:00:00. > :00:00.of all time since he has been England coach. And we will have the
:00:00. > :00:20.latest from the world indoor athletics. Now, it is time for the
:00:21. > :00:24.film review. Hello and welcome to The Film Review on BBC News to take
:00:25. > :00:30.us through this week's cinema, we have Mark Kermode. What do we have?
:00:31. > :00:34.We have a new Wes Anderson film, Grand Budapest Hotel grand. If you
:00:35. > :00:41.know him, you know what to expect. We have mret bullet, the latest film
:00:42. > :00:48.from Danny Trejo, in which he plays a enforcement officer who take takes
:00:49. > :00:52.law into his own hands and we have 300: Rise Of An Empir.
:00:53. > :00:58.Now, Wes Anderson is not everyone's cup of tea but I like most of what
:00:59. > :01:03.he does, most. When Wes Anderson is on form, he is
:01:04. > :01:10.intriguing, occasionally, he can be too arch for his own good. This is
:01:11. > :01:15.one of his most enjoyable films. One of the things he does is boxes in
:01:16. > :01:20.boxes and stories in stories. The story here is with a narrator, who
:01:21. > :01:25.remembers a younger version of himself, who then has a conversation
:01:26. > :01:59.with somebody who takes us back to the 1930s, and the centre is the
:02:00. > :02:00.Grand Budapest Hotel when it was run, lorded over by an extraordinary
:02:01. > :02:00.concierge, played with brilliant economic timing by Ralph Fiennes.
:02:01. > :02:01.Here is a clip. Who are you? I'm Zero, sir, the new
:02:02. > :02:02.lobby boy. Zero? Yes, sir.
:02:03. > :02:02.Who haired -- hired you? Mr Mojo. Am I to understand you hired this
:02:03. > :02:03.young man in the position of a lobby boy? He's been engaged for a trial
:02:04. > :02:07.period, pending your approval, of course. Perhaps, yes. Thank you, Mr
:02:08. > :02:10.Mercer. You are welcome.
:02:11. > :02:15.You are to be officially interviewed.
:02:16. > :02:24.Shall I light the candle first, sir? What? No! Experience? Hotel, kitchen
:02:25. > :02:33.boy, six months. Before that, I was... Experience, zero.
:02:34. > :02:42.Thank you, again, sir. Accepted. Education? I started my
:02:43. > :02:51.primary school, I almost finished... Experience zero.
:02:52. > :02:56.Not now. Family? Zero. Oh, that is wonderful.
:02:57. > :03:02.You were laughing all of the the way through. The cometic acting,
:03:03. > :03:07.everybody loves Ralph Fiennes but his cometic genius is untouched? He
:03:08. > :03:14.has done comedy performances before. A director saw him on stage on an
:03:15. > :03:18.daptation of God of Carnage, and what is interesting here is that
:03:19. > :03:23.Anderson treats the characters as if they are animation. So all of the
:03:24. > :03:27.movements are stylised and particular. It is vae funny film,
:03:28. > :03:32.largely as it has that brittle sense of everything is working, not so
:03:33. > :03:36.much like looking at a Swiss watch but more like a grandfather clock in
:03:37. > :03:41.which the workings are on display. What I like about the film is that
:03:42. > :03:45.Ralph Fiennes manages to do that cometic timing thing that goes back
:03:46. > :03:50.to the silent cinema. You think of Keating and Chapman. And the story
:03:51. > :03:55.is a caper. It is mad cap it is about art theft, murder, cakes,
:03:56. > :04:00.family plots. It has cable cars, trains, it has a war... All of this
:04:01. > :04:06.stuff that comes together in a big meringue-like confection. And cakes
:04:07. > :04:12.play a central role, arriving in boxes and then lovingly unpacked.
:04:13. > :04:16.There have been times in the past when Wes Anderson's world has
:04:17. > :04:21.beensterile, hard to get into to, but this is funny. Ralph Fiennes is
:04:22. > :04:28.terrific. Every single actor in the world is in it. Bill Murray, we
:04:29. > :04:34.could be here for the rest of the programme saying who is in it.
:04:35. > :04:39.But it works well. It is a debt to Hitchcock. It is about story
:04:40. > :04:46.telling, and crucially it is funny. The jokes are funny! I am glad you
:04:47. > :04:52.mentioned razor sharp wit, because Bullet, perhaps not so, what do you
:04:53. > :04:59.think? Danny Trejo became an international icon through Chris
:05:00. > :05:05.Tarrant doing post modern pastiches but in Bullet this is B film grind
:05:06. > :05:10.affair. It is on its way to DVD. Out on Monday. So opening the doors to
:05:11. > :05:18.the cinemas, then going off to the DVD shelves.
:05:19. > :05:24.He is up against a bad bunch of kidnappers, drug dealers, they are
:05:25. > :05:29.kidnapping his grandson, there -- therefore he has to take matters
:05:30. > :05:33.into his own hands. So fine at home with a curry and a six pack but even
:05:34. > :05:39.at that mark it is lame. It is bland. It does not have the wit or
:05:40. > :05:46.the sparkle that has been done by him before. It is head bang, a B
:05:47. > :05:55.film for Boring. I did watch 300. I have no idea why.
:05:56. > :06:03.Don't be ashamed, embrace it. But 300: Rise of the Empire, what is it?
:06:04. > :06:08.This is skp exact Schneider's best film. A companion piece. The story
:06:09. > :06:10.this time is that we have Themistocle and Artemisi played with
:06:11. > :06:27.some relish, by Eva Green. Which is more than I can say for any
:06:28. > :06:35.of you... Do you gentlemen find my command unreasonable? Is it too much
:06:36. > :06:42.to ask for victory? Although I stand among 10,000, I am alone! I long for
:06:43. > :06:53.a soul who would stand by my side. Someone I could trust.
:06:54. > :06:59.Tell meeshgs general -- tell me, general, are you that man? You will
:07:00. > :07:04.taste your victory by the day's end. I will make certain of it.
:07:05. > :07:09.I hope so. That gives an indication of the
:07:10. > :07:13.acting that goes from overripe to utterly wooden. The film starting
:07:14. > :07:20.with a voice over that explains the plot going on forever. Making the
:07:21. > :07:24.open opening of the Phantom Menace wild.
:07:25. > :07:31.And it reminds you about 300 but being dull. Despite the massive
:07:32. > :07:34.amounts of flesh, blood and sword-swinging... And not to mention
:07:35. > :07:39.baby oil. Everyone is nicely waxed before
:07:40. > :07:47.battle. And this time we have not one but two warrior queens, and yet
:07:48. > :07:55.it is still the same kind of manly, beating, war! And interspersed with
:07:56. > :08:02.these unbelievably bits of tedious splot exhibition, all so the in CG
:08:03. > :08:09.3D. It looks like something you see on a computer game. The dialogue
:08:10. > :08:13.apparently written by those who wrote the Carry On films. And
:08:14. > :08:18.considering the level of carnage, the body count, how much stuff is
:08:19. > :08:22.going on it is astonishing how uninteresting it all is. It does
:08:23. > :08:29.demonstrate just how interesting 300 was as a film.
:08:30. > :08:37.You are kidding me? ! No, I am not, 300 is Citizen Kane.
:08:38. > :08:43.No, Unforgiven. I wondered why this was in best of the week? It is a
:08:44. > :08:49.re-make. A Japanese re-make, obviously there has been a long
:08:50. > :08:53.interplay between Westerns and mythology.
:08:54. > :08:57.In the case of this they have taken the script verbatim and transferred
:08:58. > :09:01.the location and it sounds like a strange idea but the minute you
:09:02. > :09:06.start to watch it, it makes sense. The underlying myths are the same.
:09:07. > :09:12.The samurai war yore, the lone figure haunted by his past who, is
:09:13. > :09:18.drawn into violence it does not, I think match the depth of the
:09:19. > :09:23.Eastwood original, which is an astonishing piece of work, but what
:09:24. > :09:27.it lacks in depth, it makes up for in splendour it is interesting how
:09:28. > :09:35.you watch the myths passing backwards and forwards between the
:09:36. > :09:39.cultures it works surprise ingly -- surprisingly well. Even with you
:09:40. > :09:42.know the story so well, it is amazing how well it works in the new
:09:43. > :09:48.setting. Now, I am surprised by the new
:09:49. > :09:57.choice of Gravity, you need to see it on a big screen? I know! It won
:09:58. > :10:02.Best Picture but it is an interesting case of will the film
:10:03. > :10:11.hold up when not on a big screen. Ideally, you have to watch it on a
:10:12. > :10:15.mass massive I max screen, and seek out the stereo version, but the
:10:16. > :10:21.reason for this, is that there has been a lot of talk about Alfonso
:10:22. > :10:24.Cuaron, the story works, Sandra Bullock's personal journey. And it
:10:25. > :10:30.is interesting to watch on the small screen. It is a different film. It
:10:31. > :10:36.looks more like an episode of the Twielight zone. Once the visuals are
:10:37. > :10:42.not doing the dazzling, you watch it as an up upmarket B film script. I
:10:43. > :10:46.am surprised it holds up. It is not the roll rollercoaster experience
:10:47. > :10:52.but it works better than you think. OK.
:10:53. > :11:01.Works better than you think. So a quick reminder before you go. More
:11:02. > :11:06.films and news from Mark on his blog at Kermode cut.
:11:07. > :11:07.That is it for The Film Review this week. Thank you for watching and
:11:08. > :11:20.goodbye. Well, I think that this weekend's
:11:21. > :11:25.weather will get mixed reviews. We are seeing mixed fortunes today.
:11:26. > :11:26.Temperatures hitting 16 or 17