Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, I actually have no idea how I actually ended up watching this movie. Indeed, I watch tons of movies for some really lame reasons but, in this case, I seriously couldn’t remember why actually did record this movie about a year ago. I mean, it wasn’t a really critical success and it didn’t win any prestigious prize. Was it because of the title? My guess is because it was directed by Aleksandr Sokurov whose work I’m not familiar with but the guy seems to have a decent reputation. Anyway, this movie definitely had some potential but I still struggled to connect with the damned thing. You might think that it was a documentary but it was much more original than that. Indeed, in my opinion, it was some kind of collage combining so many things together. I mean, you had some voice-over and dialogues in 4 different languages (Russian, French, English, German) even by Sokurov himself, you had some reproduction footage of WWII, some archive footage, some more or less random footage of modern Paris and a lot of footage of Le Louvres and of the Art displayed at Le Louvres (probably the main attraction of this flick). There were some interesting ideas about Art, history and our relationship with Art through the last 4 centuries but, to be honest, the whole thing was still too random for my taste. Furthermore, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if it really mattered that Jacques Jaujard (the director of Le Louvres during WWII) and Franz Wolff-Metternich (the Nazi officer who was responsible for the conservation of the French art collections) did get along fairly well and managed to protect all these Artistic items while millions were dying in the meantime. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from the damned thing but I was planning to watch all the Clouseau films so I still wanted to check this one at some point. Well, as expected, the damned thing turned out to so misguided. Basically, after the successful ‘The Pink Panther’ and ‘A Shot in the Dark’, they didn’t exactly rush to come up with a 3^rd instalment starring the famous French inspector and, at some point, both Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers declined to participate. For Alan Arkin, it was such a bad decision that it could have completely derailed his promising career who just had started a few years before. However, Arkin was definitely not the biggest problem here and, at least, he did try to give his own spin on this iconic character (like Steve Martin would try almost 40 years later) but it was still weird to see Clouseau being played by someone else than Peter Sellers. A bigger issue beside the fact that pretty much all the jokes were rather lame was that the whole thing was just so poorly put together. For example, at some point, Clouseau went to visit a convict in prison called Addison Steele. At some point, Steele managed to put Clouseau to sleep with some chloroform and to hide in some box and then… well, actually nothing happened afterwards. Indeed, they then switched to a completely different scene involving Clouseau visiting a colleague from Scotland Yard with some fancy gadgets and, at no point, they actually acknowledged what happened in the previous scene. Later on, you did get to see Steele involved with his gangster colleagues so you might  assume that he managed to escape somehow but it gives you an idea of how terribly clumsy the whole thing was. Anyway, to conclude, I always thought that the Pink Panther movies involving Steve Martin were terrible but this movie was maybe even worse and you should pretty much avoid the damned thing. 

I wasn’t expecting much from this flick but since it was starring John Travolta, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, to be honest, I thought it was not so bad after all. First of all, it is always a pleasure to see Travolta playing such articulate laid-back gangsters, sure, it is pretty much something that he could do in his sleep, but he is always entertaining in this mode. In this case, I wish he would have showed up more often but he was obviously not one of the main characters, even if the poster might make you think otherwise. Concerning the story itself, it was nothing really original but what made this movie stands out from the countless similar generic thrillers that come out every day were the dialogues. Sure, it wasn’t at the level of a masterpiece like ‘Pulp Fiction’ (which was definitely an inspiration for the writer) but they were still quite effective and, above all, quite entertaining. Concerning the ending, it was obviously brought up to make the whole thing look more clever than it actually was and I have to admit that I didn’t see it coming. However, it was rather far-fetched and I’m afraid it did create a bunch of plot holes. Above all, was it really necessary? It is interesting to note that this movie was actually Jackie Earle Haley’s directorial debut and you wonder what was basically his endgame here. I mean, the damned thing had some potential but it was still way too generic to really make much waves. Anyway, to conclude, even if I might be giving the damned thing too much credit, it turned out to be a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, at least, if you like the genre. 

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from this flick but since it was starring Olga Kurylenko and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. The interesting thing with this actress is that she always had a rather versatile career, in fact, she actually started her acting career with such French productions. As a result, it was pretty neat to see for her for the 1^st time playing in a French movie, even though, it took me so much time to get used to hear her speaking in French (Seriously, I even thought for a while that she had been dubbed). Unfortunately, Kurylenko has also spent at least half of her career showing up in some really weak stuff and this movie was definitely one of those, I’m afraid. Seriously, pretty much nothing worked in this flick. First of all, its title and the presentation they gave at the beginning would make you think that it would be about ‘vigipirate’, the French anti-terrorism policy, but, except the fact it was the job of the main character, it had actually nothing to do with the plot after all. Instead, they gave us a really generic and predictable story about a traumatized soldier becoming a vigilante. Concerning the directing, it was just so flat and uninspired, it was not much better than a really cheap TV movie. And, yet, the main character had some potential and Kurylenko gave a solid performance, even if she looked way too thin for a seasoned and highly trained soldier. Anyway, to conclude, it’s such a pity that Olga Kurylenko very often wastes her potential in such lame movies and, even if this movie might not be the worst she has made, it was still really weak and you should pretty much avoid it. 

To be honest, I had no idea what this movie was about but since it was starring Judi Dench, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, at some point, I did hear about this Russian spy who had worked undercover in England for decades and it was definitely a strong story with a lot of potential. Unfortunately, it was slightly disappointing that, even though they mentioned that it was indeed based on a true story, it was so loosely based on what actually happened that pretty much everything was actually made up. I mean, when they start even changing the name of the main character then you can be sure that they will seriously deviate from what actually took place. Furthermore, even though Judi Dench was displayed prominently on all the promotional material, they actually really struggled to give her anything to do through the whole duration. On the other hand, Sophie Cookson was actually pretty good and I did appreciate the fact that they really did try to develop this character and explain why she did what she did. Indeed, it went beyond a simple infatuation with some Russian agent and she really believed that she would ensure a better world by helping the USSR to also get the atomic bomb. Still, it’s too bad the movie spent too much time with her romantic intrigues, indeed, with some Russian agent and with her co-worker who would eventually become her husband. It would have been so much more interesting if they had developed more the motivations behind the actions of the other characters such as Leo, Sonya and William. Anyway, to conclude, even if the movie itself was not really great, it was still dealing with a rather fascinating story and, only therefore, I think it is actually worth a look. 

Since this movie had been really poorly received, I didn’t expect much from the damned thing but since it was directed by Joe Wright and since there was a solid cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out anyway. Well, probably because I was expecting something so awful, to be honest, I didn’t think it was so bad after all. Indeed, even if it was nothing really original, it was interesting to see a movie dealing with agoraphobia and Amy Adams gave another solid performance as she was completely convincing playing a middle-age woman cloistered at home and isolated from the rest of the world. Seriously, if they would have focused more on her deteriorating state of mind, the damned thing could have been actually really good. Unfortunately, well, pretty much nothing else really worked though. Indeed, the first mistake they made was to add way too many characters and sub-plots. I mean, for someone suffering from agoraphobia, she had actually a very busy house with random people showing up pretty much every day unannounced. It might be a small detail but, for example, why did her shrink would treat her at home and not remotely by video-call? Then, you had her tenant who had so much going on that they could have built up a whole movie around this character. Finally, wasn’t it rather ridiculous that her new neighbor (the kid, his mother and his father) would show up all randomly, one by one, separately? Anyway, what pretty much ruined the whole thing was the ending though. Indeed, they picked up the killer completely randomly (seriously, it could have been just as well one of the detectives) and, to make things worse, as a child psychologist, shouldn’t she have detected that there was something wrong with this boy? Above all, I really hate it when they spend the whole duration trying to provide a realistic portrayal of a person suffering from an actual mental disease to end up saying that, in fact, this character was right all along. Furthermore, if you would believe this movie, the best way to cure a massive trauma is to undergo another massive traumatic experience which is obviously rather ridiculous. Anyway, to conclude, I might have been too generous with my rating here but, even if they pretty much messed up the damned thing, I still think it actually had some potential.

Even if this movie had been rather poorly received, since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might still check it out. I have to admit that I’m not familiar with ‘Archer’, Matt Thompson’s hit TV series, but I should check it out at some point. Eventually, the main reason I wanted to see the damned thing was because Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were involved. Indeed, nobody in the business can turn some seemingly lame projects into pure gold like these guys (‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs’, ‘21 Jump Street’, ‘The Lego Movie’, ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’). However, while this new animated feature was not much more misguided than the other movies I just mentioned, I’m afraid it never really worked though. The idea was basically what would happen if your history teacher would take some LSD and I have to admit that this concept might sound awesome if you describe it like this. However, if this acid trip turned out to be really weird, messy and terribly random, it was above all not really entertaining. Sure, some of the jokes were not bad, I mean, if you keep throwing some really weird and random jokes at me every 10 seconds, there is a fair chance that something might actually land at some point. The whole thing was just relentless though and it didn’t help that so many of the characters involved were just terribly moronic (George Washington, Samuel Adams, Abraham Lincoln). Seriously, as displayed by Adam Sandler time and time again during his very prolific career, a really stupid main character is actually hardly entertaining (hell, I even had a hard time to care for ‘Forrest Gump’ which is a major classic). Anyway, to conclude, even if the damned thing never really worked, Netflix did deliver their first adult animation film and only therefore, I still think it is worth a look, at least, if you like the genre. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since there was a decent cast involved, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, the cultural and historical background was definitely really interesting but, to be honest, I still didn’t care much about the damned thing though. Indeed, they should have provided more details explaining more what happened back then. I mean, during the opening scene, the main character mentioned that he was living in peace in his village, regardless of the fact if his neighbors were Christian or Muslim. But, pretty much out of nowhere, you got to see some Turkish people rioting in the streets but what was exactly their beef against the Armenian community? Unfortunately, instead of focusing on this tragedy which really deserves to get more attention after decades of denial from the Turkish government and Turkey in general, they gave us a whole bunch of rather bland characters. I mean, pretty much like in ‘Jin líng shí san chai’, Christian Bale ended up playing a completely superfluous American character who could have been easily removed. To make things worse, most of these characters were involved in not 1 but 2 really tedious love triangles and they even gave us a ‘Titanic’-like ending which was rather pathetic. Eventually, the strongest scene was probably the one during which Mikael Boghosian discovered that his whole village, including his pregnant wife, had been killed but while such tragic events should have been the focus of this movie, it was constantly undermined by some really underwhelming soapy love intrigues. Anyway, to conclude, even if this movie was not really good, it was still dealing with an important page of history and, only therefore, I think it is worth a look though. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since I always had a weak spot for Robert Redford, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, I have to admit that I had no clue what this movie was about before watching the damned thing. As a result, at first, I thought it was a gritty drama about a new prison inmate who was trying to survive in one of the worst jails I have ever seen. Of course, it turned out that Brubaker was not just some ordinary inmate, he was in fact the new warden who was spending a couple of weeks undercover as an inmate to discover his prison from within. Well, even though I understand Brubaker’s logic for going for this strategy and even though I understand that it did look pretty bad-ass, I think this approach actually pretty much derailed the whole thing. Indeed, the whole idea was to give a gritty realistic look on a really messed-up prison by showing that the corrupt people running this jail might be even just as rotten as the inmates were. However, it was just so far-fetched that the new warden would try to get acquainted this way with his new workplace, seriously, it was borderline ridiculous. On top of that, was this undercover operation really necessary? Basically, it was just to show how unconventional Brubaker was but it was eventually rather pointless. Above all, it vastly contradicted the rest of the movie which felt much more realistic. Still, the rest of the movie was solid, especially if you think that during the next 40 years, the whole prison thing has become a multi-billion dollar business in the US with 10 times more inmates. Anyway, to conclude, the more I think about it, the more I believe that this movie didn’t really work but I guess it was still a decent watch and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

I already saw this movie but since it bought a brand new awesome TV, I thought I might as well check it out again on Disney+. I remember the first I saw it though. Indeed, back then , after waiting for maybe 18 long months, we were finally able to watch a new MCU film. At least, in the meantime, we could watch the new series on Disney+ but it was not the same though. In fact, I have to admit that I expected the damned thing to be some origin story about Black Widow (which it still was, somehow) but it actually turned out to be some kind of side mission the character handled around the time of ‘Captain America: Civil War’. Well, to be honest, this mission was not really fascinating and, eventually, the whole thing felt like some box they checked so they could argue that this most beloved character did have a solo feature. Eventually, it’s probably the least impactful movie in the grand scheme always involved in the seriously intricate MCU and this great character probably did deserve better. Still, once again, Scarlett Johansson was pretty awesome, she did kick some serious ass and it’s a pity we probably won’t see her again playing this character. However, I shouldn’t forget to mention that Florence Pugh who also nailed another pitch-perfect performance here. Seriously, this girl showed up around 5 years ago and she is already one of the most interesting actresses at work nowadays. Eventually, all the scenes involving the two lethal assassins were just seriously entertaining. The scenes involving the reunion of Black Widow with her ‘fake’ family were also pretty neat but it’s a pity that pretty much everything else was so generic though. Eventually, I still think that the whole side-mission thing was a poor choice and, eventually, it was pretty obvious that they followed this path just to make sure that, even if we might have lost the original Black Widow, well, now we can move on with her badass little sister as a possible replacement. The problem with this approach was that basically nothing else really mattered. Anyway, to conclude, even though it might be one of the most forgettable MCU installments, I have to admit that it was still really entertaining (even more the 2^nd time around) and it was pretty neat to see one of the best Avengers shining one last time.