when foreign currencies are benefit when foreign currencies are stronger. time for the film review. hello and welcome to the film review on bbc news. to take us through this week's cinema releases, as ever, mark kermode. hello again mark. hello. so have you been watching this week? we have the beguiled, which is sofia coppola's remake of the don siegel film from 1971. we have cars 3, the animated sequel — more cars. and the war for the planet of the apes, the ongoing saga continues. so, sofia coppola. yes. as i already learnt i have to pronounce. yes, "cope—ola", "cop—pola" let's call the whole thing off! the point is, this is based on a novel by thomas cullinan that was filmed before

by don siegel in 1971, a famous adaptation, a cult movie. during the civil war a wounded union soldier is found in the woods by a young girl from miss farnsworth‘s seminary for young ladies. he is brought back to the seminary, he is mortally wounded, he is very badly wounded. and his presence immediately starts to cause a kerfuffle, not only because he is an enemy soldier — and how do they feel about brining an enemy soldier into the school — but also because he is a man. here's a clip. miss martha! marie, come with me. help, miss martha. miss martha! amy! help! what happened? are you all right? how did he get here? he was all alone in the woods. i couldn't leave him there to die. you know you're not supposed to go that far.

is he dead? no, not yet. quick, we need to move him to the porch. so what happens is, due to what miss martha calls christian charity, they bring him into the house. they start to look after him and he starts to get better and immediately he starts to get his way into everyone's confidences and he's flirty and he sees what each character wants or needs. the film appears to be one kind of film, but the question is, of course — who is the beguiled? sofia coppola said when she saw the don siegel version, she wanted to tell this interesting story but from the point of view of the women's characters. although you could say the novel and the film, which have multiple narrators voices, aren't necessarilyjust from the male characters point of view. what she's really good at, is the relationships between these women. they've lived in kind of cloistered existence and in comes this alien presence. and it changes the way in which the dynamic between their relationships work. it's beautifully photographed. you saw from that

sequencejust then, it's almost like a fairy tale. yes, it did. it's a really ethereal, almost gauzy look to it. it is a beautiful looking film. that fairytale quality is partly deliberate but also what it does, it dehistorises it. this is set in the civil war but it might as well not be, the civil war is very distant. in the don siegel version we have shots of the battlefield and flashbacks but none of that here, it is just in the distance. in the novel and the siegel version there is a slave character who has been written out of this. sofia coppola said because she did not want to trivialise that subject and also because in her mind, that is not what the story is about. i have to confess i have a real fondness of the don siegel version, it is an exploitation movie. it's very ripe. it has some very raw scenes in it, but i do like it. this version takes it in a different direction, a very different tone. it is a valid interpretation.

that is the question, is it worth remaking something that has been done so well in the past? it is worth it because it is such a different film. i actually prefer the don siegel version but i'm happy... the two versions can coexist because they are such different films, and personally, i grew up loving ‘705 exploitation cinema and i will always have a fondness for the original, but the performances are very good. nicole kidman is very nuanced in her response and colin farrell is terrific. he has the sly look in his eye, you think he's in control but maybe he isn't. i would encourage people to see this but also the don siegel version which is still a very fine film. it strikes me that your next choice could not be more different. the problem with it is, it is very samey, it is cars 3, and you know cars 1 and cars 2, well, it is that. there are some cars in it. i'm an animation fan. i remember seeing the first one, i loved the designs, i loved the way the landscapes actually looked like cars.

i loved the tail fins within the landscapes, but the problem here, the narrative, we have been around this track before, it feels very threadbare. or treadbare! the central character lightning mcqueen has got to go back to school to learn about new ways of winning a race, in the process his trainer has to learn there is more to being a trainer. there are individual set pieces which are good and the animation is terrific. it comes with a short film at the beginning, and the little short film is really sweet and smart, about bullying and how bullying comes from being hurt yourself and it is really short and compact and everything that is smart about that little short film is what is wrong with cars. individual scenes are fine but overall it feels heavy baggage. is it about selling merchandise? if we start going down that road, we can wipe out most mainstream cinema, to be honest! it is not fair to say that about cars, as every mainstream franchise has got that.

i wouldn't mind that if the film felt more original, but it felt like i had seen that before. right, now war for the planet of the apes. i'm in the dark here. you are not an apes fan. you can't pick your favourite. sorry, mark, i know i am an eternal disappointment to you. the original series of the planet of the apes i loved, television series not so great, forget about the tim burton remake, but now we have got this with performance capture. this comes on from rise and dawn. mankind is on the decline, apekind is on the rise. caesar is leading the apes, played by andy serkis. here's a clip. look at your eyes. almost human. how did you know i was here? i was told you were coming. that more soldiers from the north would be joining you here. joining me? to finish us off. for good.

who told you that? 0k. let's go. what i like about this, the performance capture work is so great. andy serkis is starting to specialise in this, he is remarkable. his relationship with performance capture goes back to gollum, lord of the rings and working with peterjackson on king kong and now this. what is extraordinary, is this evolution has happened in a fairly short period of time. i remember watching the tim burton planet of the apes and thought they had developed a prosthetic to allow one of their lips to move, but now they have computer generated images that are mapped on to a performance. i think the story is good, very dark, and there is a lot of apocalypse now in there, which there also was in kong skull island, but i think

the way of the performance capture, you think, this is astonishing. i think i'm actually watching these characters, and i'm not actually concentrating on how well rendered they are. i think andy serkis's work is brilliant, and there has been talk about whether he will get an oscar—nomination and i think it is long overdue. what i like about this, as someone who is a die—hard planet of the apes fan, i have always said everything i have learned about politics i learned from planet of the apes and i'm not joking. now i do have to watch it. i think this has taken the series on, it is dramatic. the synthesis of performance and technology is really, really well captured in this film. clever. really interesting. what is best out this week? it comes at night, i still think is terrific, some people that go thinking this is a slam bang horror movie, as the trailer suggests, have been disappointed, but it's not that. and i asked you to go and see this, but you didn't? i have had a busy week.

you didn't do your homework! you have got to go and see this, it is a creepy film, it is a really creepy horror film, family holed up in this house in the woods and there is something out there. i really like it and i think you will admire it. you know i am a bit chicken about that kind of think about i am really desperate to see what you want to talk about for your dvd. this is a great film, the levelling, one of the best debut films i've seen in a long time, set in the somerset levels after the flood. ellie kendrick and david troughton are estranged father and daughter, on the farm that he owns, that is failing, they are trying to find their relationship again. the best way to describe this film is, it is a very tactile film. you can feel the earth, the mud and the history, and all of that stuff bubbling up from the ground. i thought it was terrific, great soundtrack, beautiful use of incidental music. her debut feature film?

she was named as a rising star many years ago, all these newspapers saying this, and it took a long time to get the levelling made, but boy was it worth it. if you can make a film that good, take as long as you want. excellent. mark, as ever, thanks forjoining us. a quick reminder before we go that you'll find more film news and reviews from across the bbc online at bbc.co.uk/markkermode. and you can find all our previous programmes on the iplayer. that is it for this week. enjoy your cinema going. goodbye. the weekend whether going downhill u nfortu nately. the weekend whether going downhill unfortunately. i don't want to paint a picture of doom and gloom. some windows are fine and dry weather

about. not pouring with rain. having said that, a lot of rain and cloud in atlantic. you can see streaming off the ocean, moving in our direction. very soggy in northern ireland, scotland, parts of the northwest. that is how it will stay during the course of night. damp across the north west, thickening cloud across the south west and wales. staying dry across the midlands, some areas of the south—east. whether in the north or south, quite a warm night, 1a, 15 degrees. through the course tomorrow morning, the cloud keeps rolling off the atlantic. the white fuzzy stuff, thatis the atlantic. the white fuzzy stuff, that is the fog. fine drizzle around. despite all of the cloud, the thick cloud, and the outbreaks of rain. temperatures not desperately low. they are still rising at this time. 18, 201 degrees. 19 there in belfast. quite

a warm, muggy feel. chance of more dry and bright weather across the south and south—east. that is where the best of the weather will be. later in the afternoon and evening, the cloud across the bulk of the uk will tend to break up. you can see a lot of damp weather across the north—west. sunday not such a great day, but not that bad. we have had worse. what does this mean for wimbledon? both finals, saturday and sunday, warm, muggy, may be a key spots of rain. a weather front straddling parts of the uk on sunday, high—pressure dominating the weather across the northwest. a reversal of fortu nes weather across the northwest. a reversal of fortunes across the course of sunday. much better weather in the north west, belfast, glasgow, england and wales. london the south coast pretty overcast. outlook into monday and tuesday,

temperatures rising in southern parts of the uk. by the time we get to wednesday, risk of some warm, if not hot weather reaching southern areas. without a risk of thunderstorms. a long way off, let's get through the weekend first. this is bbc world news today. our top stories: the french president, emmanuel macron, has honoured the victims of last year's bastille day truck attack in nice during commemorations there to mark the anniversary. just a few hours earlier, emmanuel macron was playing host to donald trump. the french president promised nothing will break the countries' friendship. did donald trump's sun beat a russian spy? also in the programme: two teenage boys are arrested, after acid was thrown on people's

faces in attacks in london.