Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it was starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, even if it was maybe nothing really groundbreaking, I thought it was still a really solid hijacking thriller. Indeed, I always had a weak spot for minimalist features and the idea of having 99% of the action taking place in the cockpit with this pilot worked really well. The whole thing also had a really raw and realistic feeling, even if I know absolutely nothing about piloting a plane. Finally, it had been a while since I saw Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing the lead and he delivered here another really solid performance. You might argue that they pushed it too far by having him being in a relationship with one of the stewardess but I don’t think it was so unlikely. In this line of work, I don’t think it’s uncommon that a pilot would be with a stewardess and that they might end up in the same plane. It was also a nice touch to develop a little bit Vedat, the youngest of the terrorists. Sure, his behavior was seriously erratic but I think it made sense considering the circumstances. You also got a good feeling of how completely lost he was and I actually felt sorry for him which was well done from the makers. Basically, he was a sad kid who tried to find some purpose in his life and unfortunately he chose the most messed-up path you could think of. In my opinion, with our privileged background, it is really difficult, almost even impossible, to comprehend how you could end up in such a situation. Eventually, the only mistake they made, in my opinion, was to have this young terrorist helping land this jet airliner. Sure, it was spectacular but it was the only moment when it became too far-fetched for my taste. Anyway, to conclude, it turned out to be a decent thriller and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

To be honest, 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. Right from the start, I thought the concept was rather half-baked and, to make things worse, it was also so poorly developed. It seemed that they started with this idea, then wrote only 1 or 2 drafts and thought it was probably just fine. Well, it wasn’t, I’m afraid. First of all, let’s go back to the original concept, can you imagine if they would swap this black woman played by one of the sweetest actress at work nowadays with some creepy white guy? Yeah, it would have been even more cringe-inducing. But, sure, a weird misguided idea could have been interesting if the makers actually knew what to do with it. I mean, you wonder what could be the deal with Sue Ann but, when it was revealed, it was just so underwhelming. Seriously, even Freddy Krueger had a more satisfying backstory. Eventually, we learned nothing about her at all, the only thing they gave us was her acting weird and unhinged through the whole duration. At least, it was nice to see Octavia Spencer playing the lead for once and she was pretty good but it shows how talented she is to make something out of this really half-baked material. Concerning the other characters, it was even worse though. Indeed, I don’t think I remember any of their names and I saw this movie only yesterday. Unfortunately, none of the actors involved had  Spencer’s talent to make something out of their totally half-baked characters. Eventually, the conclusion here is that you basically shouldn’t trust anybody in this world because, who knows, the nice little lady or dude that helped you out buying some alcohol might be actually some major psycho. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of Octavia Spencer’s efforts, the damned thing was pretty weak and you should probably avoid it. 

I wasn’t really eager to see this movie but my daughter wanted to see it for her birthday. For the record, it was actually her 19th birthday but, nowadays, she very rarely watches movies or goes to the movie theater and this kind of movies is one of the only genres which seem to still interest her. Anyway, to be honest, it is rather tricky to judge these live-action remakes from Disney. Indeed, on one hand, like all these other similar movies, it does feel really unnecessary but, on the other hand, it was another big box-office success for Disney so, in this case, should we really blame them? Furthermore, the original version, even though it might not be one of Disney’s masterpieces, is still one of their most original productions, above all, one of their very few attempts to deliver something else and I have to admit that they managed to keep a similar vibe with this remake. Furthermore, Stitch was very well made, visually speaking, and it was a good move to remove most of the other aliens involved in this story, otherwise, we would be watching another CGI animated feature (on the other hand, wasn’t it already the case with the live-action remake of ‘The Lion King’?). Concerning Maia Kealoha, she wasn’t bad but, to be honest, she didn’t really impress me either. Still, she had a pretty good chemistry with Sydney Agudong. Above all, the messiness of these 3 characters (Lilo, Stitch and Nani), the edginess and darkness of their situation was such an interesting contrast with the usual fairytale cheesiness that you get in your classic Disney productions. Still, they always made sure that you are watching a Disney family feature so they never took enough risks to make it really remarkable (which was also the case with the original version). Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I have to admit that it was still a decent movie but you should probably watch instead the original animated version though. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since I have a weak spot for Brit Marling and since it was available on Disney+, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, even though this movie seems to have a solid reputation, it completely rubbed me the wrong way and, to be honest, I didn’t like it at all. First of all, even though the poster was quite beautiful, for the movie itself, they went for this godawful camcorder esthetics that the movie look not 10 years old but 20 years old. Nowadays, we watch all movies in high HD resolution so it was just jarring to see something so ugly. Even more problematic was the story though. Seriously, the whole concept of the young innocent woman wiping out a family and then getting acquainted with the sole survivor, even having a romantic relationship with him, while of course withholding her true identity, was just seriously generic, predictable and, above all, rather tedious. There was also the issue that, even though William Mapother is a solid actor, to be honest, he is not really charismatic and the way the movie was directed probably didn’t help. On the other hand, Brit Marling is such a luminous gorgeous woman, even if she puts on a hoodie and some overall, and I don’t think that they had much chemistry together. Of course, I shouldn’t forget to mention that while this completely unlikely and tacky romance was taking place, there was actually a new planet showing up in the sky, a planet which happened to be an exact copy of our planet Earth. Sure, I understand that there was supposed to be some kind of deep philosophical meaning about all this and I guess I didn’t get it. As far as I was concerned, the whole Earth 2 thing was added just to give some extra layer to a really average romantic story dealing with hidden identity and massive trauma. By the way, I don’t think it ever happened to me before, to have an actor or actress on a pedestal like Brit Marling and, after watching only two of her movies  (this one and ‘The East’ which was also disappointing), I’m wondering now if she was actually any good after all. Anyway, to conclude, I really didn’t care much about the damned thing and I actually don’t think it is really worth a look. 

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it was starring Chloë Grace Moretz and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, once again, I knew nothing about the story before watching this movie but, even though the story itself was quite interesting, the movie itself was not really impressive, I’m afraid. First of all, even though Moretz did give a solid performance, I was wondering if she might not have been too young to play a reporter at the New York Post. However, I discovered afterwards that Susannah Cahalan was only 24 years old when she had to face this disease. There is no doubt that Thomas Mann was miscast though. Indeed, she seemed way out of his league and they had no chemistry whatsoever. The fact that his character didn’t check on his girlfriend seemingly for days probably didn’t help either. However, the main issue was that the movie itself was rather poorly made. I mean, when it all started to get pretty bad, she kept on going to her work, didn’t get to a doctor, didn’t contact her parents for way too long. What the movie also completely failed to display was that it all took place during a single month while it seemed to take much longer. And, yet, it was still interesting though. I thought it was also intriguing that they constantly rejected a psychiatric ward admission since her behavior was obviously psychotic. On the other hand, since her health in general was deteriorating at such a rapid pace, it was probably not a psychiatric issue. It did remind me of what I went through with my ex-wife. Indeed, she had always been plagued by chronicle diseases and, at some point, it became really bad. So, of course, we went to the hospital, the doctors did check on her and I will never forget the first time they said ‘ Yes, we think we know what she has but, unfortunately, we can’t really cure it’ . And, this happened time and time again. In this case, some kind of ‘magical’ doctor showed up, figured it out very quickly and saved her (which was, by the way, not how it happened in the book apparently). In real life, even though doctors know a lot, they still don’t know everything and there are so many rare or complex diseases that still can’t be cured. Anyway, to conclude, even though it was nothing really amazing, it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look. 

To be honest, 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. It was another movie I watched while I didn’t know anything about the story which remains one of my favorite way to watch movies, even if it might seem odd. Especially in this case as it turned out to be quite fascinating. Unfortunately, even though the material itself was quite strong, I’m afraid the movie itself was not great though. First of all, there was the back-and-forth in time. Sure, it made sense narratively speaking to tell the story of Martin as an adult and showing some flashbacks of his youth with Dovidl but it is still a rather worthless gimmick and, even in this case, it didn’t mean that this approach was really satisfying. However, a bigger issue was how they rather poorly handled the material and especially Martin and Dovidl. Basically, it was a story about traumatic loss and how 2 completely different individuals handled this trauma. To make Martin the main character was, again, narratively speaking a logical choice but they completely failed to make him interesting enough. Indeed, they reduced him to a rather talentless boring guy who seemed jealous of his (adopted) brother (the way they told at the end that his wife actually slept with Dovidl was especially humiliating and completely unnecessary). With Dovidl, it wasn’t much better. Indeed, they constantly reduced him to a selfish egocentric genius because he seemingly chose to drop also his surrogate British family after already losing his biological Polish family. Why the guy did leave them suddenly and why didn’t he reach out to them to all these years, that was the obsessive argument made by this movie. However, like I said before, the whole point of this tale was the traumatic experience they both had, explaining their weird erratic behavior, and this movie completely failed to show that. The only moment when you could finally feel it was when they played this magnificent violent music, some of the most beautiful violin music I have ever heard. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still an interesting story and I think it is worth a look. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it seemed to have a decent reputation and since it was starring Michael Caine, I was quite eager to check it out. By the way, I actually saw first the remake starring Sylvester Stallone but it was more than a decade ago and I don’t remember anything about it though, except that it wasn’t really good at all (the intro was awesome though). Well, first of all, I actually saw the original classic on the BBC and, to be honest, I have to admit that I did struggle with the dialogues (apparently, I was not the only one since this movie was re-dubbed for the US market as they thought the accent of some of the gangsters was just too heavy). Fortunately, the story turned out to be simple enough but it’s just too bad I couldn’t really follow what they were saying. Anyway, while watching this movie, I wondered if this movie might have been an inspiration for ‘John Wick’. Indeed, if you would replace all these super repetitive and rather boring actions scenes from ‘John Wick’ and replaced them with an actual story and some actual dialogues, I would probably enjoy more this franchise and I’m pretty sure it would be actually quite similar to this British classic. Anyway, there is no doubt that Caine was awesome as he delivered here one of his most iconic performances. Indeed, Carter was such a badass but also a really believable gangster. That was the other nice thing about this movie, how gritty, grim and realistic it all felt. Indeed, Mike Hodges went for a documentary-like approach and it made this movie quite fascinating to behold. And to think that it was his directorial debut made the whole thing even more impressive. To be honest, it was still missing something to become really amazing but a re-watch with some subtitles might help me to make up my mind about the damned thing. Anyway, to conclude, it is a really solid classic and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it was starring James McAvoy and since it was available on Disney+, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, even though it seems that it did receive some rather abysmal reviews when it was released, I actually really liked the concept. Igor didn’t even actually exist in Mary Shelley’s book, he came up later on in one of the many film adaptations but, even so, focusing on their relationship gave a very nice spin to this ancient old tale. Indeed, somehow, it became a really neat bromance with some massive gay undertones which was really cool. On top of that, in my opinion, James McAvoy and Daniel Radcliffe were some perfect choices to play these 2 guys. Unfortunately, it’s too bad that I didn’t care much for the other characters and I wish they focused only on this odd couple. Sure, Andrew Scott was not bad playing a pious detective chasing them even if the religious angle was actually not needed. There was also some rich dude sponsoring them but he had also no added value whatsoever and became some kind of unnecessary bad guy. However, the worst of the bunch was the character played by Jessica Brown Findlay. Indeed, in this version, Frankenstein didn’t have a hot girlfriend but Igor did which was obviously such a misguided idea. Sure, I get that she was added to the mix to show that Igor was actually a very nice guy but I didn’t need her to understand that. Eventually, this story didn’t need any of these characters, the relationship between them was already so fascinating, I’m pretty sure that, if they would have focused only on them, the damned thing could have been pretty amazing. Indeed, the really cool thing was that it humanized so much Victor Frankenstein who suddenly became more than this mad scientist involved in some ghastly experiments. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was actually a decent watch and I think it is worth a look. 

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since there was a decent cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out. First of all, when I first saw ‘Coming to America’, I didn’t like it at all but I had the opportunity to re-watch it before this sequel and I have to admit that it was better than I remembered. I still don’t think it was one of Murphy’s best movies but I finally could understand why it was so popular though. However, did it really require a sequel more than 30 years later? At least, it was promising that it was directed by Craig Brewer who also gave us 'Dolemite Is My Name', easily the best thing Murphy did during the last 30 years. Well, unfortunately, I’m afraid I didn’t care much about this sequel though. I think the main mistake they made was to have most of the action taking place in Zamunda. Indeed, while I was re-watching ‘Coming to America’, pretty much everything taking place in New York was fairly entertaining but everything taking place in Zamunda was actually ACrather cringe-inducing, even borderline offensive when you watched this movie decades later. Well, with this sequel, they flipped the concept by bringing Akeem’s son from Queens to Zamunda but, even though the concept made sense, it meant that most of the action had to take place there which was a huge mistake. Sure, they tried to tone down the offensiveness of the material. For example, the rose-bearers didn’t have to constantly through petals following the prince and they also tried to show that Akeem’s daughters were strong (which didn’t really work since two of them had nothing to do through the whole duration) but, as far as I was concerned, it was still more offensive than really entertaining. At some point, Ryan Coogler did a pitch which was rejected by Eddy Murphy and I really wonder what he would have done with this material. Anyway, to make it work, they should have hired either a African writer or someone with some deep knowledge about the African continent instead of churning out some barely entertaining stereotypes which already felt outdated when the previous movie was released more than 30 years ago. Anyway, to conclude, even if the damned thing was rather harmless, it was still rather weak and I don’t think it is really worth a look. 

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it was starring Jennifer Hoffman, I thought I might as well check it out. On top of that, it is one of these rare movies that I watched only because I really loved the poster. Seriously, it is one of the sexiest posters I have seen. Unfortunately, if you were expecting some entertaining erotic thriller, well, you’ll be rather disappointed. It’s too bad because Antoinette Beumer had a pretty good track-record but I’m afraid it was probably her weakest movie so far. I mean, I have to admit it, visually speaking, it was better than your average Dutch production. However, even though the concept seemed simple enough, it was just so poorly developed. It also didn’t help that Loes Haverkort and Mark van Eeuwen made such an uncharismatic couple together with no chemistry whatsoever. In fact, even with Pierre Boulanger (who was not bad, even if his character was also barely developed at all), Haverkort had also barely any chemistry. I mean, sure, she was/is really pretty but I think she was rather weak and she never managed to project to the audience what her character was going through internally. In fact, I believe that Jennifer Hoffman, who played the sister, would have been a better choice to play the main character. Concerning Peter Paul Muller, I always had a weak spot for this actor but I’m afraid his character was the most half-baked of the bunch. I mean, right from the start, they tried to create this ominous atmosphere around this guy but it never worked and it was even rather pathetic. I mean, he was a contractor, and apparently even a good one, and they were looking for people to work on their new house so all his (rather non-sensical and still unclear) schemes seemed really unnecessary. I mean, he could have simply gone to their house, introduced himself, and he would have gotten the job on the spot. There was absolutely no need to do some weird shenanigans in some supermarket. And his next master plan was to have his step-son having sex with his employer to blackmail her to finance some of his building projects? It was seriously convoluted and, since her husband seemed to be listening to every word he said, completely unnecessary. Anyway, to conclude, even if it might have had some potential, the end-result was eventually rather weak and I don’t think it is really worth a look.