King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Inversion, Colossal The Film Review

Now on BBC News, it's 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.

It's the definition of a mixed bag. We have King Arthur, Guy Ritchie's

take on the legend. We have a very drama set in Tehran, called

Inversion. And Colossal, Anne Hath away meets Godzilla. Well, we start

with King Arthur. We saw in the brief clip there one David Beckham.

We better start and just say is he an Eric Cantana? He isn't. This is

Guy Ritchie taking on the legend, if you are old enough to remember 1980s

novelty records, King Arthur Daly is not all right. Charlie is the young

hero whose wicked uncle Jude Law has seized power, leaving him to grow up

ducking and diving and he is keep ago low profile until David Beckham

no less tells him to and I quote, he says, put ten fingers around the

blunt end of that sword and give it a tug. He does, blimey, wouldn't you

know it, it comes out. Next thing he is having to be answerable because

it turns out he might be the rightful heir, here is a clip.

I was born in a brothel on a bridge in Londinium.

The sword can only be drawn by Uther Pendragon

You just don't know how to control it.

There's a surprise from Guy Ritchie that the baddy is well-spoken and

posh and Jude Law. Here is the weird thing. Arthurian legend is rich and

magical, I have rarely seen a film lacking in magic. Stuff happens, big

snakes, Swords, huge CGI and you think this is dull. The - there are

times it looks like outtakes from a Ramstein video. It's just reminding

me of other franchises I would be rather be watching. I quite like...

I think he did a terrific job with Sherlock Holmes, he took a small

element of the text about fighting and turned it into something that

made the movie action-packed. The problem with this is it just looks

like a bunch of CGI effects thrown together around the ropiest of

scripts with the broadest of performances, the whole film,

nudging and winking at the audience all the way through. I really ended

up thinking, where is John Boorman when you need him. It's so heavy on

its feet. It's the fault of the script and the execution of the

story. It's a thudding sword and sorcery film which I spent large

portions thinking why am I not excited by this, and not laughing at

the jokes? Why am I not thrilled by the set pieces and why are there so

many mythical beasts that look like someone knocked them up on a home

computer? It's really not good. There is nothing more to say. There

isn't! We will move along. Actually a change of gear. Total change.

Inversion, a story about everyday life in Tehran but the issues facing

a young woman. Absolutely. This has a fantastic performance, a young

woman in polluted Tehran. Her mother is suffering respiretory failure.

You have to move with her out of the city, what have you to lose? However

she has a full life. She works in a shop she runs. And employs a number

of women. She has ambitions of a life for herself. The film is about

the way in which a character is caught between what society decides

and family demands of them and what they want for themselves. It's a

very, very low-key film. To the point that I read reviews that said

it's a film that never catches fire, it never takes off. I disagree. I

was really moved by it. The reason I was is because I believed in these

characters. It's a sort of neo-realist, handheld style, long

lens so we sue her through traffic and the constant hubbub of society.

There is no music other than the sound of phones ringing. You really

believe in her life and you come to absolutely side with her and her

dreams of independence and I found it very, very moving. Some people

have said too low-key for them. I just found it convincing. I thought

it was a film about people I believed in and cared about with a

fantastic central performance and very well moderated. A country we

still know relativelily little about, did we learn more? It's

producing extraordinary cinema. And more and more we are seeing that

this demonstration that films made with some limited resources to some

extent can be much greater can vanses than a film like Arthur Daly

is all right, King Arthur, in which endless CGI and nothing going on. We

have done that! In that case, shall we move to... Colossal. This looks,

it's Anne Hathaway, a lot of people love her and a monster,

Godzilla-like creature and they're linked. This has been described as

Rachel getting married versus Godzilla. Anne Hathaway has fallen

into alcohol hitch and her life has fallen apart. Her boyfriend kicks

her out, she goes back to her home town and takes up in her parents'

empty house and meets up with Jason Sudeikis who runs the local bar.

That means more drinking. One morning she turns on the television

and realises a monster has attacked Seoul. She thinks there is a

connection between that and her. Meanwhile, her life continues

normally. Here is a clip. When they started downsizing

I was the first to go. Why are you letting me like...

my past. I didn't want you to think

I was creepy, like I'm So have you been following

me all these years? Somebody actually made

it out of here and did Hell, look what had

to happen for things to get And that relationship is important.

Yeah, that's a lovely indication of the way in which the movie is

juggling two different things. This US indie picture rom-com that's

shaping up. On the other hand this monster movie playing out far away.

Yet, she comes to believe somehow she is controlling the monster or

there is a link between them. The film becomes a metaphor for the way

in which addiction and self-destruction causes harm that we

are totally oblivious to. It's a really, really strange concept that

works surprisingly well. I came out and somebody said that fell apart,

didn't it? I said, yes, but isn't it fascinating how long it didn't fall

apart. For how long it managed to keep this idea that a story about

somebody's small scale personal problems may be playing out in some

horrible grand-style somewhere far, and it becomes a film about

addiction and about alcoholism and about abusive relationships, about

spectatorship and the way in which we watch things on rolling news.

This is a great bit. This is where they realise something is up. She's

dancing in the park and there is the monster doing exactly the same.

Expect all the way through the film is holding this idea that maybe this

is just a paranoid delusion. What a strange idea. I think what the

writer and director manages to do is, he wrote this originally as a

low budget Spanish language film to which Anne Hathaway became attached

and it opened it up to a wider audience. The problem - people got

baffled and walked out. However, if you want something that's strange

and adventurous isn't and not scared to fail this is a really

interesting, it's far from perfect, there are place it is starts to fall

apart, but for a good two thirds it is smart, intelligent, funny, and

somehow that thing about massive monsters and tiny small scale

problems, there is a connection and the Met afor works surprisingly

well. On the positive side Anne Hathaway fans may like monster fans

and monster fans may fall in love with Anne Hathaway. To be honest, I

am not sure it's going to change attitudes. But it's an adventurous

and hard to market film but I liked it. OK. Let's move on to best out.

Yeah. The Levelling. This is... Wonderful is what sentence. Somerset

Levels after the floods and an emotional story. It is, it's about

family secrets, fantastic performances. Brilliantly directed

by Hope Dickson Leach. It's her first feature film. It is, weirdly

something like ten years ago she was named as a rising star by Screen

International, like a decade ago. I think she's really made good on the

promise of short films. It's a rich emotionally powerful film, superb

sound design. Great score. And again very, very low-key but very

powerful. I really liked it. David trougen to plays her father. He does

and between them they investigate family secrets that have been buried

but refuse to stay buried. Best DVD. Mulholland Drive. Yeah, it's coming

to blu-ray overseen by David Lynch. I flagged this up as you probably

know, Twin Peaks is coming back. I always found David Lynch a

fascinating director. This was wroted, there was a BBC poll of

something like Best Films of the 20th century. This came out on top.

It started life as a TV pilot and didn't start as a film. It is a

David Lynch classic. It's lovely to have it in a beautiful transfer and

to revisit it. I don't think it's Lynch's best film but all of Lynch's

back catalogue is best having in the best possible format. We have had a

mixed bag. We have, yes. The only thing I take away is see whatever

you want, but King Arthur... We are there. We got the message. Did I

make that clear? Always good to see you. And you. Thanks, Mark.

A quick reminder before we go that you'll find more film news

and reviews from across the BBC online at bbc.co.uk/Mark Kermode.

And you can find all our previous programmes on the BBC iPlayer.

Good evening. We have had some rain around today, for some it's been

heavy welcome rain. After a dry April and start to May. There has

also been sunshine, so contrasting pictures from weather