Reviews by johanlefourbe

I wasn’t really expecting much from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Samuel L. Jackson and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, to be honest, I thought it was not bad at all after all. Indeed, I really liked the concept of the 3^rd John Shaft being a young hipster and also a computer geek working for the FBI who didn’t like weapons at all. Indeed, it was rather neat to introduce John Shaft (Senior) to our current time period and, of course, Samuel L. Jackson was still pretty awesome playing this character. However, if Regina Hall was fine as well, Jessie Usher and Alexandra Shipp were unfortunately rather weak, I’m afraid. As a result, it was only from the moment that Jackson got involved that the whole thing started to be entertaining. Another issue was that the running time was just too long for such a generic story. Basically, as long as the movie was focusing on the relationship between the 2 John Shaft’s, it was working fine, but pretty much everything else was rather underwhelming or even downright boring. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it still turned out to be a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was on the ‘1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die’ list, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, it turned out to be a rather odd movie praising the virtues of alcohol, especially whisky. Sure, it was all rather innocent but it’s difficult to imagine making such a movie nowadays (in fact, they did remake the very same story a couple of years ago but, unsurprisingly, it was quickly forgotten). To be honest, I have to admit I don’t have much knowledge of the Ealing comedies. I mean, I did watch ‘Kind Heart and Coronets’, probably their biggest classic, but I was only amused at best so I can’t say I’m really into their kind of humour. With this movie, the tricky thing was also that you pretty much knew everything that would happen from the very start so the main (and, as far as I was concerned, only) thing  to enjoy were the colourful inhabitants of this small island. I have to admit that these characters were indeed quite entertaining but, to be honest, they were barely developed at all and I still wonder how Scottish people feel about this movie as they were portrayed as some massive alcoholics who can’t live without their daily doses of whisky. Anyway, to conclude, even if I wasn’t really blown away by the damned thing, it was still a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

Even though this movie had been a huge commercial and critical flop, since it was available on Disney+, I thought I might as well check it out. Indeed, I'm one of the lucky guys living in the Netherlands who had the opportunity to use Disney+ 2 full months before anyone else in the world. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, it turned out to be another massive product design and CGI extravaganza but it was maybe the least annoying aspect about this movie. Indeed, the whole thing was nothing original at all and it was pretty much a mix of various movies such as ‘The Polar Express’, ‘Narnia’, ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and even ‘Hugo’. Above all, the damned thing was just so generic and boring. Seriously, they couldn’t come up with a better gimmick than having the main character missing her recently deceased mother? Eventually, the story and the characters involved were just terribly tedious and the only thing I enjoyed was the ballet during the end-credits. At the end of the day, you might wonder if the this movie wouldn’t have worked better if they didn’t go for such a bland and generic approach. Anyway, to conclude, the damned thing was pretty much a waste of time and I don’t think it is worth a look whatsoever. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since there was a decent cast involved and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, to be honest, I actually think that this story had some potential and I really wonder how it all went down in reality. Unfortunately, Scott Derrickson took the most generic approach possible which made the whole thing at best only mildly entertaining and at worst rather silly to watch. I mean, I have to admit that the mood was decent enough and there were some spooky scenes but the makers clearly never really had the ambition to go beyond that which was rather disappointing. Concerning the cast, Joel McHale and Sean Harris were fine in their respective parts but, unfortunately, Eric Bana was actually rather weak here. I mean, I always had a weak spot for this actor but his performance in this movie was just so wooden. On the other hand, you could argue that he couldn’t help it if his character was rather poorly written but I still think that he didn’t do much with this character. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I have to admit that it was still watchable but I will probably completely forget about it the very next day.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, that’s not with this movie that McG will improve his poor reputation, that’s for sure. I guess it might be slightly more enjoyable for kids around 12 years but I was just bored by the damned thing. In fact, I always hated summer camps so the concept actually had some potential but, unfortunately, they chose such a boring and generic approach.  On top of that, the CGI was pretty ugly and it wasn’t much better than what you would get from a ‘Resident Evil’ video-game but that wasn't even the biggest issue here. Indeed, to make things worse, all the kids involved were just pretty weak, except for the black boy who was not bad but he wasn’t helped by the fact that his character was very often rather obnoxious. And what was the deal with these Chinese girl?!? I mean, she was very cute but, if I understand correctly, she was an orphan who came all the way to the US to join some summer camp but why?!? And how did she get the money for such a journey? Maybe I did miss something but, to be honest, I don’t really care. Anyway, to conclude, the damned thing was pretty weak and I don’t think it is really worth a look. 

Since it was the last movie directed by Lars von Trier that I hadn’t watched so far, I was really eager to see the damned thing. Well, aesthetically, von Trier kept the same monochrome approach he used in his previous movies, except that this time he went for a classic black-and-white. To make it look even more experimental, they also added at some point the title of the movie on the top left corner and it remained there until the very end but, to be honest, I thought it was rather distracting. Concerning the rest of the movie, well, it might be the most meta movie delivered by von Trier, at least, so far. Indeed, instead of making a classic outbreak thriller, he made a movie about a director writing a movie about an epidemy and he played the director himself. He even played the character within the actual movie supposedly about this epidemy. It’s interesting that, after playing this lead, von Trier would never be an actor again (at least, only some very small parts). Aside from that, as usual with this director, it was pretty dark and bleak but there was also a playfulness very rare coming from this guy and it was very much welcome. It was also seriously random though which made the whole thing unpredictable but also rather messy. Finally, von Trier apparently couldn’t help throwing a rather cringe-inducing pitch-black ending with some non-stop screaming woman. Anyway, to conclude, even though it didn’t completely work, I thought it was quite original and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Lars von Trier’s work. 

Since I kept hearing some interesting things about this movie, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, to be honest, I thought the damned thing was quite a mess. Basically, Olivier Assayas delivered a fairly realistic feature with some paranormal elements and while this mix was interesting, it was never completely convincing. Basically, Assayas had wrapped this movie into a cloud of mystery but even though it was effective, it was also fairly easy and, in my opinion, it made the whole thing equally intriguing and frustrating to behold. For example, even though you spent the whole duration with the main character, eventually, you don’t get to learn much about her after all. However, I won’t blame Kristen Stewart who gave here one hell of a one-woman-show though. Indeed, it’s such a shame that she will be always remembered for the ‘Twilight’ franchise because I always thought she had some potential. In this movie, she was quite spellbinding to behold and she probably gave her best performance so far. On top of that, there is no doubt that it was an interesting ghost story with a much more interesting approach than the one you usually get from your average Hollywood production like ‘The Sixth Sense’ or ‘Paranormal Activity’ for example. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

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.