the film review on bbc news. to take us through this week's cinema releases, as ever, mark kermode. what do we have this week? a very mixed batch. we have kong: skull island, which does what it says on the tin. the love witch, a stylish dream, and we have elle. does the world need another king kong film? need is a strong word. but want... it's the land that time forgot meets apocalypse now. john goodman manages to persuade the us army to escort him to skull island, where he thinks something is going on. he says, if we don't get there first, somebody else will. they arrive and they start carpet bombing the island in order to shake up everything on the island. a massive ape starts swatting helicopters out of the sky. i'm probably not meant to laugh, am i? no, it does have a great sense of fun about it. we have sam jackson, the soldier, who is not going to lose this battle. john c reilly, who has been there since world war ii. tom hiddlestone as a tracker. brie larson as a photographer. they are trying to get from one side of the island to the other and there are major beasties are afoot. here is a clip. can you smell that? that's death. what the hell is this place? this is what's left of kong's pants. i've taken enough photos of mass graves to recognise one. the crash site is just on the other side of this valley. we'll cross through and make it to the highest point west. this place is a real no—no, sir. we need to be going to the north side right now. and you are welcome to do that, my man... by yourself. i'm not leaving jack out there. now who's with me? we can make it. mighty right, we can make it. stay sharp, keep an eye out. i love the comment that said it's jolly good fun as long as you check your brain at the cloakroom. i think actually it's smarter than that. the director made this lovely, small film called kings of summer and very much like gareth edwards who went from monsters to godzilla. it is like a $200 million epic. he has managed to leave his fingerprints on it. yes, it is a huge monsterfranchise movie, but it's also got loads and loads of very slight jokes in it. i think there are a couple of references to cannibal holocaust. i like that kind of nod. i like the fact that what he does is, he takes just enough liberties with how far you can push the characters, but also remembers that what people are there to see is the monsters. one of the things that is most rewarding is when you see king kong, who is like 100 feet tall, a really big kong, we're not getting the edit every quarter second that the transformers movie did. almost like there's genuine beauty in some of these shots. the iconic image of king kong rising up in front of the sun. you can see how camera is swirling and we're not getting the stupid fast edits that have made so much of this kind of cinema a headache. what you always get with this kind of movie is a battle between the director and what they want, their quirky personal vision, and what the producers want. it's a matter of who wins what battles. i think he won more battles than he lost. i enjoyed it. there are things that are creaky, i liked the jukebox soundtrack and the other movies it references. i didn't get bored. there were moments when i thought, wow, that is an impressive, enormous creature. so i enjoyed it much more than i expected to and i don't think you have to check your brain in. ok, "i didn't get bored", says mark. that's going on the poster! the love witch, were you bored in that? no, the best way of describing this, imagine all that heaven allows, as directed byjess franco. it's in an age where mobile phones exist yet it has this late ‘60s, early ‘70s milieu of beyond the valley of the dolls. it's a white witch's spell all men fall under. it's like a technicolour dream. a magical incantation and extraordinary detail. i mean, the strange thing about it, there's also a lot of wicker man going on in the background. it's very sly and funny. it is oddly sincere, in a way which you don't expect. it is subversive. i really enjoyed it. i went in thinking i would be watching a parody and it was so much more than that. and i've met so many people who felt the same thing. they thought, i'll go in and it will be camp and fun. it is more than that, although it is all of those things as well. just looking at the pictures, i am a bit worried it is not camp enough! extraordinary. kitsch is the word. although, interestingly, there is a strange sincerity that underlines it. it is a very strange movie and i liked it very much. 0k. now, the talking point of the week is elle. as a woman, i feel almost anxious about going to see it actually. yes, and i understand that and ifeel anxious having seen it. basically, it can be read in many different ways and all of them contradictory. on the one hand it's a boundary crossing tale of sexual violence, by the director who made showgirls, and has a track record of overstepping certain lines. on the other it's a showcase for isabelle huppert, cinema's most fearlessly independent screen presence. she plays a businesswoman who is grotesquely attacked at the beginning of the film and then almost doesn't seem to respond. she wont go to the police, not least because as a child she was caught up in the arrest of her monstrous father and was, in her mind, betrayed by the police. here is a clip. she is so watchable, but i don't know if i have the stomach. is it very violent? i'm lost for words. it's based on a novel. it is almost as if the character becomes the author of the film. it has been described as a black comedy, a social satire and rape revenge movie. it is all and yet none of these things. what is extraordinary is that nobody else other than huppert could have done this. the director wanted to do it in america but they couldn't get the cast or the financing there. she went on to be nominated for an oscar. i think she's brilliant in this and almost everything she's in. if it wasn't for the strength of her performance, if it wasn't for the extraordinary way in which she just dominates dominates the screen, this would be a very different film. that said, it is absolutely a film which is designed to wrong—foot you, which is designed to make you feel uncomfortable and awkward. it has been interesting see the different ways critics described it. the best way to describe it is it's an isabelle huppert film. moonlight, it is back in the cinemas? it is back. it's wonderful. it is such a marvellous work, an absolute work of art and i love it to pieces. dvd for anyone staying in? we have logan. which shows what you can do with a super who you're a movie when you try to turn it into a movie about ageing. doctor strange is basically what would you do with a superhero movie if you make the kind of film ken russell would make? watching doctor strange, benedict cumberbatch as a neurosurgeon that gets pulled into this strange world. sometimes you think, that's an outtake from altered states, isn't it? i love the hallucinogenic weirdness, but in cinemas, taking logan completely the other way, it's almost not a superhero movie. looking at doctor strange, it is a superhero movie and we can be as psychedelic as we like. so it's an interesting double bill. thanks very much, as ever. a quick reminder of course, you can find more film news and reviews from across the bbc online at bbc.co.uk/mark kermode and you can catch up on our previous programmes on the bbc iplayer. so, happy cinema going. goodbye. good evening. almost into a new day, the second part of the weekend which does not look as dry warm as it has been during the day. because for the first time today we have had the warmest day of the year so far for northern ireland. this is how it looked as the sun went down. that was lovely sunshine here and in the north—west of scotland. we also have lovely sunshine across southern and eastern areas and here we reached 18 degrees. however, this was quite a cloudy spell of weather a across central areas with a little bit of dampness around. that downer says a weather front and it is picking dampness around. that downer says a weatherfront and it is picking up, actually. we have had sharp bursts of rain across southern counties and rumble of thunder. by the morning you can see another front coming in across northern ireland and across the south—west. with all that cloud around the rain it is certainly going to be a mild nights are the majority except perhaps the glint of scotland. it is a grey miserable start to the day for many of us. so vitally different to east anglia and the south—east with the weather front on top of us. the northern ireland but improving as the weather front trundles eastwards. we see a gradual progression of two weather fronts from west to east through the day and all the time, although the rain starts initially quite potent across the southern counties it will tend to ease away. there could potentially be some brightness in east wales, the midlands, and in some central parts of scotland but it will be quite grey and dreary across the eastern side of scotland first thing and in the west with the next weather front coming in. they are moving eastwards, as we say, and at the same time tending to fizzle out so there will not be that much rain on them by the afternoon but it will still be quite a drab afternoon under the weather front. by those stages, perhaps these areas of england will be a love it dry and bright. north island brightens up quite quickly in the afternoon follows into the western scotland in the western fringes of england and wales but it is not as marked tomorrow. we will see about 12 or 13 degrees. a cold night will follow because we clear the cloud out of the way which allows attempted to fall away into the clearing sky and we will have a slight frost on monday morning under the writ of high pressure. that is good news, particularly heading into this ring. we should see springlike high—pressure and on monday that will keep the weather front at bay. more cloud coming into northern ireland scotland, that in the south to start with but then that sunshine will lift that to bridge into the mid—teens. not those of us temperatures we have seen today. into tuesday you can save ourselves to whether front meandering southwards introducing more cloud into the country. a weak weather front. most of the week the weather fronts will pester the north and west and the activity will be the north of the uk. hello. our top stories: the turkish president attacks the dutch as nazis, for blocking a campaign visit by the country's foreign minister. translation: they don't know anything about politics or international diplomacy. they are very nervous, and they are cowards. they are nazi remnants, they are fascists. the un warns of the largest humanitarian crisis in more than 70 years. 20 million people face starvation in parts of africa. a boost for india's prime minister, as his bjp party wins a landslide in key state elections. and a record—equalling 18th consecutive win for england's rugby team, as they thrash scotland to retain their six nations title.