:00:00. > :00:19.Now on BBC News, it's time for The Film Review.
:00:20. > :00:21.Hello and welcome to The Film Review on BBC News.
:00:22. > :00:24.To take us through this week's cinema releases is Mark Kermode.
:00:25. > :00:41.It's the definition of a mixed bag. We have King Arthur, Guy Ritchie's
:00:42. > :00:49.take on the legend. We have a very drama set in Tehran, called
:00:50. > :00:54.Inversion. And Colossal, Anne Hath away meets Godzilla. Well, we start
:00:55. > :01:00.with King Arthur. We saw in the brief clip there one David Beckham.
:01:01. > :01:09.We better start and just say is he an Eric Cantana? He isn't. This is
:01:10. > :01:14.Guy Ritchie taking on the legend, if you are old enough to remember 1980s
:01:15. > :01:21.novelty records, King Arthur Daly is not all right. Charlie is the young
:01:22. > :01:25.hero whose wicked uncle Jude Law has seized power, leaving him to grow up
:01:26. > :01:30.ducking and diving and he is keep ago low profile until David Beckham
:01:31. > :01:33.no less tells him to and I quote, he says, put ten fingers around the
:01:34. > :01:38.blunt end of that sword and give it a tug. He does, blimey, wouldn't you
:01:39. > :01:42.know it, it comes out. Next thing he is having to be answerable because
:01:43. > :01:47.it turns out he might be the rightful heir, here is a clip.
:01:48. > :01:52.I was born in a brothel on a bridge in Londinium.
:01:53. > :01:54.The sword can only be drawn by Uther Pendragon
:01:55. > :02:05.You just don't know how to control it.
:02:06. > :02:32.There's a surprise from Guy Ritchie that the baddy is well-spoken and
:02:33. > :02:38.posh and Jude Law. Here is the weird thing. Arthurian legend is rich and
:02:39. > :02:45.magical, I have rarely seen a film lacking in magic. Stuff happens, big
:02:46. > :02:52.snakes, Swords, huge CGI and you think this is dull. The - there are
:02:53. > :02:57.times it looks like outtakes from a Ramstein video. It's just reminding
:02:58. > :03:02.me of other franchises I would be rather be watching. I quite like...
:03:03. > :03:05.I think he did a terrific job with Sherlock Holmes, he took a small
:03:06. > :03:10.element of the text about fighting and turned it into something that
:03:11. > :03:14.made the movie action-packed. The problem with this is it just looks
:03:15. > :03:18.like a bunch of CGI effects thrown together around the ropiest of
:03:19. > :03:21.scripts with the broadest of performances, the whole film,
:03:22. > :03:29.nudging and winking at the audience all the way through. I really ended
:03:30. > :03:33.up thinking, where is John Boorman when you need him. It's so heavy on
:03:34. > :03:38.its feet. It's the fault of the script and the execution of the
:03:39. > :03:42.story. It's a thudding sword and sorcery film which I spent large
:03:43. > :03:46.portions thinking why am I not excited by this, and not laughing at
:03:47. > :03:51.the jokes? Why am I not thrilled by the set pieces and why are there so
:03:52. > :03:55.many mythical beasts that look like someone knocked them up on a home
:03:56. > :03:58.computer? It's really not good. There is nothing more to say. There
:03:59. > :04:03.isn't! We will move along. Actually a change of gear. Total change.
:04:04. > :04:11.Inversion, a story about everyday life in Tehran but the issues facing
:04:12. > :04:20.a young woman. Absolutely. This has a fantastic performance, a young
:04:21. > :04:23.woman in polluted Tehran. Her mother is suffering respiretory failure.
:04:24. > :04:27.You have to move with her out of the city, what have you to lose? However
:04:28. > :04:31.she has a full life. She works in a shop she runs. And employs a number
:04:32. > :04:36.of women. She has ambitions of a life for herself. The film is about
:04:37. > :04:38.the way in which a character is caught between what society decides
:04:39. > :04:43.and family demands of them and what they want for themselves. It's a
:04:44. > :04:46.very, very low-key film. To the point that I read reviews that said
:04:47. > :04:50.it's a film that never catches fire, it never takes off. I disagree. I
:04:51. > :04:55.was really moved by it. The reason I was is because I believed in these
:04:56. > :05:00.characters. It's a sort of neo-realist, handheld style, long
:05:01. > :05:05.lens so we sue her through traffic and the constant hubbub of society.
:05:06. > :05:09.There is no music other than the sound of phones ringing. You really
:05:10. > :05:13.believe in her life and you come to absolutely side with her and her
:05:14. > :05:17.dreams of independence and I found it very, very moving. Some people
:05:18. > :05:21.have said too low-key for them. I just found it convincing. I thought
:05:22. > :05:24.it was a film about people I believed in and cared about with a
:05:25. > :05:29.fantastic central performance and very well moderated. A country we
:05:30. > :05:32.still know relativelily little about, did we learn more? It's
:05:33. > :05:38.producing extraordinary cinema. And more and more we are seeing that
:05:39. > :05:45.this demonstration that films made with some limited resources to some
:05:46. > :05:49.extent can be much greater can vanses than a film like Arthur Daly
:05:50. > :05:54.is all right, King Arthur, in which endless CGI and nothing going on. We
:05:55. > :06:00.have done that! In that case, shall we move to... Colossal. This looks,
:06:01. > :06:05.it's Anne Hathaway, a lot of people love her and a monster,
:06:06. > :06:11.Godzilla-like creature and they're linked. This has been described as
:06:12. > :06:16.Rachel getting married versus Godzilla. Anne Hathaway has fallen
:06:17. > :06:20.into alcohol hitch and her life has fallen apart. Her boyfriend kicks
:06:21. > :06:27.her out, she goes back to her home town and takes up in her parents'
:06:28. > :06:31.empty house and meets up with Jason Sudeikis who runs the local bar.
:06:32. > :06:39.That means more drinking. One morning she turns on the television
:06:40. > :06:43.and realises a monster has attacked Seoul. She thinks there is a
:06:44. > :06:44.connection between that and her. Meanwhile, her life continues
:06:45. > :06:49.normally. Here is a clip. When they started downsizing
:06:50. > :06:51.I was the first to go. Why are you letting me like...
:06:52. > :07:02.my past. I didn't want you to think
:07:03. > :07:04.I was creepy, like I'm So have you been following
:07:05. > :07:11.me all these years? Somebody actually made
:07:12. > :07:14.it out of here and did Hell, look what had
:07:15. > :07:36.to happen for things to get And that relationship is important.
:07:37. > :07:41.Yeah, that's a lovely indication of the way in which the movie is
:07:42. > :07:45.juggling two different things. This US indie picture rom-com that's
:07:46. > :07:50.shaping up. On the other hand this monster movie playing out far away.
:07:51. > :07:54.Yet, she comes to believe somehow she is controlling the monster or
:07:55. > :07:59.there is a link between them. The film becomes a metaphor for the way
:08:00. > :08:04.in which addiction and self-destruction causes harm that we
:08:05. > :08:07.are totally oblivious to. It's a really, really strange concept that
:08:08. > :08:11.works surprisingly well. I came out and somebody said that fell apart,
:08:12. > :08:15.didn't it? I said, yes, but isn't it fascinating how long it didn't fall
:08:16. > :08:21.apart. For how long it managed to keep this idea that a story about
:08:22. > :08:24.somebody's small scale personal problems may be playing out in some
:08:25. > :08:29.horrible grand-style somewhere far, and it becomes a film about
:08:30. > :08:32.addiction and about alcoholism and about abusive relationships, about
:08:33. > :08:35.spectatorship and the way in which we watch things on rolling news.
:08:36. > :08:38.This is a great bit. This is where they realise something is up. She's
:08:39. > :08:42.dancing in the park and there is the monster doing exactly the same.
:08:43. > :08:47.Expect all the way through the film is holding this idea that maybe this
:08:48. > :08:51.is just a paranoid delusion. What a strange idea. I think what the
:08:52. > :08:56.writer and director manages to do is, he wrote this originally as a
:08:57. > :08:58.low budget Spanish language film to which Anne Hathaway became attached
:08:59. > :09:12.and it opened it up to a wider audience. The problem - people got
:09:13. > :09:16.baffled and walked out. However, if you want something that's strange
:09:17. > :09:19.and adventurous isn't and not scared to fail this is a really
:09:20. > :09:24.interesting, it's far from perfect, there are place it is starts to fall
:09:25. > :09:28.apart, but for a good two thirds it is smart, intelligent, funny, and
:09:29. > :09:31.somehow that thing about massive monsters and tiny small scale
:09:32. > :09:36.problems, there is a connection and the Met afor works surprisingly
:09:37. > :09:40.well. On the positive side Anne Hathaway fans may like monster fans
:09:41. > :09:45.and monster fans may fall in love with Anne Hathaway. To be honest, I
:09:46. > :09:48.am not sure it's going to change attitudes. But it's an adventurous
:09:49. > :09:56.and hard to market film but I liked it. OK. Let's move on to best out.
:09:57. > :10:00.Yeah. The Levelling. This is... Wonderful is what sentence. Somerset
:10:01. > :10:05.Levels after the floods and an emotional story. It is, it's about
:10:06. > :10:10.family secrets, fantastic performances. Brilliantly directed
:10:11. > :10:14.by Hope Dickson Leach. It's her first feature film. It is, weirdly
:10:15. > :10:18.something like ten years ago she was named as a rising star by Screen
:10:19. > :10:25.International, like a decade ago. I think she's really made good on the
:10:26. > :10:30.promise of short films. It's a rich emotionally powerful film, superb
:10:31. > :10:35.sound design. Great score. And again very, very low-key but very
:10:36. > :10:39.powerful. I really liked it. David trougen to plays her father. He does
:10:40. > :10:46.and between them they investigate family secrets that have been buried
:10:47. > :10:52.but refuse to stay buried. Best DVD. Mulholland Drive. Yeah, it's coming
:10:53. > :10:58.to blu-ray overseen by David Lynch. I flagged this up as you probably
:10:59. > :11:02.know, Twin Peaks is coming back. I always found David Lynch a
:11:03. > :11:06.fascinating director. This was wroted, there was a BBC poll of
:11:07. > :11:11.something like Best Films of the 20th century. This came out on top.
:11:12. > :11:14.It started life as a TV pilot and didn't start as a film. It is a
:11:15. > :11:19.David Lynch classic. It's lovely to have it in a beautiful transfer and
:11:20. > :11:23.to revisit it. I don't think it's Lynch's best film but all of Lynch's
:11:24. > :11:29.back catalogue is best having in the best possible format. We have had a
:11:30. > :11:32.mixed bag. We have, yes. The only thing I take away is see whatever
:11:33. > :11:36.you want, but King Arthur... We are there. We got the message. Did I
:11:37. > :11:41.make that clear? Always good to see you. And you. Thanks, Mark.
:11:42. > :11:44.A quick reminder before we go that you'll find more film news
:11:45. > :11:46.and reviews from across the BBC online at bbc.co.uk/Mark Kermode.
:11:47. > :11:49.And you can find all our previous programmes on the BBC iPlayer.
:11:50. > :12:15.Good evening. We have had some rain around today, for some it's been
:12:16. > :12:20.heavy welcome rain. After a dry April and start to May. There has
:12:21. > :12:21.also been sunshine, so contrasting pictures from weather