The Legend of Tarzan, Maggie's Plan, The Neon Demon The Film Review

Britain at the European athletics Championships at 10:30 p.m.. Now, it

is time for the film review. Hello and welcome to

the Film Review on BBC News. To take us through this week's

cinema releases is Mark Kermode. We have The Legend of Tarzan,

which is the film I know you have Why isn't Tarzan

back on our screens? We have Maggie's Plan, a very

interesting sort of non-romcom,. And The Neon Demon,

the controversial new film You're absolutely right, you know,

Tarzan, King of the swingers, Yes, so this seems to be a cinematic

reboot of a very timeless creation from the director David Yates

who directed a number The script is co-written by

Craig Brewer. This begins with John Clayton,

Lord Greystoke, in London, where he has sort of become part

of gentrified society, and he is to be sent

back to the Congo where Christophe Waltz's emissary

to the Belgian King is involved in a very sinister

and horrible mission. With him is Samuel L Jackson's

George Washington Williams, who wants to prove that the Belgians

are involved basically So he provides the politics,

Tarzan provides the action. Kill one and the rest won't stop

until they've torn you to pieces. So how d'you want

to play this, then? Their leader will come

down and we'll fight. Promise

me. I mean, for all the, you know,

he's the interesting story and it's about exploitation,

well, actually, it's about a guy It's kind of an old-fashioned action

movie, albeit with Because he's acting with his abs

and they are the most interesting Christoph Waltz, who is the sort

of villain, does his sort of trademark sinister European

and Margot Robbie sort of plays Jane So there are all of these elements

that make you think this might be an interesting

new take on the story, but it does come out

as rather mudelled. There's a strange mixture

of something which wants to be modern, but feels

oddly old-fashioned. And I have to say that

for me, it didn't gel However, there are large amounts

of people who are going to the cinema who are going to see

that incredible six-pack, which is on display

for a lot of the film! I mean, the fundamental

problem with Tarzan, It was that it is sort of set

in the days of Empire. What this is trying to do

the sort of revisionist, And you think, well,

that's an interesting It still just feels like something

that doesn't quite come together. Which is in dark contrast

to Maggie's Plan which, I have to say, I went into thinking

I wasn't going to like that much. This is the sort of Jane Austen

influenced, as I said, non-romcom, So the story is, Greta Gerwig

is Maggie and she's a very controlling person, and she has this

plan that what she wants to do with her life is she's decided it's

time to have children, but she doesn't want to

have the inconvenience of a partner. So she plans everything out

and she plans everybody's fate. But then, of course,

what happens is that she comes across Ethan Hawke's academic

who is a ficto-critical And apparently, he's the bad boy

of this world and suddenly, And the thing I like about this

is firstly, it's genuinely funny. It's got a really good way

of sort of skewering The second thing is,

it's a romantic comedy which just doesn't see marriage

as an answer to anything, doesn't see romantic

ends as being neat and tidy. It's all about the way

in which people behave in odd ways Julianne Moore is fantastic

as the person who we are originally told is a really scarily successful

academic wife, but then actually turns out to be much more than just

a sort of punchline to a joke. People have sort of compared it

to Woody Allen a little bit, which I can understand,

but I think it's very much As I said, oddly enough,

the strongest influence Although as you quite rightly

say, moving on... Emma didn't quite plan

a family in the way... And Julianne Moore

is just incredible. But in this, she is absolutely

brilliant as the person who's playing Ethan Hawke's

allegedly scary wife, who then turns out to be much

more than that. Now, I loved

Drive. I'm a big fan of Drive and I'm a big

fan of Nicolas Winding Refn. So The Neon Demon, as you probably

know, when it played at Cannes, There has been some outrage,

some newspapers saying, oh, So the story's actually a very

old-fashioned story. It's part an expose

of the emptiness and shallowness Exactly, who could have imagined

such a thing?! But it's also - more importantly -

a fairy tale about an innocent going into the woods of Los Angeles

and being pursued by beasts, She arrives in LA, where

she is immediately surrounded by people who are sort of locked

into the fashion world and all of whom don't have

what she has, which is Don't you think that

she's just perfect? She just got out of the body

shop, she's still a Sweetie, plastics is

just good grooming. Imagine going in here

without brushing your teeth. It's kind of like a really

darker version of Ab Fab. That line about, sweetie,

plastics is just good grooming. It turns into something

much more ghoulish. It turns into, essentially, a kind

of 1970s Italian horror movie. And this is the thing that has sort

of scared some critics off. As a long-standing horror fan,

I am fine with all that stuff and I like the idea that

Nicolas Refn makes these movies that There are moments in Drive when it

suddenly becomes very, very sort of explicitly violent,

and other times, it's very romantic. You know, it's about a world

in which everything's to do with surface, everything's

to do with artifice, everything is to do with the sheen

of the way things look. And I think the film

is very much like that. But it but does also

have a certain amount of depth. And a fantastic score

by Cliff Martinez, which is kind of synthy and squishy,

and reminded me of Tangerine And also, when it turns

into full-blooded... And I think there's no question that

it's an explanation movie. And I think there's no question that

it's an exploitation movie. There's no question that it tips

over, it doesn't just dip into exploitation, it dives

deep into exploitation. But I'm glad that Nicolas Refn

is that kind of director. He is somebody who, for the critics,

can be both the beauty He can delight the critics

and then he can outrage What I liked about that little

clip was the dialogue There's a kind of Stepford

models about it. I'll just die if I

don't get the recipe. I think the Stepford Wives thing

is absolutely spot on, and I think that's exactly

what they are doing. And I've read some reviews which say

that the acting is really wooden. No, no, the acting is

meant to be like that. Particularly in that scene,

absolutely. It's based on the audio tapes

of theologian John Hull - we talked about it last week -

who sort of recorded losing his sight and then

discovering a sort of new awareness. And what the film does is, it uses

those tapes and it uses his stories, diaries and new interviews to create

an extraordinary cinematic portrait that helps you to understand

what that blindness means to him And it reminded me, I said before,

of a film called Black But it's so interesting to make

a film, you know, which is Doing this story and doing it

in a way which is adventurous. I mean, I honestly have not heard

one person who has seen this film And I would recommend

it to everybody. As I said, I will be really

astonished if this isn't in my list of best films of the year,

come the end of the year. It is really profound

and moving and engaging, It's basically a love letter

to old Hollywood. It's got musicals, aquatic

musical sequences. It's funny, because this was coming

out roundabout the same time And it's fun, sort of screwball

and crazy and quirky, but it does have some of the best

comic sequences I've We've discussed the scene

which I showed as a clip. I watched it again the other night

and I laughed at all the same I love the way the Coen brothers

know and understand the history A couple of reviews said they are

just sneering. They are in love with the medium. Ray finds is incredible

funny and I loved it to pieces and I would happily watch it again. I will

borrow the DVD. Before we go, you will find more film news and reviews

across the BBC online. And you can catch up on our preview shows on the

BBCi play. That is it for this week, and you for watching, enjoy the

movies, goodbye. Hello, if you are hoping for a long

and warm and dry settled weather, you are probably out of luck. No

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