Reviews by johanlefourbe

I wasn’t expecting much from this flick but I thought I might as well check it out anyway. First of all, I have to admit that it had been a while since I saw the first instalment with my step-son and, to be honest, I didn’t remember much about it but it didn’t really matter though. Basically, the CGI was once again rather impressive, I have to admit that the action scenes were not bad but the plot was still generic and tedious, I’m afraid. What mostly surprised me was the number of characters that they added to this sequel: Rocksteady, Bebop, Casey Jones, Krang, Baxter Stockman, Alessandra Ambrosio, Laura Linney obviously showing up for a (hopefully) juicy paycheck,… They were even not 1 but 2 nameless Asian chicks with only a few lines of dialogues playing some useless sidekicks to 2 different main characters. I have to admit that, for some reason, it was actually neat to see Casey Jones, even if the character really doesn’t work in a live-action version like this one. Indeed, my little brother was the one obsessing with the Ninja Turtles back then we were kids but I do remember actually having a really cool Casey Jones toy figure (see underneath). I actually looked it up on the internet and this freaking toy now costs more than 150 dollars so I wish I kept the damned thing! Concerning the movie itself, I think it might be actually fairly entertaining for kids around 12 years old but, as far as I was concerned, I didn’t care much for it and I will probably forget about the whole thing within a few days, exactly like its predecessor. Concerning Megan Fox, it is rather sad, even pathetic, that she got fired from the ‘Transformers’ franchise after comparing Michael Bay with Hitler to then work again with the same guy 5 years later for a very similar franchise, albeit much less successful commercially speaking. Anyway, to conclude, even if I have seen worse, I don’t think it is really worth a look, expect maybe if you are a 9-12 year old boy.

05/10

To be honest, I have to admit that I was slightly worried about this movie. Indeed, when the first instalment was released, it had been hugely popular but I had noticed that this sequel didn’t make so much waves when it came out. However, since the damned thing was available on Netflix, I was quite eager to check it out anyway. I even re-watched the previous instalment the day before. At least, pretty much everyone seemed to agree that the actors to portray the adult versions of the kids were pretty much spot-on, even if, personally, I had a rather hard time to picture James McAvoy as the adult version of Bill Denbrough. On top of that, it is still hands-down one of the best stories delivered by Stephen King and it was just awesome to see again this group of friends more than 25 years later. Still, even if it turned out to be a decent watch, it was certainly a step-down from the previous movie though. Indeed, as long they focused on how the adult characters struggled with the traumatic experience they had when they were kids, the whole thing was actually pretty good but , unfortunately, they kept adding just too many stuff and most of it was barely interesting, at least, not to me. Some memory loss? Some ancient Indian ritual? A quest for some personal artifacts? The really far-fetched origins of Pennywise? Of course, I understand that most of it actually came from the book (which I haven’t read at this point) but I think it would have been much stronger if they have focused more on the characters themselves and what they were going through emotionally. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it is still a really strong story and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was suggested by a fellow Listal member, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, even though it turned out to be a decent watch, to be honest, I still can’t say I was impressed though. It is possible that I might have enjoyed it more if there wasn’t such an overdose of movies and TV-shows dealing with the current zombie craze. Anyway, in this case, the end-result felt like a rather overlong episode of ‘The Walking Dead’ taking place in Australia. I have to admit that it was an interesting approach to focus on a really average couple but, to be honest, I never really cared about them and the fact that they both got infected rather stupidly made it even harder to root for them. Eventually, the most interesting thing about this flick was to show these aboriginals going back to their ancient lifestyle and facing such a pandemic in their own way. Unfortunately, they decided to focus on this white man when they should have spent more time on the aboriginals. Another interesting approach would have been to follow the plot developed years ago by Jim Jarmusch with ‘Dead Man’. Indeed, in this case, they could have dropped the wife, showing only Andy basically dying very slowly right from the start and Thoomi could have supported him during this final journey. Anyway, it is pretty obvious that the aboriginals were actually what made this movie interesting but they were barely given any screen time after all. To conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still fairly entertaining and I guess it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

Following the ‘Justice League’ debacle (I still have to watch the Snyder’s cut but, to be honest, I’m not really holding my breath to watch a 4 hours bloated super-hero mash-up), Zack Snyder managed to deliver another directorial effort, this time with Netflix, and I thought I might as well check it out. Well, for this new flick, Snyder came back to his roots and made another zombie flick, 17 years after his directorial debut, ‘Dawn of the Dead’. Since ‘Dawn of the Dead’ remains one of his best movies, it was pretty neat that the guy was coming back to this genre. On top of that, I always had a weak spot for the heist genre and the fact that it was taking place in Las Vegas made the whole thing sound pretty awesome. Well, the first issue was with the title. Indeed, it seemed to be a rather cheap trick to link this movie to Snyder’s own remake and Romero’s legendary franchise when this movie actually had nothing to do with these movies. The next issue was the fact that, even though there were quite a lot of characters, it was rather disappointing that the most recognizable actor was Dave Bautista who’s basically a 3^rd rank Marvel actor at best. At least, Bautista was not bad at all and actually gave a solid performance. Concerning the rest of the cast, even though there were plenty of characters, none of them was developed whatsoever though. It’s too bad because some of them had some potential. For example, you had some girl called Chambers, she didn’t have any dialogues whatsoever and after one really neat badass action scene, she was unfortunately discarded and turned into some zombie food. Concerning the story itself, well, I guess it was entertaining enough but it also felt rather lazy and generic. To be honest, the more I think about it, the more I believe it would have worked better as a videogame instead of a feature film. Anyway, to conclude, I’m afraid this movie won’t improve Snyder’s reputation of being a hack but I guess it is worth a look if you like the genre. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but the title did sound pretty badass and since there was a decent cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, to be honest, I had a rather hard time to care about the damned thing after all. I have to admit that some of the action scenes involving the submarines were quite spectacular and I always had a weak spot for the genre but pretty much nothing else really worked in this movie, I’m afraid. Indeed, the beginning scenes were rather murky but when it became clear what the hell was going on, it turned out to be seriously far-fetched. Of course, you might argue that I shouldn’t take such action flicks too seriously but, in this case, they were dealing with an actual geopolitical situation and all the characters were dead serious through the whole thing so a more plausible plot would have better worked in my opinion. Eventually, this movie didn’t focus only on the submarines, as if the makers didn’t trust it to be enough, and they did add not only one but two extra story threads, one involving some standard war room talks with Gary Oldman, Common and Linda Cardellini and another involving some black-ops operation with some unknown and rather uncharismatic actors. Both these threads were terribly generic and tedious, especially the black-ops stuff and it felt as if the makers were not confident enough to be able to deliver a movie about some submarine mission so they added some (unnecessary and rather unwelcome) extra stuff. Anyway, to conclude, even if I have a weak spot for the submarine genre, this movie just didn't work and I don’t think it is really worth a look.