Silence, Passengers, Assassin's Creed The Film Review

half past six, with me, Ollie Foster, BBC News. First, time for

the film review. Hello, and a very warm welcome to

the film review. To take us through this week's

cinema releases is Antonia Quirtke. We are going to start with Silence,

Martin Scorsese's new film, Liam Neeson, Andrew Garfield, Adam

Driver, they are playing Jesuit priests in 17th-century Japan.

Passengers, starring Chris Pratt, Jennifer Lawrence, about two

passengers sleeping in suspended animation for 120 years on their way

to a new colony on a far-away planet and they wake too early. And also,

Assassin's Creed, Michael Fassbender's big movie, based on the

computed game. So we will be looking at some films which were released

over the festive period. Let's kick off then with Silence, great passion

of Martin Scorsese, trying for years and years to get this made. First

got it in with Daniel Day Lewis, Gallagher -- Gael Garcia Bernal and

have you buy them have been attached to it. He was famously brought up a

devout Catholic, had a great and genuine interest in the priesthood,

at one point he was going to join the priesthood, so Catholicism has

been a real thing for him. -- Benicia Del Toro. Religion in his

films, the last temptation of Christ and Kundun but even something like

mean streets, marvellously there. What is the religious Martin

Scorsese like? This is a difficult film to watch, it is about the

persecution and torture of priests and their flock. 106 to one minutes,

incredibly long, and relentless, long conversations reflecting Martin

Scorsese's own ambiguity towards his own faith. I know that it has been

very highly praised, and not many people have gone to see it but it

has been critically tremendously well received. I found it... I think

that there is a pulse of confusion in it, I was not clear what Martin

Scorsese was trying to say. The directors he admires, religious

directors, Carl Dreier, with Joe Navarre, Robert Bresson, there is a

euphoria in those sorts of films. Things like Joe Navarre. And yet,

you can't think, this was says's moment to join the ranks of those

kind of directors. -- Martin Scorsese's moment. I'm not sure that

he has done it, but I know that many people disagree with me. -- Carl

Dreyer. Let's take a little clip here, for a preview. Padre. We have

fought to travel, for the Lord. You must pray for courage. If we do not

do what they want, then there could be danger for everyone in the

village. They could be put in prison, they could be taken away for

ever. What should we do? Trample. Trample! It is all right to trample.

What are you saying? You can't! ... You can't... As you were saying, a

long watch, a pretty gruelling watch, but the performance is good?

Absolutely, Andrew Garfield, when he played Spiderman, that role did that

young actor no favours and here he is, he has a quality of deeply

inherent youthfulness and vulnerability, anyone who saw him in

never let me go will remember that, and also, a Japanese actor, is your

garter, he plays the grand Inquisitor in this, and he is an

incredible actor, ingenious casting for Martin Scorsese. -- Spider-Man

-- Never Let Me Go. And this is a comedic actor, but he playing

someone who does the most terrible things, he's a comedic actor, he has

wonderful kabuki gestures, and the performance are something else. --

Issey Ogata. Something pretty different, Passengers, silence,

gruelling, is Passengers something easier? A lot fluffier, a lot more

fun, this is about two passengers in suspended animation, hibernation for

120 years on their way to a new colony on a new planet and for

reasons we will not go into, spoiler alerts, they wake up early.

Wonderful idea, so is able, two strangers facing an eternity

together, walking endless corridors, gigantic spaceship, and, breaking

into the entertainment facilities, and with their little wristbands,

one of the funniest things is the ways in which there is even know one

else existing, you are still slaves, your life had been formalised before

you left Earth. Also this lovely simmering sexual tension between the

two main stars... It would have been all right to leave it at that but

there is this derring-do, in the third act, not entirely necessary.

You can feel moments where it is reaching for some tougher kind of

glory, think of something like Alien and wandering the corridors of that

spaceship, intensely sinister and threatening place to be but this

place looks pretty nice. I would not mind moving there myself! There are

moments when you are shown how jerry-built this craft is, hammering

away against things, putting fuses together to get things to work, that

ought to have been frightening and made me feel how vulnerable these

people are and yet it does not quite do that. There is a wonderful cameo,

Michael Sheen plays a bartender, rather sinister. He is a robot. And

you can see that he is struggling with the part, trying to bring more

to it than is there on the page, unfortunately, it is not on the page

but it is fun. Let's talk about Assassin's Creed, which video game

players will be very familiar with, based on the video game. Movies used

to be based on novels... Now they are based on video games(!) this is

catastrophic... Nine instalments in this video franchise, one of those

movies that has been long in production, lots of re-shoots,

rejigs, starring Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons,

Charlotte Rampling, incredible cast. To even begin to describe the plot,

I am not sure there is any point! Be assassins... Assassins against

Knights Templar, let's take a look. Do you recognise this? It is an

assassins blade. This is the actual one that your father used to take

your mother 's life. He's here, you know... Your mother 's death, not

something a boy should ever be made to see.

So, catastrophic, you said... charitably(!), I am sure a lot of

people will go to see it nonetheless. Why do you think it

doesn't work? Unbelievably incoherent, extraordinary, it is...

It opens... It opens with three flashbacks, three flashback! What a

flashback does in a film, someone is standing there and saying, hang on a

sec, let me fill you in, and then they do that twice more. Hang on, if

you don't know this... The rest won't make any sense... Three times,

15 minutes! ... Feels like the movie never start, then you are in there

and you feel like the movie will never end! I went to the cinema to

see this, two were asleep at the end of the row that I was sitting on,

that sums it up. Rugby does! Never mind. So that is Assassin's Creed.

-- probably does. Best movie out at the moment, in your opinion. A

monster calls, now this is the most extraordinary cell, actually, it is

a fantastical terminal illness melodrama for children. -- A

Monster's Call. Maybe it is not for children, it stars a 12-year-old

boy. -- sell. He's visited by a Yew Tree, over a few evenings, and it is

played by Liam Neeson, it has a wonderful shape, Dickensian shed,

visited three times to be shown things that may help you deal with

life. It is a flat-out classic, it has the emotional heft of the

Railway children, moments of iron man by Ted Hughes and pans

Labyrinth, I think it is a masterpiece, go and see it and take

all of the family. Good recommendation! Best DVD? A terrific

film which is just... Featured quite a lot in the Golden Globes

nominations. Hell or High Water, Ben Foster and Chris Pine, bank robber

brothers, and Jeff Bridges is the Texas Rangers who is tracking them

down, which sounds terribly familiar, that kind of plot, and

features a great deal in cinema. One of them is on a roll, the other

brother is a little too wild, the Texas Rangers always a step ahead of

them. It feels like a movie of the mid-19 70s or early 1980s, like

midnight run, where you come away from it thinking, you will look

through the TV listings and think, Hell or High Water is on tonight,

unmissable, fantastic! -- Midnight Run. It has slotted into that

classic film territory already, Jeff Bridges has been nominated for a

Golden Globes for his Best Supporting Actor and he does the

most fantastic thing towards the end of the movie. There is a death scene

and just in a couple of seconds you see everything that Jeff Bridges can

offer as an actor, the way that he absorbs the shock, it is a magical

moment, such a terrific film. Thank you very much the joining us. That

is it for this week, thank you so much for watching, goodbye.