Reviews by johanlefourbe

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.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from the damned thing but since it was made available by my TV provider, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, pretty much like all the other live-action movies dealing with the famous French comic-book character, the end-result was rather pathetic, I’m afraid. Even though Gérard Depardieu came back for a 4^th time to play Obélix, they got a 3^rd different actor to play Astérix and, this time, it was Edouard Baer’s turn. I also noticed that Jules César was actually played by a different actor for each installment and this time, this character was played by Fabrice Luchini. Well, Baer and Luchini were both not bad but they were probably the only positive things I could find regarding this movie. The first really annoying thing about this movie was the fact all the British characters were talking in French with a supposedly typical British accent. Seriously, it was rather pathetic to see such a great French actress like Catherine Deneuve playing the Queen of England speaking French with this bogus British accent. Of course, all the comic-books were in French and everybody coming from all over the world would speak French which was fine but to bring it this way in a live-action version was just a terrible mistake. To make things worse, they even had Atmen Kelif playing with some blackface make-up but I guess the news didn’t arrive in France that blackface makeup is actually seriously offensive… Concerning the rest of the movie, it was basically dealing with Astérix and Obélix bringing some magic potion to another village abroad so they could fight against Jules César’s army which was just terribly generic. Anyway, to conclude, I’m not surprised that this movie was more or less a flop when it was released in France and I think you should pretty much avoid it. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since there was a solid cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, even though this movie had been fairly well received by the critics, to be honest, I had a hard time to really care for it. I mean, the characters had some potential and they were above all intriguing as a group. Unfortunately, the makers didn’t do much with the fact that they were all living together in one big house which was, in my opinion, the most interesting aspect about the whole thing. Instead, they focused on some of their personal issues but these issues were all barely interesting, at least, as far as I was concerned. I mean, I did get that Dorothea was basically projecting her own loneliness and insecurities onto her only child but, to be honest, this process was rather tedious to behold. Seriously, there was really nothing wrong about Jamie, he was indeed an average still rather thoughtful but above all fairly stable teenager living in a pretty sweet household. As a result, it became borderline annoying at some point that his mother kept complaining that he might need some help for some issues she basically cooked up in her own mind. Concerning his relationship with Julie, it was not much better since this girl acted like a rather annoying tease. It was even pointed out by Abbie, the fact it was rather cruel that she would crawl virtually every night in Jamie’s bed but still refused to have sex with him while it was pretty obvious that he was completely head over heels for her. I won’t blame the cast (Annette Bening , Elle Fanning, Greta Gerwig, Billy Crudup), they all delivered some pretty good performances, it’s just that I never really cared for the direction they took with this material. Anyway, to conclude, even if this movie never really worked for me, it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

Since I kept hearing some really good things about this flick and since it was directed by Peter Jackson, I was really eager to check it out. First of all, there is no denying that this movie was and still is a technical marvel. Indeed, when you hear these veterans, it felt as if they had recorded their testimony just a week ago but, even if the Great War didn’t kill them, they are all certainly dead by now and they had been recorded decades ago. And, of course, there was this awe-inspiring moment during which you smoothly switch from a black-and-while little square to a full colour panoramic screen which was probably one of the most exhilarating things I have seen on a screen. Even though it might seem like a useless gimmick, I thought it was actually terribly effective and it felt like a time machine brought you back 100 years ago directly in these damned trenches. And yet, even if this movie was technically pretty much flawless, I was somehow not completely sold. Indeed, even though the title was pretty much spot-on and might suggest that it would be a rather dark and depressing movie displaying the horror of the so-called ‘Great’ war, I thought that the tone turned out to be rather light, even almost cheerful at some points. Seriously, for the 1^st half hour, we had these veterans claiming that they basically had a great time there or, at least, that there was nothing wrong about doing your duty. As a result, it felt pretty much like watching some propaganda piece. Of course, towards the end, suddenly, they all claimed that it was horrible and that it should be the last war but, in my opinion, they should have toned down the ‘enthusiasm’ at the beginning and spend more time on the dreadful impact this war eventually had on all these British soldiers. Anyway, to conclude, even if I didn’t really care for the approach they chose, it was still a very interesting movie and it is definitely worth a look.