hello, a very warm welcome to the film review on bbc news. and as ever, mark kermode is with me and has had his fill of films. what have you been watching this week, mark? it's a week of sequels this week. yes. we have maleficent: mistress of evil. poor thing. he'll recover. zombieland: double tap. and a shaun the sheep movie, farmageddon. oh, i love shaun the sheep! i can't even pronounce the title of the angelina jolie... i don't know why i struggle with it so much but there we go. this is why you are here. maleficent: mistress of evil. in the first maleficent, which kind of revisited sleeping beauty as a mother—daughter tale seen from the point of view of angelina jolie's key character — who, we learn through the course of the movie, is not actually evil but has a whole bunch of other things going on. she is notjust evil.

at the beginning of this, a voice—over says, "well, yes, but people still thought she was evil." and so now, we start the new movie many years later. elle fanning's aurora is set to marry her handsome prince, to the disdain of her mother, played by michelle pfeiffer. here's a clip. i remember the story of a baby, a baby cursed to sleep and never wake up. really? who would do such a terrible thing to an innocent child? well, there are many who prey on the innocent. i'm sure your kind would agree. what do you mean "my kind"? she means humans. there are fairies missing from the moors... what i'm missing is some wine. ...stolen by human poachers. that's the first i've heard of it. someone gave the order. i wouldn't mess with her —

i know that already! it is definitely battle of the cheekbones going on there! here's the weird thing. this was kind of the sequel nobody was really asking for but itjust happened anyway because the numbers seemed to add up. so if the other one was a sort of sympathy for the devil story, this is building up to a great big battle which, i have to say, comes on a little bit like lord of the rings lite. the script is all over the place. literally, it looks like somebody took a whole bunch of plot elements, threw them on the floor and went, "just arrange them in a fashion that looks... have a bit with a castle and an attack and have the thing where the fairies are in danger and there's some magic powder and some stuff going on, and then undo all the stuff from the first movie but then put it all back together again." there is... i mean, the biggest battle of the film, honestly, is the battle of the accents. it does sounds like they are gargling the english language. it's like somebody swallowed a bunch of rolls—royce parts. "feeamily." "feeeamily is everything." and the other thing which really bothered me is this kind of story, you know, tale as old as time, needs to have magic, and there

is a stunning lack of magic. there is a lot of cgi, there's a lot of effects, a lot of zip, zang, boom stuff going on, but no magic. and i have to say no soul, which is a real shame because there was a lot of talent on screen and a lot of talent behind the screen and very, very little magic. oh, that is properly disappointing, isn't it? sorry! properly disappointing. does it get any better with our next sequel? well, zombieland: double tap. again, another sequel, which i don't remember waking up every morning and thinking, "you know, i wonder what happened to the characters from zombieland. i think it's about time we caught up with them." so this was pretty much a decade in development hell. the first film was fine, notable primarily for a cameo role by bill murray, which passed into legend. so this picks up some years afterwards. we've got the survivors, they've now moved into the white house. they're generally living the dysfunctional family life, then abigail breslin goes awol, she runs off with a hippie, so the guys have to go back on the road again and it's more of the same. it all sort of pootles around with a passable sense of fun. there's a lot of messing around in the white house, there's a lot

of dysfunctional family stuff. the problem with it is this — it plays like a series of set pieces which, individually, are quite entertaining. there's some quite good zombie carnage stuff. there is a couple of funny new characters, but there's nothing that makes you think, "we wrote this because it really needed to bring the story on". also, one of the real shames of it is that towards the end of the film, there is what absolutely should have been — i'm not going to reveal it — what absolutely should have been a completely secret surprise which absolutely is neither secret nor a surprise, thanks to the publicity in the film. i'm not going to be any part of telling you what it is, but it's one of those moments when you just think, "remember when it was possible to watch a movie without knowing a whole bunch of stuff about it in advance?" that, ithink, would improve this. again, it's not terrible... because it's quite a cast we are looking at. yes, quite a cast, and many who you think they're probably doing it as a bit of light relief. i'm just not sure why... i'm not sure why we needed to come back.

it's fine — i chuckled a few times, i giggled a few times. not enough to justify a sequel, though. better than maleficent, though. made more sense. 0k! wow! we can say something good about shaun the sheep, right? we can. farmageddon. who doesn't love aardman? 0h! ok, i think aardman are like one of the absolute gold standard names in entertainment. they never put a plasticine foot wrong. and in the case of this, this isjust wonderful. i started smiling — and believe me, it's been quite a hard week — i started smiling the minutes the title credits came on and then i laughed, i giggled, i guffawed, i chuckled and ijust beamed my whole way through the movie. so the story is spaceship comes down, blue alien stranded — shades of et, shades of x—files, references to jaws and things — and our heroes have to help the alien on earth and to reunite with his fellow aliens. no words, lots of noises, and a huge amount of fun. here's a clip. clang.

laughter. groaning. shaun gasps. you laughed all the way through! we both laughed all the way through. and i've seen that clip three orfour times. it's that level of laughter all the way through.

the thing i love about it is this — on the one hand, it's a throwback, although it is very noisy, it's a throwback to silent cinema. it's a throwback to the universality of silent cinema, when it wasn't to do with language, it was all to do with the universal language of cinema. yes, there's no voices in it, there's no... well, there's voices but there is... exactly. there's that. it has a brilliant sense of slapstick. it's absolutely full of very silly literary references but they're not sort of coy and postmodern and winking. they're just there because of the joy of them being there. it's really touching, it's really funny, the characters are more three—dimensional than the human characters that we've seen in the other films on offer at the minute, even though it is largely plasticine sheep and space aliens. there is a scene in zombieland with a combine harvester and a scene in shaun the sheep with a combine harvester, and shaun the sheep is much, much, much funnier than the scene in zombieland. laughs. i just... honestly, you could take anyone to see it, it doesn't matter how old you are, as long as you have a

fundamental love of cinema. and i love slapstick. slapstick to me is like dance — it's like a really high art form. i just think it's wonderful and i enjoyed it so much. and particularly in what has not been a vintage week, this just stood out like a shining beacon of joy. this is what cinema should be about, and i just loved it. and perhaps if any of us — notjust children, well, particularly adults — are feeling a little worn down by current events... yes, the world has been a bit tough recently. go see farmageddon. laughs. wonderful, wonderful. oh, my god! might have to see it several times in the next weekend! it's lovely, it's just lovely. and in terms of best out? i've let you down. because you know, ijust, i didn't have the — i wasn't brave enough... i wasn't brave enough! i thought you were going to go and seejoker! you see, here's the thing — i want you to see it because it has divided people so much. in fact, the reason i chose it is to slightly play devil's advocate. i know so many people who love it. i know an equal number of people

who absolutely hate it and i really want to know what you think of it. so go and see it. i wasn't quite ready. i know — everyone i know who's seen it says he is outstanding. he's great. it's a remarkable performance. yes, and i think there are some very, very interesting things about the film itself — not least the fact that it's divided people so furiously. there are film critic friends of mine who say it's the worst film they've seen this year, and who there are plenty of other friends who say it's the best film they've seen all year. it's a real kind of marmite film. marmite, yes, yes. and i like it. i think it has flaws, but, yes — actually, the real star of this film is hildur gudnadottir‘s score, because she has done the most brilliantjob of scoring the film. his performance is great, but if it wasn't for that score, it wouldn't have the depth that it has. inhales. all right. we'll see where we are this time next week with that one. and a quick thought about dvd? there's a blu—ray release of angel heart. i know you're not a big horrorfan, but you must have seen angel heart, right? 30 years old, isn't it? did you love it when it first...? i was 20 when it came out, so i would have been way too

chicken to watch it then. think how bad i am now! ok, but it is brilliant. it reminds you how brilliant mickey rourke was when he was really brilliant. yeah. it has robert de niro as the sinister louis cyphre. it is based on a novel by william hjortsberg called falling angel. i think it is one of the few cases in which the film is better than the novel. and it really stands the test of time. the time when it first came out, people were slightly dismissive of it because it is a horror film, therefore, they didn't take it seriously. it is a really, really brilliantly told, sort of steel trap of a film, with two great performances — actually, three great performances. brilliant soundtrack, really atmospheric, and robert de niro eating a boiled egg in the most threatening way you have ever seen. well, on that note, i'm looking forward to shaun the sheep. thanks very much. probably so is half the nation, given what's ahead! thank you very much, mark. we'll see you next time. thank you. that is it for this week. enjoy your cinema—going, whatever you choose to see — perhaps all of them. have a good weekend. thanks. bye— bye.

there is quieter weather on the way to start the week. it'll be a dry monday for many, but this area of low pressure will spoil things for south—east england as we will see in a moment with rain heading in. later in the night, outbreaks of rain will be pushing on towards kent. lots of cloud over england and wales, north—easterly breeze, some showers, temperatures holding up here. lighter winds in northern ireland and scotland allowing temperatures to dip, in rural aberdeenshire it could be as cold as minus three degrees as we start tomorrow. cloud will increase from the west. a fine day for much of scotland and northern ireland. rain towards the noise —— towards the northern isles by the end of the day. heavy bursts into kent and essex. as for the

temperatures, most places will see sunny spells developing, and it'll be around ten to 11! degrees. a cooler night in england and wales monday into tuesday with fog patches developing in places, parts of the midlands, and southern england, quite slow to clear. dense in some spots because winds here are light. high pressure holding on on tuesday. low pressure getting close to scotla nd low pressure getting close to scotland on tuesday morning, more cloud here and outbreaks of rain. a bit of cloud in scotland and northern ireland but for most of us here it is looking dry. after any of that fog clears from england and wales we shall see sunny spells developing. tuesday is looking like another fine day. temperatures starting to creep up by a degree or so. starting to creep up by a degree or so. for the rest of the week, low pressure gets closer to us and sta rts pressure gets closer to us and starts to feed in weather fronts, especially over parts of scotland and northern ireland. turning wetter fulsome of us here. another week weather front towards east anglia and the south—east which may produce some showers. a couple of things

going on on wednesday. in between the two there is a slice of sunny weather. as for temperatures, mid to low teens. quieter weather around to start the week but from mid week in scotla nd start the week but from mid week in scotland and northern ireland expect the wind to pick up and you will see some rain at times. for england and wales, you will see the quieter face of orton. it isn't going to be dry all week but it be drier than it has been. some fog patches around at times.

this is bbc news, i'm martine croxall. the headlines at eight. the government says it will push ahead with efforts to get a brexit deal through parliament this week. borisjohnson is expected to seek the backing of mps tomorrow or tuesday. he's defied the doubters, got a deal, and we also now, notwithstanding the shenanigans in parliament, appear to have now the numbers to get this through. all this after the prime minister was forced in a letter to ask the eu for another brexit delay. labour says the public should have its say. whatever deal gets through, it should be subject to a referendum where that deal is put to the public. a double murder investigation has begun in milton keynes after two 17—year—old boys were stabbed to death at a house