Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, I wasn’t really expecting much from this flick but since there was a nice cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out. First of all, it still gets on my nerves when they greenlight a sequel for movies like this one just because they were fairly successful at the box-office. I mean, I have to admit it, I did actually like ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ but it certainly didn’t require a sequel. Anyway, I was so bored by this movie. Basically, there was no real plot and, instead, each character or couple of characters had their own sub-plots but there was not one of these sub-plots that turned out to be actually slightly entertaining. The worse was probably what they did with Dev Patel’s character. Indeed, this guy was already slightly obnoxious in the previous instalment but, here, they actually turned him into some egoistical douche. Seriously, it was just so annoying to see him constantly ignoring his lovely fiancée to do what exactly? I’m not even sure. Then, the way he handled this Guy Chambers character was obviously meant to be funny but it was again so obnoxious. By the way, concerning Richard Gere, he was actually a fine addition to the cast but, like everyone else, he was unfortunately stuck in another underwhelming sub-plot. Anyway, to conclude, I couldn’t care less for this sequel and I don’t think it was worth a look at all. 

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Sam Rockwell, I thought I might as well check it out. On top of that, one of my former colleagues told me at some point that it was not bad at all. Well, eventually, I was amazed by how little I cared about the damned thing after all. I mean, right from the moment the main character shot that poor girl by accident, I was already pretty much done with the whole thing already. Basically, it was some kind of mix of ‘Affliction’ with ‘A Simple Plan’, two far superior movies but, seriously, it was just so damned generic and predictable. Concerning Sam Rockwell, I have to admit that it was pretty neat to see him playing the lead for once and he did what they could with this material but his character was just a terrible loser with no redeeming features whatsoever. The rest of the cast was also fine (William H. Macy, Jeffrey Wright, Joe Anderson) but their characters were just tedious as well. Anyway, to conclude, even if I have seen worse, the damned thing still pretty much felt like a waste of time and I don’t think it is really worth a look. 

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. To be honest, I have to admit that I didn’t know before watching the damned thing that it was actually based on a real story. Anyway, it turned out to be a surprisingly topical movie since massive wildfires are increasing all over the world (USA, Brazil, Russia,…). On top of that, this movie went beyond your average action flick and I really enjoyed the realistic approach which made the whole thing much more entertaining to watch. However, they did make a couple of mistakes though. First of all, the whole thing felt pretty random and there was sometimes a lack of transition between various scenes. However, a bigger issue was the inclusion of the private lives of 2 firefighters. Of course, it was rather expected but it didn’t work well with the rest of the movie. It’s too bad because the other scenes when you get to see the firefighters socializing outside their work were actually fine. Anyway, as I mentioned before, I didn’t know it was actually based on a true story and I was really flabbergasted when they killed off pretty much this whole team of firefighters. Of course, it made sense since it was what happened in real life but it would have been a really bold move if it would have been a fiction. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch though and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

Since I have always been a big fan of Orson Welles, I was really eager to check this documentary. In fact, I saw ‘The Other Side of the Wind’ last year on Netflix and, even though it was supposed to be a huge event (it was usually considered as the greatest masterpiece never released), to be honest, I thought it was a decent watch but not much more than that. Of course, it didn’t help that I had heard so many things about this movie through the years and I already knew most of what they told. Eventually, in my opinion, this movie raises the following question about Orson Welles: was he really a doomed artist or just some one-hit-wonder? To be honest, after watching most of his movies, I’m not so sure but I have never seen another director whose failed projects has generated such an obsession. Even myself, when they displayed a few scenes of ‘The Dreamers’, ‘Don Quixote’, ‘The Deep’ and ‘The Merchant of Venice’, I became extremely intrigued by these other doomed projects. Eventually, you might wonder if Welles hemself didn’t become more legendary than his own movies (with the exception of ‘Citizen Kane’, of course). Still, it was quite heart-breaking to see that, in spite of its status, nobody in the US movie community would try to help him out to finish his last directing effort. Anyway, to conclude, it was a solid documentary and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Orson Welles’s work. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Nicolas Winding Refn’s work, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, even though it was, as usual with this director, a visually spellbinding movie with a killer soundtrack, to be honest, I didn’t feel much connection with the damned thing. The first thing that bothered me was that Elle Fanning was rather miscast in my opinion. I get that she was chosen to play this seemingly pure and innocent girl but she was never really convincing as a top-model who was supposed to be apparently incredibly gorgeous. I mean, she is a decent actress, no doubt about it, but, to be honest, I don’t think she was attractive enough and, above all, charismatic enough for this part. Considering the rest of the movie, it is pretty obvious that Winding Refn didn’t care about providing a realistic take on the average life of a top-model living in Los Angeles which wasn't necessarily a bad thing though. Eventually, the damned thing turned out to be so surrealist that, as a result, it felt like watching a David Lynch movie dealing with top-models which might sound more appealing than it actually was. To be honest, it seems that Winding Refn's movies are getting increasingly pretentious and less and less rewarding. Anyway, to conclude, even though I didn’t really work for me, it was still a decent watch and it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Nicolas Winding Refn’s work. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Isabel Coixet’s work and since it was available on Netflix, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, even though it was a very interesting story, the damned thing still turned out to be rather half-baked, I’m afraid. The biggest issue was that Coixet never managed to make it more than a generic drama about some gay lovers facing our cruel world. It didn’t help that this story was sometimes pretty cheesy. I mean, for example, Marcela falls in love with the first person she meets in her school within the first 5 minutes so there was no room for this relationship to grow organically. On top of that, even though we spent the whole duration with these 2 women, we don’t get to know them at all because they were only defined by their romantic relationship which was seriously limiting. Finally, the 2 characters kept making some rather stupid mistakes which could have been fairly easily avoided. For example, why would they go live in a small village where all the inhabitants would pretty much know everything about everybody? Even more bewildering was the fact that they went back to this village after Elisa became ‘Mario’ and they got married. And, yet, there was still something quite fascinating about this story above all because you don’t get to see so many vintage gay love stories like this one. Furthermore, the black-and-white cinematography was maybe not really original but it was still quite gorgeous to behold. Anyway, to conclude, even though Coixet never really managed to make the most of this interesting story, it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look. 

I didn't really know what to expect from this flick but since there was a really nice cast involved, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, to be honest, I did end up with some mixed feelings. First of all, even though it was dealing with an interesting topical subject, I always find it rather annoying when they release such drama's when the topic developed is pretty much everywhere in the media. To really get my respect, they should have made it at least 20 years ago when nobody would dare touch this subject. Then, even though the movie should have focused more on Ray and on what he was going through which was already a lot to deal with, they focused too much on his mother and his grand-mother who also had a lot going on in their own lives. As a result, it turned the whole thing into some kind of All-star game between Elle Fanning, Naomi Watts and Susan Sarandon to find out who would get the more attention. Eventually, Fanning tried her best and she was not bad but she didn't stand a chance against Watts and Sarandon. Furthermore, the fact that she didn’t want to cut her hair to instead wear some awful wigs did show a lack of commitment from the young actress. Finally, with such a title, it was obvious that it would be dealing with these 3 characters but the makers were making the assumption that, when someone is going into transition, it must be just as hard for them as it is for their relatives but I seriously doubt it. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch though and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in this subject. 

Of course, I didn’t expect much from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Dwayne Johnson, I thought I might still check it out. Well, unfortunately, it did turn out to be indeed pretty lame. Obviously, they were inspired by ’21 Jump Street’ and they decided to deliver another irreverent R-rated comedy which wasn’t actually a bad idea. Indeed, the concept of the original  ‘Baywatch’ TV-show was even more preposterous that the concept of ’21 Jump Street’ so this approach did make sense. Unfortunately, it never worked because the jokes turned out to be so lame. Seriously, there was a huge number of dick jokes and the fact that the cast was constantly swearing for no reason whatsoever made the whole thing even more cringe-inducing to behold. At least, as expected, the female cast (Alexandra Daddario, Kelly Rohrbach, Ilfenesh Hadera, Priyanka Chopra) was quite gorgeous to look at but their characters were not developed at all which felt like a missed opportunity. At least, Chopra was a decent bad guy and it would be interesting to see her in something slightly less underwhelming. Finally, not only the plot was terribly tedious and generic, there was not a single reason why it required such an excessive long running time (around 2 hrs). Anyway, to conclude, the damned thing was pretty much a waste of time and it is not really worth a look whatsoever. 

Since I kept hearing some pretty good things about this flick, I was really eager to check it out. Well, as expected, I turned out to be one of the weirdest sport biopics I have ever seen. However, even though I was fully aware of this story back in the 90’s, I was surprised that the makers actually took Tonya Harding’s side. Indeed, the theory developed here was that she wasn’t involved at all with the assault against Nancy Kerrigan which makes it retrospectively rather cruel that she was completely banned afterwards from ice skating.  Eventually, Harding was a pretty good skater, maybe not the best ever, but, above all, she had the bad luck that she had been surrounded her whole life with some either viciously mean and/or incredibly stupid people. And, yet, beyond this messed up drama, it was also quite funny and this mix of drama and dark humour reminded me of ‘Fargo’ except that it was, in this case, based on a real story which made the whole thing even more surreal. Concerning Margot Robbie, to be honest, even though she was barely recognizable, she didn’t look anything like Tonya Harding in my opinion. However, she was still rightfully praised as she completely disappeared in her character and she gave here her best performance so far. Anyway, to conclude, did this story deserve such coverage at the time and, 25 years later, a feature film like this one? Probably not, but it was still a pretty good movie though and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you want to see Margot Robbie delivering her breakthrough performance.