The Neon Demon (18)
Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
2/5
CANNIBALISM, necrophilia and vampirism are used to paper over the cracks in this seductively stylish but cursory exploration of the seedier side of the modelling industry from Nicolas Winding Refn.
No wonder it was booed at Cannes.
It starts off with a visual explosion of colour and imagery as aspiring model Jesse (Elle Fanning) moves to Los Angeles to pursue her dream and is soon hailed as the next supermodel.
She is young — 16 passing off as 19 — fresh faced and naturally beautiful and is perceived as a serious threat by the other models (Bella Heathcote and Abbey Lee) on the circuit.
The first half of the film shows promise as it analyses the exploitation of underage girls in modelling with a fresh eye.
Yet, as it runs out of ideas, it resorts to shock tactics — including one scene that will make you gag —to deflect from its non-existent plot. The end result, stunning-looking though it may be, is a pretentious and nonsensical mess.
Jesse is eaten alive by her competition while Ruby (Jena Malone) has sex with a female corpse in the morgue in much too great detail as you watch Jesse pleasure herself.
Such gratuitous imagery smacks of cast exploitation.
More is to be expected from the director of Drive and Bronson than this film, whose cliched message is that modelling is a cut-throat world that may literally devour you.
Review by Maria Duarte

The Legend of Tarzan (12A)
Directed by David Yates
4/5
WHEN I was growing up in Kenya, I genuinely accepted Hollywood’s representation of the so-called dark continent in vintage Tarzan movies.
Here, too.
Though filmed in Wales, Hertfordshire and British studios, the ape man’s adrenaline-driven adventures in Africa have an authentic feel, thanks to magnificent animal action, swinging thrills and mayhem galore.
The yarn tells of Alexander Skarsgard’s John Clayton, nee Tarzan, who grew up nurtured by apes in the Congo jungle.
The legendary swinger decides to quit his posh life in England with wife Jane (Margo Robbie) and return to the Congo as a trade emissary. There he faces danger and death battling the murderous exploitation of the locals by Belgian Leon Rom (Christoph Waltz).
Legendary swinger Tarzan, lashings of spectacle and convincingly created jungle beasts in abundance are the name of the game and here director Peter definitely delivers.
Skarsgard — in trousers, not loincloth —is muscular and convincing, while Robbie as his wife and Waltz’s villain fit in just fine.
Fortunately for him, though, Tarzan’s creator Edgar Rice Burroughs is long dead. He probably wouldn’t have appreciated this particular costume change.
Alan Frank

A Poem is a
Naked Person (15)
Directed by Les Blank
2/5
IT HAS taken more than 40 years for this surreal documentary about singer-songwriter Leon Russell to be released on the big screen and it feels like it’s four decades too late.
Film-maker Les Blank followed Russell and his fellow artists and friends between 1972 and 1974, capturing off-the-cuff moments, interweaved with electrifying scenes of Russell and his band performing live and in a recording studio.
The shots of their gigs are fascinating and the highlight of the film comes with Russell fans, in the moment, truly enjoying his performances — unlike the current era, when concertgoers are too busy recording concerts on their phones to relish what’s in front of them.
Despite ending up with nearly 60 hours of footage which Blank initially cut down to 100 minutes, you learn very little about Russell the man or the artist.
Watching a snake consume a baby chick and a man down a pint of beer and then eat the glass shed no light on him either.
This psychedelic and idiosyncratic documentary is definitely of its time and one for diehard Leon Russell fans only.
Maria Duarte