Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since I have a weak spot for romantic-comedies, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, it turned out to be based on a real self-help book which must be one of the most misguided gimmicks in the romantic-comedy genre. However, even if this movie should have been a complete failure, I have to admit that it was actually quite watchable and it mostly had to do with the characters and the cast involved (Kevin Hart, Meagan Good, Taraji P. Henson, Gabrielle Union, Regina Hall). Indeed, I actually liked these characters who were fairly realistic and, basically, this stupid book was just a lame excuse to create some bogus conflicts between them. Eventually, if they would have removed this book, it would have been actually a much more entertaining movie dealing with 4 couples all starting up their relationships. Concerning Kevin Hart, I have noticed that I’m not really familiar with his work but, even though the guy was pretty funny, it’s too bad that this character wasn’t developed at all and the only thing he did was pretty much to deliver some oneliners from time to time. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look but only if you really like the genre. 

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was apparently well received, I was quite eager to check it out. First of all, since my step-son is autist, I think I have a rather decent knowledge about this topic and it was interesting to see they how they would handle such a character. Well, unfortunately, as usual, they gave us an autist who was some kind of genius with numbers which must be of the most stereotypical trademarks regarding autism. However, they went so much further than that and turned this guy into some kind of lethal killing machine and, even though it might sound completely misguided,  I have to admit that I was actually quite intrigued by this autist version of Jason Bourne. Concerning the story itself, it was pretty much the same thing. Indeed, even though it was just serioulsy convoluted (I’m not sure if half of it really did make much sense), it was still actually quite entertaining. Concerning the cast (Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, Jon Bernthal), they all did a really fine job and, even if Ben Affleck didn’t completely nail it (for example, the way he blew in his hands felt off for me) , he was still pretty good and it’s rather funny to think that the guy was considered as the worst actor in the world less than 20 years ago. I was also quite impressed by Jon Bernthal who completely changed his character during the last 15 minutes and still remained completely convincing. Anyway, to conclude, even though this movie was sometimes really bonkers, I have to admit that I actually enjoyed it and it is definitely worth a look. 

For many years, Madonna had a rather pathetic acting career, her last lead role was almost 20 years ago in the godawful ‘Swept Away’ and it seems that she has pretty much retired. However, since then, she did shoot 2 movies very discretly so I was actually a little bit curious to see her directing skills (or lack of it). Well, eventually, even if the damned thing was rather misguided, at least, it was quite ambitious and I don’t think it was really so bad at all. Indeed, there was definitely some potential in focusing on the relationship between Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII. However, it was a huge gamble to try to transform the biggest scandal of the 20th century into, supposedly, one of the greatest love stories and, to be honest, it was never really convincing. Indeed, Madonna spent too much time and effort to make sure that everything looked fine (it did) but not enough on the characters. Also, for some reason, it was combined with a fictional character who was obsessing with this couple but the link between these 2 stories was just too thin and even though Abbie Cornish was as usual extremely lovely, her romantic life was just too generic, predictable and rather boring. In fact, even her romance with Oscar Isaac didn’t really work because, in my opinion, the guy pretty much acted like a creepy stalker. Anyway, eventually, the biggest mistake made by Madonna was to assume that the viewers would automatically share her fascination with this notorious couple but, in spite of its flaws, I still think this movie is worth a look.  

Even though this movie seemed to be a rather obscure, since there was a decent cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, eventually, even though the material was actually quite interesting, I was actually surprised by how [Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see]rivolous the damned thing turned out to be. Indeed, at least 90% of the movie was dealing with the romantic life of these 3 girls, especially with Joe, a local farm boy. The worst thing was that even the romantic elements were actually poorly developed in this movie. I mean, that Prue would want to have some quick sex with Joe and that Ag would like to experiment sex with him, why not? But by having also Stella completely fall in love with him was really pushing it too far. I mean, if the guy would have been incredibly handsome and/or charismatic, I could have been more believable but he seemed rather unremarkable to me. Eventually, their obsession with Joe was apparently not enough and two of them also managed to find the man of their life the very first time they went out to a dancehall.  Seriously, this movie eventually pretty much reduced the whole WWII to a series of romantic encounters which was rather pathetic. It was too bad because the damned thing had some potential and these 3 talented actresses (Catherine McCormack, Rachel Weisz, Anna Friel) actually deserverd a better story.  Anyway, to conclude, I think my rating was rather generous here but the whole thing was rather harmless and I guess it might be worth a look but only if you really like the genre though.

I already saw this movie but, with my wife, we just saw ‘Death on the Nile’ a couple of weeks ago and, since she has a weak spot for the genre, I thought I might as well rewatch this movie with her. Well, I have to admit that I enjoyed this movie more the 2nd time around. Indeed, I didn’t remember that it was visually so neat and I was much more able to enjoy the mood. Unfortunately, I’m still not a huge fan of this story though. Indeed, in my opinion, there are just too many characters involved and I always thought that the twist ending was actually rather disappointing. Well, with this new version, even though it was not bad at all, Branagh didn’t really manage to make it really spellbinding to me, I’m afraid. At least, there was once again a stellar cast involved (Kenneth Branagh, Johnny Depp, Daisy Ridley, Penélope Cruz, Derek Jacobi, Michelle Pfeiffer, Judi Dench, Olivia Colman, Willem Dafoe). Unfortunately, I still think that there are too many characters and, as a result, none of them was really developed. Furthermore, since there were so many characters, it seems that Poirot had to make his deductions out of thin air just because there was simply not enough time. To make things worse, Branagh didn’t really nail Hercule Poirot in my opinion. Indeed, the tricky thing with this character is that he has to be funny but not completely ridiculous but, in this case, even if he wasn’t as pathetic as inspecteur Clouzot, it wasn’t far from it, to be honest. Anyway, to conclude, I’m actually rather surprised that this movie did so well at the box-office but I have to admit that it did grow on me, even if it still felt like a rather useless remake.