:00:00. > :00:00.Union preview of Glasgow's big game in Europe and Jolyon Palmer on who
:00:00. > :00:00.will be Lewis Hamilton 's F1 team mate.
:00:07. > :00:22.Hello and welcome to the Film Review on BBC News.
:00:23. > :00:24.To take us through this week's cinema releases is Mark Kermode.
:00:25. > :00:39.We have a festive feast. We do. We have this Rogue One: A Star Wars
:00:40. > :00:46.Story, you may have seen some publicity about this. Very
:00:47. > :00:53.interesting documentary called Eagle Huntress and looking ahead, we have
:00:54. > :00:57.A Monster Calls. This is a stand-alone Star Wars movie that
:00:58. > :01:01.comes between episodes three and four and takes its cue from the
:01:02. > :01:04.opening of Star Wars in which it explains that before everything
:01:05. > :01:10.happened in Star Wars, rebel fighters were trying to get plans
:01:11. > :01:14.for the death star. This is that story. Felicity Jones is a loner
:01:15. > :01:18.with a complicated back story who forms an uneasy alliance with the
:01:19. > :01:23.rebels and because it is a stand-alone story, we get a lot of
:01:24. > :01:26.new characters, not least a reprogrammed imperial droid who
:01:27. > :01:35.trusts are as little as she trusts him. Here is a clip. Why dishy
:01:36. > :01:43.ghetto blaster and I don't? What? I do how to use it. That's what I'm
:01:44. > :01:50.afraid. Give to me. Were going to a war zone. That is not the point.
:01:51. > :02:04.Where did you get it? I found it. I find that an survey unconvincing.
:02:05. > :02:10.Trust goes both ways. You're letting her keep it? Would you like to know
:02:11. > :02:21.the probability of her using it against you? It is high. Our bad
:02:22. > :02:24.droid is always English? Exactly. That is probably quite humorous
:02:25. > :02:31.moment. The film itself is rather dark, it is directed by Gareth
:02:32. > :02:41.Edwards who made Godzilla. He made Monsters. He is -- when he described
:02:42. > :02:47.this movie as like a war movie and there are lots of allusions to D-Day
:02:48. > :02:51.and the Vietnam War and nods along to the dirty dozen and films like
:02:52. > :02:55.that. Because it is a stand-alone story and because it is being
:02:56. > :03:00.envisaged by the director as a war movie, it is tougher than a lot of
:03:01. > :03:05.the Star Wars films, Abergele so, on the very positive side, the cast is
:03:06. > :03:10.a real rainbow Coalition, the thing that science fiction does is in
:03:11. > :03:15.visions whorls were race and gender have no role and I really like that
:03:16. > :03:20.about this film. I like the fact that although it uses cutting-edge
:03:21. > :03:25.CGI it feels like a film from the physical era of Empire Strikes Back,
:03:26. > :03:29.it feels that one of the original movies and it is very coherent in
:03:30. > :03:33.its own sense, despite the fact that there were lots of stories about
:03:34. > :03:38.them doing research shoots and actually the story seems to be very
:03:39. > :03:41.coherent and to keep true to itself. I thought it was dark and exciting
:03:42. > :03:44.and I thought the characters were well done and I really liked
:03:45. > :03:48.Felicity Jones and I thought she really carried the movie. It had
:03:49. > :04:02.genuine surprises and when you think this could have been a caching,
:04:03. > :04:04.anything that is a spin off, a Star Wars but, what does that mean? It
:04:05. > :04:07.felt coherent and self-contained but fitted in with the Star Wars world
:04:08. > :04:10.and leaned towards all the Star Wars movies I like and away from the
:04:11. > :04:13.movies that I did not like. The third act, because of the fact that
:04:14. > :04:15.it does not wimp out on its narrative, the third act felt really
:04:16. > :04:19.exciting, with genuine jeopardy. No one was more surprised than me, I
:04:20. > :04:23.have seen it twice and I thought it was even better the second time
:04:24. > :04:28.around. I was really impressed. Did you see $200 million worth of screen
:04:29. > :04:31.time? I never sat there thinking about how much it cost, I sat there
:04:32. > :04:39.thinking, I hope they get out of this situation, that is a good
:04:40. > :04:43.cliffhanger. It worked for me. Eagle huntress issue next and it sounds a
:04:44. > :04:47.story. She wants to become the first woman in her family to become an
:04:48. > :04:54.Eagle huntress, her father 's line of people who hunt with eagles has
:04:55. > :05:01.been passed down. MH370 is her young subject and her father in carriages
:05:02. > :05:07.are to follow in his footsteps -- Aisholpan. She says that women
:05:08. > :05:12.cannot do this. The interesting thing is that she is a fantastic
:05:13. > :05:16.subject and it is a really interesting story. The documentary
:05:17. > :05:20.is very good looking as you can tell from these clips but it feels very
:05:21. > :05:25.constructed, it feels like it is a film that has been put together in
:05:26. > :05:28.the editing room and it feels at times where you feel that this is a
:05:29. > :05:32.dramatic story which has been put together as opposed to a documentary
:05:33. > :05:35.that just tells it as it is and there has been questions about the
:05:36. > :05:40.exact voracity of the story whether she is the very first woman to do
:05:41. > :05:44.this but apparently she is not. It doesn't matter, she is such a great
:05:45. > :05:49.subject and because the vistas are so spectacular and the central idea
:05:50. > :05:52.is so intriguing and interesting, it gets around whatever problems they
:05:53. > :06:08.may have. Around Christmas, if you want a role
:06:09. > :06:13.model that is a lot better than a few that I could suggest. Eagles are
:06:14. > :06:16.big birds. They are huge. She has to go and get the Eagle and she is with
:06:17. > :06:19.her father and she is hanging down the side of a mountain and her
:06:20. > :06:21.father is saying, new girl. She has been very brave. You will enjoy
:06:22. > :06:24.spending time in her company, she is an interesting subject it sounds
:06:25. > :06:27.great, now A Monster Calls. This is out on New Year's Day and it is
:06:28. > :06:32.about a young boy who is terrified of bullying and he is frightened of
:06:33. > :06:36.being buried and he is visited by a tree monster played by Liam Neeson
:06:37. > :06:39.who tells stories and through these stories he tells them it lays a
:06:40. > :06:49.fantastical reality to the anguish which he is experiencing. Here is a
:06:50. > :07:09.clip. Break the window six windows. Break them yourself.
:07:10. > :07:29.Conor O'Malley, come on, harder! Yes! That's good. Yes!
:07:30. > :07:36.Ooh! That's amazing. It blends seamlessly from the fantastical to
:07:37. > :07:42.the more real. Fairy tales are really about dealing with very real
:07:43. > :07:47.issues but dealing with them in a fantastical fashion and this does
:07:48. > :08:00.this brilliantly. It is directed by Morgan Spurlock. -- JA Bayona. This
:08:01. > :08:05.really harks back to the great work he did with the orphanage and it
:08:06. > :08:12.manages to tell a story which is real and heartbreaking and feels
:08:13. > :08:15.very true about a young boy, confronting the difficulties of his
:08:16. > :08:23.life, but doing it through the medium of fantasy. It is similar to
:08:24. > :08:27.Pan's Labyrinth. There can be very few children who wouldn't in some
:08:28. > :08:31.way recognise and relate to this. It is a bit scary. A little bit but it
:08:32. > :08:38.is like any good fairy tale, it appeals to the child in everyone and
:08:39. > :08:42.the thing is, fairy tales are scary. You mentioned Pan's Labyrinth, it
:08:43. > :08:48.was very distressing but I thought this was very impressive and very
:08:49. > :08:50.moving and I was not the only person to leave the cinema crying at the
:08:51. > :08:58.end but, it is very moving. It sounds great and there is an
:08:59. > :09:03.animation as well. This is about a young man, he was trying to
:09:04. > :09:09.reconnect through the world, he was trying to reconnect with the word
:09:10. > :09:14.through Disney cartoons. It provided a connection with him and everyone
:09:15. > :09:17.around him and it is uplifting. There are a fantastic animated
:09:18. > :09:22.sequences in A Monster Calls and there are in Life Animated as well.
:09:23. > :09:25.These films seem to suggest that animated movies are a really
:09:26. > :09:29.interesting way of understanding the problems of the world and I thought
:09:30. > :09:33.Life Animated was just great. Beautifully done, really sensitively
:09:34. > :09:40.done, done with real intimacy and real intelligence and such an
:09:41. > :09:43.uplifting story and again, a really positive story about the positive
:09:44. > :09:51.power of movies and of the cinema. Your DVD of the week is David Brent,
:09:52. > :09:54.I have to say. The genius of Fawlty Towers, put it this way, they knew
:09:55. > :09:58.what they were doing and they did it in a short period and they did not
:09:59. > :10:04.do any more. There were 13 episodes. It was limited. The David Brent
:10:05. > :10:08.franchise I thought was brilliant and then I started not to think
:10:09. > :10:12.that. I thought the same thing going on, do we really want to go back to
:10:13. > :10:15.this character? The triumph of the movie as they do, it catches up with
:10:16. > :10:18.him later, he takes time off from work to go on the road with his
:10:19. > :10:24.terrible band and just like the source material, it is toe curling,
:10:25. > :10:28.painful, but it has a lot of pathos and there are moments when you do
:10:29. > :10:32.not know whether to laugh or hide your head in your hands and believe
:10:33. > :10:37.me, I was really surprised that after all these years, it managed to
:10:38. > :10:41.do that, move the story on and it actually managed to make the jokes
:10:42. > :10:44.still funny and painful and make you care about it. I suppose the thing
:10:45. > :10:50.that is so attractive about that character is that he really does
:10:51. > :10:54.try... He is really trying. Somehow, he just wants to escape this offer
:10:55. > :10:58.like that he does not get very far. In the case of this, he does get out
:10:59. > :11:05.on the road and the spectacle of him playing in half empty gigs, it
:11:06. > :11:06.smacks of reality. We will leave it there.
:11:07. > :11:09.A quick reminder before we go that you'll find more film news
:11:10. > :11:11.and reviews from across the BBC online at bbc.co.uk/film.
:11:12. > :11:13.A catch up on our previous programmes on the BBC iPlayer.
:11:14. > :11:18.That's it for this week though - we'll be back in the New Year.