Reviews by johanlefourbe

I wasn’t expecting much from the damned thing but since this movie was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, eventually, it turned out to be really lame. Seriously, pretty much nothing worked with this movie. I mean, the story was boring and barely made sense, it was poorly directed and the performances were all weak. Concerning the story, what the hell was with this introduction? Indeed, you get to see Wes Bentley grooming some very young girl to become a killer but you never get the opportunity to learn what the deal was with this man and this girl. Then, they decide to kill a group of young psychopaths but it was the same thing. How did he find them? What did they have to do with his vengeance plan? It was all seriously idiotic and just completely random. Concerning the directing, I can imagine that they had a limited budget but the whole thing looked so cheap and unconvincing. Finally, concerning the acting, even though I have a weak spot for Abigail Breslin, her deep blue eyes were one of the very few redeeming features in this movie, she wasn’t convinving at all. I mean, she was actually an interesting choice to play this character but, to make it work, she should have had at least 6 months or even 1 full year of intense fighting training. Obviously, it didn’t happen here and, as a result, she honestly looked rather pathetic and there was no way in real life that she would beat any of these guys. Anyway, to conclude, the whole thing was a big waste of time and you should probably avoid it. 

Since I kept hearing some pretty good things about this movie, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, even though it was certainly a decent directing debut for [Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see], to be honest, I wasn’t completely sold by the damned thing. I mean, the directing was really solid and Edgerton really displayed some potential in this area. Furthermore, the three actors involved (Jason Bateman, Rebecca Hall and Joel Edgerton himself) were all really strong  but, eventually,  the story didn’t really work for me. Basically, they took the very generic formula of the stalker thriller and they tried to be clever by switching the roles (the stalker was in fact the victim and the victim was actually a major douchebag). However, such tricks usually don’t work because the characters becomes in the process usually seriously inconsistent. For example, Simon started out as a rather arrogant dude but he became suddenly quite despicable and it was rather unbelievable that Robyn would have never noticed it before. The half-baked plot about him getting ridd off another job candidate didn’t help either. Seriously, pretty much within 24 hours, this guy Danny claims that he had set him up, his boss finds out the truth and Simon gets fired which was all mighty fast. There was a similar same problem with Gordo. Of course, at some point, you feel sorry about the guy but he still did some seriously weird sh*t and the biggest victim was probably Robyn when she was actually completely innocent.  Another massively half-baked sub-plot was Robyns’s pill-popping past which should have probably been removed. Anyway, to conclude, even if it was too flawed for my taste, it was still a decent thriller and a really solid directing debut for Joel Edgerton and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

[Link removed - login to see]Since I kept hearing some pretty good things about this movie, I was quite eager to check it out. Eventually, it turned out to be a seriously weird movie and, to be honest, I have to admit that it was rather tough to handle something so bizarre only 2 days after watching ‘mother!’. Anyway, in this case, they went for some kind of strange mix between a survival feature and a zombie flick and, even though this mix was very often completely preposterous, I was amazed about how well the damned thing actually worked. Basically, it started out with the main character using a corpse as a speedboat to get away from a deserted island so, at least, you have to admit that the makers were obviously trying to do something new with the genre . And, yet, even if all the super-power thing was actually more distracting than really entertaining, there was still some really interesting ideas about loneliness and how we interact with each other. Indeed, as a result, the main character manages to have his most meaningful relationship with a corpse which was at the same time so sad but also quite inspiring. Basically, we are so conscious and overthink everything that we often struggle to have a genuine contact with anyone but our mind is so complex and developed that we can manage to create the most intricate world and, in our mind, we are able to have the most incredible relationships. Anyway, to conclude, even if it wasn’t really a masterpiece, it was still pretty good and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in experimental movies. 

Since this movie turned out be to quite successful, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, to be honest, I really struggled to care about the damned thing and I thought that most of it was actually rather lame. Indeed, the introduction was just so cringe-inducing and, and from that point, it never really managed to convince me. I mean, at some point, the main character says that college a cappella singing is actually lame and I couldn’t agree more with her. Of course, the whole point of the movie was to show how awesome it actually was and how she managed to finally have some great friends but, once again, I didn’t really buy it and the damned thing turned to be just so generic and predictable. It was also rather disappointing that none of the songs were recorded live. Indeed, the singing felt as a a result so fake and too polished and it would have worked so much better if they did sing live. Eventually, the only things that worked were Rebel Wilson who was pretty funny and Anna Kendrick who was really solid playing the lead. Anyway, to conclude, I think my rating was actually rather generous here but I guess it is still worth a look if you like the genre. Still, there is no doubt that the damned thing is actually seriously overrated.