Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since I have a weak spot Jason Reitman‘s work, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, even if it was probably Reitman's most interesting project in years, I’m afraid it still turned out to be rather disappointing. First of all, even though it was pretty obvious that Reitman tried to emulate Robert Altman’s directing style with his introduction, I thought it was rather confusing. In fact, at the end, I still didn’t really get who was who exactly. I mean, I can understand that Reitman wanted to go for a realistic approach but it did eventually overcomplicate a story which was rather simple after all. A bigger issue was probably the fact that it was never clear what did they want to achieve with this movie. Indeed, it was never clear if we should feel sorry for Gary Hart, or blame him or blame the medias or the fact that the US presidential campaign has since then become such a huge media circus. Sure, Hart seemed to be quite a brilliant politician but he seemed also to be completely oblivious about the fact that the US president is a major public figure and the fact that the guy kept denying some reasonable expectations regarding his future position made it rather difficult to root for him. It was a similar situation regarding how they handled the media and it was never clear how we should feel about the fact that they covered this story. It’s too bad because I always loved movies about politics but, eventually, I’m not so sure if it was such a great story. The best conclusion I could come up with this tale was that even the most promising politicians actually could turn out to be some oversexed pigs. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch with a very solid performance by Hugh Jackman and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

To be honest, I didn’t really have some huge expectations regarding this movie but since I have a weak spot for Mark Wahlberg’s and Peter Berg’s work, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, it wasn’t really good, I’m afraid. At least, it was slightly better than ‘Spenser Confidential’, the last collaboration of Wahlberg with Peter Berg, but only slightly though. I mean, most of the action scenes were not bad, especially the fighting scenes involving the always awesome Iko Uwais, the badass actor from ‘The Raid’, but that was pretty much the only thing working with this flick. The first thing that really annoyed me was the fact that they tried to make Wahlberg play an incredibly smart man which was rather pathetic. There was also some rather misguided attempt at being humoristic by making some jokes about the fact that the guy was probably bipolar. At least, Wahlberg was lucky enough that Lauren Cohan was also barely convincing. In fact, while it was really ridiculous to try once again to turn Wahlberg into the smartest man in the room, it could have been interesting to have her playing a lethal soldier but, unfortunately, there was not one second I believed in this character. To make things worse, the damned thing was rather pretentious with some fancy editing and some useless debriefing scenes with Wahlberg’s character. I know, I probably make it sound as if the damned thing was awful but, in fact, the concept had some potential, it’s just that the makers made quite a few stupid mistakes. Anyway, to conclude, I was probably too generous with my rating here but it is always neat to see Iko Uwais kicking some major ass but, if you don’t really like the genre, you should probably avoid this flick. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but it seemed to be interesting and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. First of all, I have to admit that, before watching this documentary, I had actually never heard of Estevan Oriol or Mark Machado A.K.A. Mister Cartoon. Anyway, these guys were (and still are) definitely really cool and I especially loved Mr. Cartoon visual style, in fact, one of my tattoos was supposed to be in this Chicano style but, for some reason, my tattoo artist at the time advised me to go into a different direction. Still, even though the material was really interesting, to be honest they didn’t go much further than constantly saying that these guys were great and super influential. Indeed, eventually, no offense to Oriol, I think he is a great photographer but, as a film director, I have some doubts because this documentary was pretty neat but still missed some dramatic curve. I mean, the only thing slightly going in this direction was that, towards the end, Cartoon was still mighty successful while Oriol seemed to be somewhat struggling but this idea was barely developed so you might wonder why it was even mentioned. Eventually, in my opinion, this movie was a good example that, even if the work of an Artist can be amazing, it doesn’t mean necessarily that themselves or their lives are also fascinating. Anyway, to conclude, even if this movie was nothing really ground-breaking, it was still quite interesting and it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in this subject. 

Even though this movie had been really poorly received, since I have always had a weak spot for Brian De Palma, I thought I might as well check it out, especially since it was available on Netflix. Well, it turned out to be really terrible and, if De Palma always did have some ups and downs during his prolific career, this was probably his lowest point so far, I’m afraid. Seriously, pretty much nothing worked in this flick. The first thing that bothered me was the music. Indeed, not only it was completely generic, but it was also omnipresent, and, above all, it almost never matched the scene that was taking place. Then, if the cast seemed interesting enough, they all gave some rather weak performances, especially Carice van Houten who was pretty pathetic but, on the other hand, she wasn’t helped with this material. However, eventually, the biggest issue was with the story though. Indeed, even though it was again pretty generic, it still managed to be quite confusing and the end-result was just a boring mess. I mean, it was apparently supposed to be some kind of international spy thriller dealing with terrorism with several international locations but , while it might sound ambitious, it was never convincing, interesting or entertaining whatsoever. It’s such a pity that Brian De Palma could deliver such a weak movie in this genre when the guy actually used to be a thriller master back in the 80’s and 90’s. Anyway, to conclude, this movie turned out to be even worse than I expected and you should pretty much avoid it. 

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from this flick but since I have always been a huge fan of Lisbeth Salander, I still wanted to check it out. Well, even though this character still has some huge potential, I’m afraid the damned thing was rather misguided. Indeed, even though for many years, many were hoping that David Fincher, Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig would come back for a sequel after ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’, well, it never happened. Instead, they went for the 4th book which had not been adapted yet which wasn’t necessarily a bad idea, except that this story was not really good. I mean, sure, it was entertaining enough but not much more than that. Above all, like ‘The Girl Who Played With Fire’ and ‘The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest’, I think it remains a mistake to link Salander’s private life so closely with the plot. This time, they decided to bring her sister, played by the lovely Sylvia Hoeks, even if she had been barely mentioned in the previous books/movies. On top of that, why did they bring back Mikael Blomkvist and Erika Berger since they barely had any impact on the story? Eventually, I think it would have worked better if they had removed most of the useless old characters and the link with Salander’s family but, even so, I’m afraid it would have still been a rather generic tale. At least, it was bold that Claire Foy would take over such an iconic part and she was not bad at all. However, it was already quite amazing how well Rooney Mara managed to provide her own convincing version and, eventually, as far as I’m concerned, Noomi Rapace would always remain the ultimate Lisbeth Salander. Anyway, to conclude, even if the whole thing was maybe misguided, it was still nice to spend some more time with this awesome character and, only therefore, I think it is worth a look but don’t have some huge expectations before watching the damned thing. 

To be honest, I didn’t really much care for ‘Paddington’ but since this sequel had been also a critical success, I thought I might as well give it a try. Well, I have to admit that I did enjoy it slightly more than its predecessor and it is always refreshing when a sequel doesn’t turn out to be a major step-down from its predecessor. Indeed, the story was fairly original and I have to admit that the main character finally started to grow on me. Sure, the CGI was once again fine but it obviously went way beyond that and, this time around, I started to think that Paddington was quite charming and fairly entertaining. Furthermore, Hugh Grant had obviously a blast and he delivered here his best performance in years. However, like its predecessor, even though it was probably one of the best movies I have seen in this genre lately, I’m afraid it still didn’t really blow me away though. I mean, even if it had been wildely well received by the critics (It is, apparently, the best-reviewed movie ever on Rotten Tomatoes so far), I think it was actually rather shallow. Of course, you could argue that this movie was actually meant to be more magical and whimsical than really deep and, indeed, I have to admit that there was absolutely nothing really wrong about the whole thing. Eventually, it was mostly a matter of taste and I guess it was just too sweet for me. Anyway, to conclude, even if it wasn't really my cup of tea, there is no doubt that the damned thing is worth a look, especially if you need to entertain some young kids. 

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, it turned out to be a rather complex movie with a lot going on. Indeed, it provided a reflection on stardom, on getting older and still stay relevant, about the fact that famous people can be so lonely and isolated from the rest of the world, about the odd relationship between personal assistants and the famous people they work for… They even took the time to admire the beautiful Swiss landscape and eventually, in my opinion, all of this was maybe too much too handle. To be honest, I was expecting this movie to focus more on the relationship between Maria Enders and Jo-Ann Ellis since they were going to work together and since Jo-Ann would take over the role that made Maria famous but, eventually, Moretz did show up only in a few scenes which were barely enough to flesh out her character. Eventually, they cared more about the relationship between Maria and Valentine and even this relationship was much more complex than it seemed. The most intriguing thing was that you never get to know what Kristen Stewart’s character was really thinking and feeling and the way she suddenly completely disappeared made her character even more enigmatic. On top of that, Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart both gave some really solid performances and the movie was above all interesting in the 2^nd act when it was only focusing on them. Still, in my opinion, they tried to cover too much ground and they did falter a couple of times. For example, the scene coming from Moretz’s superhero movie was just so pathetic and, to make it even worse, to have Valentine defending the merit of this movie was just even more bewildering. Anyway, to conclude, even this movie didn’t completely work, I did like it and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.