Fancy a trip to the cinema this weekend? Here's our guide to the new cinema releases...

The Legend of Tarzan (12A) Empire, Odeon, ABC

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IT’S been almost 100 years since Edgar Rice Burroughs’ muscular protector of the jungle swung into action on the big screen in the swaggering form of silent movie actor Elmo Lincoln.

Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller popularised the iconic role in the 1930s and 1940s before more recent incarnations including Greystoke: The Legend Of Tarzan with Christopher Lambert and Disney’s animated rendering.

Written by Adam Cozad and Craig Brewer, The Legend Of Tarzan is an entertaining and rumbustious romp that focuses on the love story between the orphaned hero and his plucky sweetheart against a backdrop of late-19th century treachery.

Director David Yates, who worked his magic at the helm of the final four films in the Harry Potter saga, orchestrates vine-swinging action sequences with aplomb, festooned with a menagerie of computer-generated animals that look incredibly realistic in close-up.

Digital might beats its chest in every lush frame including a bone-crunching fight between Tarzan and one of his ape brethren and a terrifying stampede.

However, Yates is careful to stoke the smouldering on-screen embers between an impressively bare-chested Alexander Skarsgard and the luminous Margot Robbie so we root for the lovers against the odds.

The Neon Demon (18) Empire

** 

DANISH director Nicolas Winding Refn's hard-hitting drama sharply divided critics when the film premiered at this year's Cannes Film Festival to a chorus of boos over shocking scenes of necrophilia and cannibalism.

UK audiences will be similarly shell-shocked by a script co-written by British playwright Polly Stenham that focuses on beautiful wannabe Jesse (Elle Fanning), who hopes to break into the cut-throat modelling industry in Los Angeles. She is eventually signed by a prestigious agency and attends castings where she must compete against established models including Gigi (Bella Heathcote) and Sarah (Abbey Lee).

Now You See Me 2 (12A) Empire, Odeon

***

SEEING is deceiving in Jon M Chu’s outlandish sequel to the 2013 crime caper about a team of wise-cracking illusionists known as the Four Horsemen, who expose the corrupt with their daredevil antics.

The first film was an enjoyable romp that lost its way with a hare-brained final act that cheated us as well as the gobsmacked characters.

Penned by the same three screenwriters, Now You See Me 2 is a similarly convoluted revenge thriller that repeatedly loosens its grasp on plausibility for the sake of cinematic thrills.

Could it be magic? No.