Kong: Skull Island, The Love Witch, Elle The Film Review

the fallout from a leaked report from British cycling elite

performance programme. 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.

A very mixed batch. We have Kong: Skull Island, Love Island and we

have Elle. Does the world need another King Kong film? Need, not

necessarily, but once. It is the land that Time forgot meets

Apocalypse now. John Goodman managed to persuade the US Army to escort

him to Skull Island, where he thinks something is going on. They arrive

and they start carpet bombing the island in order to shake up

everything on the island. A massive aid starts swatting helicopters out

of the sky. It does have a great sense of fun about it. We have Sam

Jackson, the soldier, who is not going to lose this battle. John C

Reilly who has been there since World War II. Tom Huddlestone as a

tracker, they are trying to get from one side of the island to the other

and there are major beasties are afoot. Here is a clip.

I've taken enough photos of mass graves

The clear site is just on the other side of this

We'll cross through and make it to the highest point West.

We need to be going to the north side right

And you are welcome to do that, my man...

I love the comment that said it is jolly good fun as long as you check

your brain at the cloakroom? It is smarter than that. The director made

this small film called Kings of summer and very much like Gareth

Edwards who went from monsters to Godzilla. It is like a $200 million

epic. He has left his fingerprints on it. Yes, it is a huge monster

franchise movie, it has also got loads of very slight jokes in it. I

think there are a couple of references to cannibal Holocaust. I

like the fact that what he does is, he takes just Dean of liberties with

how far you can push the characters, but also remembers people are there

to see the monsters. One of the things that is most rewarding, when

you see King Kong, who is about 100 feet tall, we're not getting the

edit every quarter second that the Transformers movie does. It is

genuine beauty in these shots. Iconic image of King Kong rising up

in front of the sun. Tom Huddlestone with Sammy Rice soared. You can see

how camera is swelling and we're not getting the stupid fast edits that

have made this kind of cinema headache. What you always get is a

battle between the director and what they want, their personal vision and

what the producers want. It is who wins what battles. I think he won

more battles and he lost. I enjoyed it. I liked the jukebox soundtrack

and the other movies it references. I didn't get bored. There were

moments when I thought, wow, that is an impressive, enormous creature. I

enjoyed it much more than I expected to and I don't thing you have to

check your brain in. I didn't get bored, says Mark. The Love Which

where you board in that? No, the best way of describing this, imagine

all that haven't allows us directed by Jess Franco. It is in an age

where mobile phones exist yet it has this late 60s, early 70s theme

beyond the Valley of the dolls. It is a white which his spell all men

fall under. It is almost like a magical incantation and

extraordinary detail. The strange thing about it, a lot of the Wicker

man going on in the background. It is very funny. It is oddly sincere

in a way which you don't expect. It is subversive. I really enjoyed it.

I went in thinking I would be watching a parody and it was so much

more than that. I have met so many people who felt the same thing. They

thought it would be a bit camp and fun. It is more than that. Although

it is all of those things as well. Just looking at the pictures, I am a

bit worried it is not camp enough! Extraordinary. Interestingly, there

is a strange sincerity that underlines it. It is a very strange

movie and I liked it very much. The talking point of the week is Elle.

As a woman, I feel anxious about going to see it actually? I

understand that and I feel anxious having seen it. It can be read in

many different ways and all of them contradictory. It is a film of

sexual violence and has a track record of overstepping certain

lines. Isabel a pair, is cinema's most fearless screen presence. She

plays a businesswoman who is attacked at the beginning of the

film and an almost doesn't seem to respond. She will go to the police,

because as a child she was caught up in the arrest of her monstrous

father and was, in her mind betrayed by the police. Here is a clip.

She is so watchable, but I don't know if I have the stomach. Is it

very violent? I am lost for words. The director, based it on a novel.

It is almost as if the character becomes the author of the film. It

has been described as a black comedy, a social satire and rape

revenge movie. It is all and yet none of these things. What is is

nobody else other than this character could have done that. They

couldn't get the cast of the financing in America. She went on to

be nominated for an Oscar. She is brilliant in this and I think she is

brilliant in almost everything she is in. If it wasn't for the strength

of her performance, if it wasn't for the extraordinary way in which she

just dominates the screen, this would be a very different film. That

said, it is absolutely a film which is designed to wrong-foot you, which

is designed to make you feel uncomfortable. It has been

interesting see Billy McClure seemed the many different ways critics have

responded to it, trying to describe it. The best way to describe it, it

is an Isabel film, apart from the director. Moonlight, it is back in

the cinemas? It is back. It is such a marvellous work, a work of art and

I love it to pieces. DVD for anyone staying in. We have Logan. Doctor

strange, what would you do with a superhero movie if you make the kind

of film Ken Russell would make. Watching Doctor strange, Benedict

Cumberbatch as a neurosurgeon that gets pulled into this strange world.

Sometimes you think it is an outtake of altered States. I love the

hallucinogenic weirdness, but in cinemas, they take Logan completely

the other way. It is almost not a superhero movie. Looking at Doctor

strange, it is a superhero movie and we can be as psychedelic as we like.

It is an interesting double bill. Thanks very much, as ever.

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 catch up on our previous programmes on the BBC iPlayer.