Logan, Elle and Viceroy's House. Film 2017

Hello, this is Film 2017 I'm Charlie Brooker,

and the award for best picture goes to Moonla Land.

Anyway it's the last show of the series so there's

an end-of-term feel in the studio, a relaxed air, as though life itself

simply doesn't matter, so why not chuck us your thoughts on Twitter?

Details for that are on the screen now.

No! He will have some ones are allowed but those. Hugh Jackman

plays Wolverine for the final time in the Logan. I never want to spend

more than two minutes dressed up. Hugh Bonneville plays the distinct

non-Wolverine Louis Mountbatten in Viceroy's House. 30 minutes, we will

do better next time. Superheroes, giant apes and singing candelabras.

We look forward to the films scuttling this summer. Stop right

there! I. Plus Isabelle Huppert stars

in provocative French drama, Elle. But first, chaperoning me are my

designated appropriate adults, Hello - I quickly have to ask,

have either of you recovered from the Oscars best

picture mix-up yet? Because I cringed so hard my I

anally ingested my own underwear... It may take me a while to find a way

from that image conversationally. Think happy thoughts.

We start with Logan, Hugh Jackman's ninth and final

outing playing Wolverine, a sort of furious cross

between Noddy Holder from Slade and a cutlery drawer.

This time round, he's not as ripped and fiery as in the past -

instead he's old, bitter, decrepit, disenfranchised

and other adjectives often used to describe me -

Logan. What did you do? In Logan we find our hero, Wolverine in very

different shape than we have seen him, he is ill, his body is

decaying, he is not healing the way that he used to. And he is raising

money, working for every dollar right now to buy medicine for

Charles Xavier who is living across the board in an abandoned chemical

tank. We have got ourselves in X-Men fan. Into their lives comes an

11-year-old girl. You're going to pay for that, right? Not OK! In many

respects, it is not a superhero movie. We feel that there has become

a formula for it these films and we thought we would try and change

things and see if it was possible to make a straight drama with these

superhero characters. She needs our help. Someone has come along. Scene

after scene could be taken from a small, independent movie about the

difficulties of getting old or being unwell, but nevertheless, Logan and

Charles are X-Men. They do have powers. On the count of three, and

you're going to start walking away. I am a lawyer now. Two... Three...

There is a lot of action and a lot of it, extremely violent. Quite

shocking. There are moments when you recoil. We were like, let's not just

make the movie about violence, but recriminations about violence. Make

the movie about a man and the recriminations have been a

superhero. No, no, no. I thought we had never fully cracked it. I felt

we had never really given the fans the true Wolverine that I knew they

wanted. It was my last shot. There are really is a sense of closure and

in a very emotional sense as well. You still have time. Now, this

struck me, this is what I like to think of as a gourmet Burger movie

in that it has some heft to it, it is very well made and looks

expensive but it is still basically a burger, junk food, I did enjoy it.

It is basically a burger. How bloody do you like your burgers? It is the

bloodiest film. Patrick Stewart seemed excited about the violence.

It is astonishingly visceral, there are body parts piling up, and in

that sense I do not think it is like a superhero movie. It is a raw and

dripping burger. There are interesting things going on. There

is a scene quite early on where you cut to Hugh Jackman and the whole

thing is paced so you would have a brilliant one-liner and there are

screen writers who can make a living out of doing just that. Hugh Jackman

does not make it, the moment passes and he looks sad. Superhero movies

do not do that. Wiping away the blood would take about half an hour!

I could not believe this was a 15 certificate. I don't know what

Wolverine would have to do to get an 18 certificate. He would have to

start doing! Then shaking it out of his trouser leg -- pooing. There is

a theme running through it and the references to Neal Westerns. Any

film in which a solemn young girl gets one over on those types of

Nazis is OK by me. Patrick Stewart was trying to make out... It is a

meditation on ageing and mortality. Hugh Jackman works in this movie.

One of my problems has been, he is a big musical theatre buff, but here,

he does not seem like that. He looks knackered and disgusted with

himself. The only problem is, the films that he is up against are not

quite his equals. You have Richard E Grant and a job lot of him blows.

You cannot have a powerful meditation on ageing and have

Richard E Grant as a villain. He has a robot hand and keeps on taking off

his sunglasses. If we have to live in this world were each film is

always at franchise, at least let them get better and this film has

learned from Deadpool. I admire, I took my son and he had seen all the

X-Men movies, and he was quite traumatised. It was not my finest

hour as a parent. People should be aware, there is a lot of blood. It

is like someone taking a lawn mower through a butchers shop. It is sort

of disgusting. The sound of it is disgusting. It is 17 years since the

first one, so we have grown up a bit. In a couple of years, we will

reach the point where there are only superhero movies. Superhero movies

that you have to watch by watching another superhero movie.

Next up is colonial drama 'Viceroy's House'

Hugh Bonneville stars as Louis Mountbatten,

the final Viceroy of India, sent to Delhi in 1947

when the good eggs running the British Empire decided to grant

India its independence, and gave it an extra helping

hand by carving it up on religious grounds.

I am to be the last Viceroy of India and I will carry out the role with

great pride. You're giving a nation back to its people, how bad can it

be? We are the future. Let's not make a mess of it. Viceroy's House

is about a period in 1947 when Lord Mountbatten who was the

great-grandson of Queen Victoria and his wife were sent to India to

essentially hand India back to its people. Without peace, all other

dreams vanished and are reduced to ashes. India is a ship on fire.

Viceroy's House employs the upstairs downstairs storyline. It enabled me

to tell this sweeping epic story of ordinary Indians, so whilst upstairs

we follow Mountbatten so many of the topics in

the film are playing out on the political stage. It is very

interesting to have these conversations about whether we can

learn from our mistakes. It is time, people are ready to go back and look

at alternative narratives to the Empire compared to the ones that I

grew up with and was taught in school. We will do better next time.

This seemed to me like it was trying to be three films at once, it was

like upstairs downstairs, it was like a political play in some ways

and it was also as sweeping romance or trying to be and I don't know

that it managed to do all three of those things. I think it did well at

contextualising the romance. It gave it an emotional immediacy. My

problem is simple, and this will sound like I have got it in for Hugh

Bonneville, but if you're going to make a film about a serious period

of history, you don't want to cast the bloke from Downton Abbey. What

have you got against him? Apologies to Hugh Bonneville. It is because he

is so nice. The British Empire is responsible for terrible massacres

but you cannot lay it at the feet of the nice dad from Downton Abbey. Ie

Wouldn't say I felt for his plight, I thought, that is a bit of a first

world problem. The film goes soft on the British Empire. I think you have

to cast the way she cannot make the film, because I think the film that

Gurinder Chadha wanted to make was a film about the millions of Indians

who had their lives torn apart but you cannot make that film. You have

to make it like Downton Abbey. You need the handy little people in it

or it does not happen. Are you saying that is why... The romance

Senate, I did not care for them. I think it was a couple, when we first

meet them, they had already fallen in love and we are told they are in

love and we are supposed to accept it. Well, I don't! You are being

selfish! The couple give the best performances. It is a real shame

they are not on the poster more. I am really ignorant and I did not

know a lot of this stuff about partition and I found it

interesting. In the first 20 minutes, it has to do so much heavy

lifting. Are you learning the real history? It says something terrible

about Churchill, you do not get that in British films. There is a film

called United Kingdom. That film was all about Churchill's skulduggery.

It had to be dressed up like Downton Abbey. This has to do the same

thing, lay out the sconce in order to bring in the audience. I think it

is smarter than that. Do you think it would have worked better as a

miniseries? For me, it could not make up its mind whether it was a

political peace or a romantic drama and I would have preferred to see

two separate things or see this play out over eight hours.

There were trying to pull in different audiences. They had to

maximise the audience and the trick of getting people into the cinema.

If people don't go to see it quickly, it disappears and the

history is lost. It is an nice and metaphor for the partition of India,

this couple who cannot be together. They captured the pain of the

subcontinent, so there is an artistic reason. Thought you were

going to say it was an nice and metaphor for Brexit.

Right, now, following a winter of critically acclaimed dramas

heaving with worthy themes and harrowing performances -

you probably feel the need to unwind with some pointless

Fortunately for you, blockbuster season's almost here.

We asked some critics what's worth looking forward to...

Let's go. Three, two, one. Talking raccoon is, romantic aliens and

shamefully out of shape, hideous old men. 2017 is only a couple of months

old, but already it is time for the return of the blockbuster. I love

blockbuster, they remind me of growing up. Your popcorn and just

enjoyed the movie. Summer season used to begin in June, now it begins

in March. Apart from the films where people suck the rest of their lives,

people get stomped on by giant critters. Apart from angry monkeys,

what else can we expect? Well, this sort of thing. Sometimes they can

feel a bit template heavy, just setting up for the next one in the

series. Sequels and remakes, reboots, remakes of the sequels...

These films cost $150 million to make and no one is willing to bet

that on something completely original and unproven. It is a myth

we are inundated with superhero movies. It's not the case at all. We

have Logan, two DC movies. I am looking for Warriors. The summer

blockbuster I am looking forward to has to be Wonder Woman. I love

seeing women being kick cars in movies. She has a new outfit.

Traditionally in superhero movies, they think women don't sell, so

traditionally, they have been terrible. Wonder Woman, ready. Maybe

this reboot will do it for you. One is a beauty, the other is a beast.

Emma Watson is the quintessential English rose. I think the casting of

her as Belle was perfect. This is the role Ewan McGregor was born to

play. If singing crockery and clapping candelabra aren't

terrifying enough... This looks very much like the horror of 2017.

Politically speaking and socially speaking, it will probably be the

most relative horror movie of the year. It is an incredibly ingenious

racial satire which takes horror and comedy, puts them together to create

something very intense. Sticking with scary, try this... It looks

like a return to an nasty creature aboard a spaceship, picking off the

crew, one by one. The hope is, this will be a little bit more like

alien, in that it will be terrifying and scary. It needs to be.

Meanwhile, on Earth, Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn teamed up and much

hilarity ensues before our very eyes. Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn

get kidnapped. You have messed with the wrong pitches. Welcome to

Baywatch. Baywatch, where do you begin? There is a whole lot of

explosions this year. I am looking forward to Get Out.

Ellen, anything in particular you really want to see?

Baywatch. I watched it as a kid and it is probably going to be terrible,

but it might not be. Hideous. Danny, I imagine the summer

isn't your season film-wise? I work on my tan in the summer. Lots

of things coming out. I am looking forward to Alien Covenant. Bill

Paxton, died at the weekend, which is a sad loss. Alien will always be

the greatest of them, but it is a sad moment. I thought 2016 was over,

we didn't have to do this any more. You have been treating us mentioning

your favourite Bill Paxton movies and characters. And it was Chet in

weird science. Hurricane Dixon in One False Move. He was in a lot of

brilliant films. Simple plan. Frailty, he directed.

Our last film is Elle, a provocative thriller

from veteran Dutch director, Paul Verhoeven.

In an Oscar-nominated performance Isabelle Huppert stars as a woman

who is violently raped by a masked intruder and who at first appears

to react with an almost surreal level of detachment.

It is a story about a woman to whom is something violent and unusual

happens and she reacts in such a way that it is quite unpredictable.

She is a fearless woman and she is a sort of solitary character, also.

The way she reacts is interesting because she is not a victim, and

also she is not the caricature of the classical revenge girl. She is

more like a postfeminist heroine, not being a victim, but in between.

There is a quest in the film and I was always touched by the story like

she was seeking something and trying to put the pieces of her life

together. I was flabbergasted by this film. It

works almost like a magic trick. Lots of extremely offensive and

outrageous things going on, yet somehow you are calm about it while

you are watching it. It operates on a strange dreamlike level. Whatever

the French for flabbergasted is, that is what I was. I think if

people expect it to be a rape revenge thriller, reduce it down to

three words, those would be done, but it is not that movie. It gets to

the revenge without giving away what happens. It leaves you off balance.

I have a lot of time for this film. But if you sat there now and said

you were outraged or freaked out, I couldn't tell you that you were

wrong. What happens, the way it swerves, keeps you off-balance, it

is electric. It is not lost something you would necessarily

recommend to anyone else. It was never, it was consistently

entertaining. You never know what is going to happen next. We have to say

it works on lots of different levels. Moments of extreme comedy.

It works as a soap, in some ways. It is easy to say what it is not. It is

not a feminist masterpiece, it is not on rape culture, it is a good

film. One of them oppressive things is how it is ambiguous and slippery

both in tone and in the story and also fundamentally the character.

The high wire gamble is to take a film about a rape victim and tell

the story about what happens after the rape, but also her messy life,

her business intrigues and this shambolic family. That is where the

latter comes. On another planet, this is a sitcom because of what is

happening with the family. We have to talk about Isabel Hubert, people

watch this, and the man who made Basic Instinct and Showgirls. She is

hypnotic in this. She is in every scene. Almost like she is very

brittle, a very brittle character who, in any other film, might seem

unlikeable. But I warmed to her because some of the other people

were grotesque in this. She does it in such great style as well. In

English, it wouldn't make sense. Paul Verhoeven wanted to make this

in America, he wanted Sharon Stone, Nicole Kidman. Imagining this film,

the big cliche, I cannot imagine this film with any other actress.

Elle, how could you make this film without Isabelle Huppert. People

might be taken aback by this film, it would be 1000 times worse without

Isabelle Huppert. It doesn't make sense, that is part of the weird

beauty, it doesn't make sense. Things happen in it, at one point

she reverses her car into her ex-husband's car. The front bumper

falls off and he scarcely registers this. It almost feels like she

works, she works at a video film company, and it is like it is in the

grand theft auto universe. He does well in having his Cake and eating

it, it is like a French fantasy arthouse film. It is the predictable

pleasures as well. Is it your film of the week? Yes. I panicked them. I

think it is my film of the week. A movie that can take your breath away

like this and leave all three of us and everyone who watches this, what

have I just seen? How rare is that. You might be more of a Logan person

and that is OK too. Imagine them as a double bill?

Right that's almost it for this week and the series.

No one's going to be here for you next week.

You'll have to adopt some kind of coping strategy.

Finally, because it's 40 years old this year,

we'll leave you with a iconic moment from the 1977 classic,

'Saturday Night Fever', the inspiring tale of a Travoltian

man struggling with the tragic leg condition known as Disco Fever.

Personally, I love to see someone tearing up the dance floor.

A 24-year-old man has been charged with murder.

I've got no doubt about Michael Farmer's guilt.

You made sure an innocent man is charged.