:00:00. > :00:00.who is a sensation. And a Paralympic star reveals her winter sports
:00:00. > :00:00.targets. That is all coming up at 6:30pm. Now it's time for the film
:00:00. > :00:27.review. Hello and welcome to the film review
:00:28. > :00:34.on BBC News full stop to take us through this week 's releases is
:00:35. > :00:39.Mark Kermode. What do we have? We have Little Men, an impressive,
:00:40. > :00:46.low-key drama. We have a new version of The Magnificent Seven. And a
:00:47. > :00:53.terrific British genre picture, The Girl With All The Gifts. I quite
:00:54. > :01:02.like the look of Little Men. Rightly so. It's made by Ira Sachs. In his
:01:03. > :01:06.previous film, a same-sex couple in Manhattan lose their apartment and
:01:07. > :01:10.have to stay with family. In this week of Greg Kinnear, a struggling
:01:11. > :01:14.actor, who moved to Brooklyn after his father dies and he ends up in an
:01:15. > :01:19.apartment where he is the landlord for a shopkeeper who has been living
:01:20. > :01:24.with a rent that is now somewhere below market value. It's about
:01:25. > :01:27.gentrification and property. Crucially, you have these conflicts
:01:28. > :01:33.playing out between adults and yet their sons are developing this
:01:34. > :01:38.friendship which comes to be very important for them. As the adults
:01:39. > :01:42.squabble, one says, our parents are in a business dispute and it's
:01:43. > :01:45.getting ugly. The kids decide to respond by not talking to the parent
:01:46. > :01:48.any more, which doesn't go down well.
:01:49. > :01:53.Do you ever think about anybody other than yourselves? Huh?
:01:54. > :02:03.One of the hardest things to realise when you're a child
:02:04. > :02:05.is that your parents are people, too.
:02:06. > :02:09.You understand that? They care about things? They make mistakes.
:02:10. > :02:12.They try to do what they think is the right thing to do.
:02:13. > :02:14.Does any of what I'm saying make any sense to you?
:02:15. > :02:21.Why don't you tell me what's so funny, Tony?
:02:22. > :02:24.Think you've got it in you to be an actor?
:02:25. > :02:29.See how you react when you don't get into LaGuardia. Just see then.
:02:30. > :02:44.That's an awkward car journey. What I really like is that it can do
:02:45. > :02:50.awkwardness but it's also very funny. There is a sequence where one
:02:51. > :02:55.kid goats to a drama lesson and it's a very funny sequence. But it's
:02:56. > :02:57.about so many different things. On the one hand, gentrification,
:02:58. > :03:01.property, money. On the other hand, families breaking apart and being
:03:02. > :03:06.fractured. On another level, it's about the friendship between these
:03:07. > :03:10.two boys, which becomes everything to them. It's almost like a love
:03:11. > :03:17.story, but what's really lovely about the films is that it's sort of
:03:18. > :03:21.set up what in other dramas would be great moments of revelation and then
:03:22. > :03:25.steps away from them and allows the audience to decide what the personal
:03:26. > :03:29.interplay 's are. It doesn't demonise any characters, they are
:03:30. > :03:34.all good and bad with strengths and floors. It's funny and touching and,
:03:35. > :03:39.importantly, it's honest and moving. I was swept up in it. I thought it
:03:40. > :03:46.was a really beautifully understated film which, as I said, has socio-
:03:47. > :03:52.economic but can also be taken as a story of a great youthful friendship
:03:53. > :03:56.finding its feet. Interestingly, I sent not just about money but about
:03:57. > :03:59.the awkwardness of talking about money, about acknowledging money
:04:00. > :04:04.problems and all of that, acknowledging it in front of a
:04:05. > :04:08.different generation. There is real awkwardness and tenderness and
:04:09. > :04:13.affection and humour. It's a terrific piece of work. Moving on to
:04:14. > :04:19.The Magnificent Seven, which is a remake of that film, which was a
:04:20. > :04:26.reboot of Seven Samurai. It has Denzel Washington leading a renegade
:04:27. > :04:31.band called in to basically save a town, which is being hideously
:04:32. > :04:36.oppressed by a mining baron. This time, the renegade band is Ethan
:04:37. > :04:41.Hawke, Martin Sensmeier, Chris Pratt and others. On the plus side, they
:04:42. > :04:47.are a diverse gang, giving the film a contemporary relevance,
:04:48. > :04:51.particularly at the moment. On the downside, the film isn't ashamed to
:04:52. > :04:53.indulge in every single western cliche imaginable, people walking
:04:54. > :04:58.into bars and the piano stopped playing, loads of guns being twirled
:04:59. > :05:06.around people's fingers, and this stand-offs in which the camera
:05:07. > :05:11.focuses in on eyes. -- endless stand-offs. It is fine but not
:05:12. > :05:15.moving forward in any way. You wonder why you are not watching the
:05:16. > :05:21.original film. A lot of people might be watching and how does it compare
:05:22. > :05:26.with the previous one? It doesn't have any of the timeless quality of
:05:27. > :05:29.that, but it has action sections which are very cranked up, and that
:05:30. > :05:35.is the most modern think about it, the level of carnage in the gunplay
:05:36. > :05:40.sequences is very modern. It's not terrible. I know some people have
:05:41. > :05:46.taken against it. It's fine but not much more, which brings us nicely to
:05:47. > :05:48.The Girl With All The Gifts, which is really terrific and very
:05:49. > :05:55.impressive. This is a British chiller which takes a sort of new
:05:56. > :06:03.riff on very well worn zombie themes, to an extent. The land Scott
:06:04. > :06:07.is post-apocalyptic -- the landscape is post-apocalyptic, but it is
:06:08. > :06:15.closer to the concerns of Never Let Me Go. The world has been overrun by
:06:16. > :06:20.hungrys, marauding bands of zombies, infected by a fungal plague. We open
:06:21. > :06:24.with a young girl in a cell, manacled to a wheelchair, then taken
:06:25. > :06:28.to a classroom and we realised that these are children who, on one
:06:29. > :06:30.level, appear to be dangerous but, on another level, they just appear
:06:31. > :06:32.to be children. And by and by Zeus wanted to punish
:06:33. > :06:35.Prometheus for his mistakes, so he fashioned a woman of clay
:06:36. > :06:41.and gave her the name Pandora - Pandora opened up the box, whereupon
:06:42. > :06:50.every plague and tribulation, every misfortune and evil thing
:06:51. > :06:55.in the world came pouring out, and they have afflicted
:06:56. > :06:58.mankind ever since, Yeah, sweet dreams(!)
:06:59. > :07:08.Bloody talk to it. But then Pandora peered into the box
:07:09. > :07:11.and found one more And she lifted it in her
:07:12. > :07:22.hands and set it free. Hope is the good thing that makes
:07:23. > :07:27.you be able to stand Good night, black and
:07:28. > :07:56.white kitten. So Jim artisan, the teacher comes
:07:57. > :07:59.psychologist, sees them the newcomer, Sennia Nanua, who is great
:08:00. > :08:04.in the central role. You have Glenn Close as a doctor just sees these
:08:05. > :08:11.children as specimens. Paddy Considine is the soldier who is
:08:12. > :08:14.afraid of them but, during the film, comes to think something different.
:08:15. > :08:20.They go on the road to London, which is overrun by this fungal foliage,
:08:21. > :08:26.and they find themselves taking their way through groups of hungrys.
:08:27. > :08:30.The film is smart and adventurous. It takes well worn zombie riffs and
:08:31. > :08:35.does something new. It has a very good ensemble cast, all of whom are
:08:36. > :08:39.bringing their a game to the proceedings. It has a fantastic
:08:40. > :08:46.musical score, which superbly accentuates the sort of John Wyndham
:08:47. > :08:52.atmosphere. There is something of that in the clip. Off-kilter,
:08:53. > :08:56.unusual, slightly eerie, also a touch of David Cronenberg in its
:08:57. > :09:04.attitude to infection, seeing both sides of an argument. And I thought
:09:05. > :09:09.it was really well done. It's on a tight budget, 4.4 million. They have
:09:10. > :09:13.made the most of it. The resources are somewhat constrained but the
:09:14. > :09:16.vision of the film-makers is anything but. It's a film which
:09:17. > :09:21.dares to be adventurous, which dares to be challenging and to try
:09:22. > :09:28.something new. Not just looking back to the past, although it's happy
:09:29. > :09:32.nodding its head to Romero, but looking to the future and doing
:09:33. > :09:39.something interesting. I loved it very much. What do you pick out of
:09:40. > :09:42.all of those? The best thing in the cinema at the moment is Hunt For The
:09:43. > :09:49.Wilderpeople, a New Zealand film. It's about a story of a young boy,
:09:50. > :09:53.and his adoptive father. They go into the wild together in the middle
:09:54. > :09:58.of a manhunt. It's one of those movies which is funny and charming
:09:59. > :10:02.but also very poignant. It has essential human truth to it but it's
:10:03. > :10:11.completely unexpected. It's a terrific movie. A touch of Captain
:10:12. > :10:14.fantastic. It's not been very widely seen, because it on relatively
:10:15. > :10:23.limited release, but everyone who's seen it loves it. Once they go to
:10:24. > :10:27.DVD, who do you pick? Love And Friendship is a brilliant adaptation
:10:28. > :10:33.of an early episode rework by Jane Austen will stop fantastic central
:10:34. > :10:37.assortments -- central performance by Kate Beckinsale, who is terrific
:10:38. > :10:42.as a scheming Austin character who you admire and are afeared of.
:10:43. > :10:48.Brilliant comedy performance by Tom Bennett, who comes close to stealing
:10:49. > :10:52.the show. When you look at the director's back catalogue, you
:10:53. > :10:57.think, that makes sense, because there is so much of that Austin wit
:10:58. > :11:02.and humour running through his work. I've seen it twice and both times I
:11:03. > :11:07.beamed all the way through. It's intelligent and funny and insightful
:11:08. > :11:14.and adventurous and, again, not what you would expect, but a real winner.
:11:15. > :11:18.If you beamed all the way through... And you know how curmudgeonly I am!
:11:19. > :11:24.Thank you. A quick reminder that you can get more news and reviews online
:11:25. > :11:31.at the website. You can catch up on all the previous shows on the BBC
:11:32. > :11:48.iPlayer. That is it for this week. Thank you for watching. Goodbye.
:11:49. > :11:49.Hello. The weather is chopping and changing over the next few