The BFG, Chevalier and Star Trek Beyond 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.

We have a couple of very big releases and something a little bit

We have The BFG, the new film by Steven Spielberg.

Chevalier, a jet black comedy about male competitiveness.

And Star Trek Beyond - the reboot continues.

Now, like anybody who loves Roald Dahl, I really want this to be

You can heave a sigh of relief, it is good.

OK, so, this is Spielberg's adaptaion of the Roald Dahl classic

with Mark Rylance in the title role as the Big Friendly Giant -

a performance, obviously, put together through his performance

and motion capture technology and extraordinary CG visuals.

Ruby Barnhill, who is a newcomer, is young Sophie, who,

at the beginning, we meet in an orphanage and then

she is whisked away from the London Orphanage to giant

country, where she suddenly finds herself in a whole new world.

Because the first thing you would be doing, you's be doing,

you'd be scuddling around and yodelling the news that

you were actually seeing a giant and then there would be a great

And all the human beings would be rummaging and wiffling for the giant

what you saw and getting wildly excited and then they's be locking

me up in a cage to be little looked at with all the squiggling,

you know, hippodumplings and crocodandillies giggyraffes.

And then there would be a giganscious looksie giant hunt

You are laughing all the way through that!

I was just thinking, I have seen Mark Rylance in so many

things, but I have never seen him do that thing with his ears before!

I mean, it is a really, really good performance,

which is at the heart of the film and, of course, that wonderful

I think she has something of that independence of spirit that we saw

What I liked about this is, the script is by the late

Melissa Mathison who, of course, wrote ET.

This has, I think, a touch of the magic of ET.

Dahl's writing was often very dark, but this actually tends much more

There is the whole segment when they go to Buckingham Palace

and there's lots of whizz-popping fun.

What I like about it is that it gets that central idea that,

actually, Sophie and the BFG, she is small, he is huge,

but they are two sides of the same coin, which was an idea

that was very much explored in ET, you know?

They are alien cultures, but, actually, they're the same person.

I think the way in which the computer graphics work

with the live-action is really well done.

I think it has a lovely gentle touch and, like you,

I loved the language, which has a touch of the Stanley Unwin

There is a little bit of Nadsat from A Clockwork Orange in there.

It was Spielberg rediscovering his inner child and managing to use

the technology in a way which does not, in any way, take

It is a story about two characters first and foremost and I believed

in them and I rooted for both of them.

I suppose the only thing that is sometimes said

about Roald Dahl is how do you stretch what is quite a short

story to make it work at an hour and a half or whatever?

They have definitely made additions and not everybody is completely

I thought this did work as a feature-length drama

As I say, I smiled all the way through.

It left me with a warm glow, which is what you want from The BFG.

Yes, that didn't leave me with a warm glow!

Wow, it is a jet black, very, very dry black comedy

by Athina Rachel Tsangari, who was the director of Attenberg

and has worked with Yorgos Lanthimos.

The story is these men on a luxury yacht, they start playing

competitive parlour games and one of them says,

"Yeah, well, if you win in this it doesn't mean you're the best.

Let's have a competition to see who is the best" They start

scrutinising everything - their physique, their hair loss,

their blood sugar levels and, in one fantastic sequence,

the ability to put together a flat-pack book shelf!

The whole thing is a satire on male power struggles and the way

in which men compete for the primary role.

There are very few laugh out loud laughs and there is an awful lot

of cringing, an awful lot of recognising something...

It is close enough to reality to be really awkward.

I can imagine it rubbing some people up the wrong way,

The tagline is "A Buddy Movie Without The Buddies".

I don't think I'm giving anyway anything away to suggest that

neither you nor I would do very well at the IKEA flatpack test.

That right at the competitiveness of me.

You can see exactly where Tsangari got it from, she knows

if you just press the right button and Mark Kermode suddenly wants

to become a do-it-yourself monster.

Basically, the enterprise is a few years into its mission, and the cast

are feeling a bit sexist eventually weary about their journey. There is

a distress signal, which they answer, and it turns out to be not

quite what they expect. Approaching ultimate. Class M

planet, massive subterranean element but limited to no lifeforms on the

surface. There is an unknown ship heading right for us.

No response, I am picking up some kind of signal. They are jamming us.

Magnify. What is this? Shields up, red alert! As I said, would you

expect from this director is spectacular action sequences, and

that is what you get. I saw this on a large IMAX screen, it was big in

explosive. However, as with all the Star Trek stuff, it comes down to

the interpersonal relations between the characters. Were you a fan of

the TV series? I was a fan of the TV series, and I have seen a few of the

films, but one of them was a stinker and I can't remember which one and

it turned me off. In the case of this, what I thought it did have

easily get that lovely tension between Spock and McCoy. You get all

that interpersonal irascibility that made the TV series charming. Simon

Pegg was the cowriter and he really enjoys the comedy in that. You also

get a lot of shonky plotting, which happened in the TV series. There are

things down on the planet that just look like a TV series with a larger

budget. Again, I don't think it is as good as the Abrams ones, but I

think it is fun, good popcorn entertainment. I was never bored.

You come out of it is insubstantial and a bit flimsy, and it doesn't

hang together in the way it should, but while you are watching it it is

enjoyable multiplex fare. It has a group of viewers is ready-made who

really want to go and see it, but does it extend beyond that? It would

take me quite a lot to go and see another Star Trek movie, to be

honest. I have seen all the Star Trek movies, obviously it is part of

my job, but I would go and see them anyway because I have enough

residual effect. And as part of the reboot, they have been interesting.

I don't think this is as good as the previous ones, but I think it is

entertaining popcorn fund. Zachary Quint steals the show, when you

can't work out whether to be logical or emotional. He manages to get the

most out of those gags and he does it very well. It is good,

entertaining fun. Insubstantial but spectacular at the same time. Your

best this week is still Notes on Blindness. This suggests it is

either really good or this is just spectacular. There is a lot

happening, but this is the last am I will flag this up. I was so

encouraged when people said they went to see it and found the cinemas

were sold out. It is an extraordinary account of one man's

loss of his site, and I think it is a brilliant cinematic portrait that

you would imagine cinema would find very difficult to betray. I thought

it was moving and important and humbling, and is a piece of cinema,

it is not just a documentary, it is so much more than that. It is a

dramatic depiction of something that is very hard to do, and I think they

did it brilliantly. Your DVD of the week, 10 Cloverfield Lane. Again

with this, it is much more like the disappearance of Alex Creek meets

war of the worlds, and you wonder what connection it has with

Cloverfield, but it has nothing to do with that. A young woman finds

herself trapped in a cellar with a man who seems to be her capital, but

then he says he saved her, something terrible has happened above ground.

Did he? We don't know. What we do know is what plays out in this

basement. It is tangentially connected to Cloverfield, but it is

a well written psychological thriller with some excellent

characters. It keeps you guessing as to what might or might not have

happened. It sounds good to me. A quick reminder before we go you will

find more news and reviews across the BBC online, and on Mark

Kermode's blog. Thank you for watching.

This first part of the weekend was pretty reasonable for many of us,

with the best of the sunshine the further south and east you happen to

be. This is a picture from Norfolk, with some good