Brooks, Ludi Lin, Chin Han, Max Huang, and Hiroyuki Sanada. Although critics were unimpressed with the CG-heavy reboot, Mortal Kombat was successful enough that a sequel is in development with McQuoid returning as director.

Zhang Yimou’s monster film The Great Wall stars Matt Damon, Jing Tian, Willem Dafoe, Andy Lau, and Pedro Pascal, the latter of whom you probably forgot had acting credits before The Mandalorian. The A.V. Club’s writes, “What if the Great Wall Of China were actually built as a defense against a colony of spike-toothed, green-blooded sauroid aliens that crashed into Inner Mongolia on a meteorite sometime around the eighth century B.C.? Such is the premise of Zhang Yimou’s stupidly awesome The Great Wall, a 3D nationalist fantasy that follows two smelly medieval Europeans as they trek East with the plan of stealing the secret of gunpowder, only to find themselves at the final stages of China’s 2,000-year war against man-eating extraterrestrials—a historical episode that has, for whatever reason, never been previously depicted on-screen.”

If you were bummed about the fates of Neo (Keanu Reeves) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) in The Matrix Revolutions, give the lesser-seen Resurrections a watch for a more satisfying conclusion to their journey. The A.V. Club’s writes about the Lana Wachowski-directed sequel, “There’s a clear ambivalence of creator for creation in The Matrix Resurrections, but the impression left by the end is not of bitterness but hope. Confusing, heartfelt, goofy, vulnerable, endearing, all-too-human hope.” Warner Bros. green-lit a fifth Matrix movie with Drew Goddard attached as writer and director, but it’s unclear if Reeves, Moss, or any other actors will reprise their roles.

The official description of Roseanne Liang’s action-horror movie Shadow In The Cloud reads: “A female WWII pilot traveling with top secret documents on a B-17 Flying Fortress encounters an evil presence on board the flight.” Chloë Grace Moretz plays the pilot alongside a cast that includes Beulah Koale, Taylor John Smith, Callan Mulvey, and Nick Robinson. Shadow In The Cloud premiered at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival, winning the People’s Choice Award for Midnight Madness.

Got Pop-Tarts? Jerry Seinfeld has them on the brain in his feature directorial debut, , about the origin of the breakfast pastry. Seinfeld also acts in the comedy alongside Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Amy Schumer, James Marsden, Jack McBrayer, Thomas Lennon, Bobby Moynihan, Maria Bakalova, Max Greenfield, Bill Burr, Dan Levy, Christian Slater, and Hugh Grant. The official description from Netflix reads: “Michigan, 1963. Kellogg’s and Post, sworn cereal rivals, race to create a pastry that will change the face of breakfast forever. A tale of ambition, betrayal, sugar, and menacing milkmen, Unfrosted stars writer-director Jerry Seinfeld.”

The comedy-drama The Peanut Butter Falcon starring Shia LaBeouf, Dakota Johnson, and Zack Gottsagen marks the feature directorial debut of Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz. The official description reads: “Zak, a man with Down syndrome, runs away from a residential nursing home to pursue his dream of becoming a wrestler. Later, he meets with an outlaw who becomes his friend and coach.” The A.V. Club’s writes, “Gottsagen does rich, multifaceted work as Zak, putting a sarcastic spin on many of his lines and conveying volumes at times without speaking at all. Nilson and Schwartz built the entire movie around Gottsagen, having discovered him at a camp for aspiring actors with disabilities; he’s been studying his craft since age three, and it shows.”

Brad Peyton’s sci-fi action-thriller Atlas stars Jennifer Lopez, Simu Liu, Sterling K. Brown, and Mark Strong. The official Atlas description reads: “Atlas Shepherd (Jennifer Lopez), a brilliant but misanthropic data analyst with a deep distrust of artificial intelligence, joins a mission to capture a renegade robot with whom she shares a mysterious past. But when plans go awry, her only hope of saving the future of humanity from AI is to trust it.” Peyton previously directed Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, San Andreas, Rampage, and the Netflix series Daybreak.

Studio Ghibli alumnus Tomotaka Shibayama directed the fantasy anime My Oni Girl. The official description reads: “My Oni Girl tells the story of Hiiragi Yatsuse, a first-year high school student who struggles to make friends despite his efforts to please others. His life takes an unexpected turn when one summer day he meets Tsumugi, an oni (demon) girl on a quest to find her mother in the human world. Snow mysteriously begins to fall… and their adventure begins.” My Oni Girl will premiere simultaneously on Netflix and in theaters in Japan.