Reviews by johanlefourbe

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this flick but since there was a decent cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, even though the concept of focusing on the last days of Edgar Allen Poe was pretty neat, unfortunately, pretty much everything else didn’t really work though. In fact, somehow, it reminded me of ‘In the Heart of the Sea’. Indeed, in this recent movie from Ron Howard, instead of simply adapting ‘Mody Dick’, they went for an adaptation of a book  about how Herman Melville was inspired by a true story to write his own literary classic which was such a convoluted concept. In this case, instead of really telling the life of Poe or simply adapting one of his classic tales, they went for some typical serial-killer inspired by Poe’s work which was such a weak idea. Furthermore, I thought that John Cusack was rather miscast to play the famous writer. Indeed, Cusack is one of these actors who always play every characters pretty much the same away everytime again and his usual quirkiness didn’t work here. In my opinion, they should have chosen someone else to play the famous dark and tormented writer. Still, the whole thing was not completely worthless. Indeed, James McTeigue has a nice visual style and the whole thing looked really good. Furthermore, Alice Eve remains such a charming actress. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws and  even though the whole thing was still rather misguided , it was still watchable and I guess it might be worth a look, at least, if you like the genre. 

I already saw this movie but since it was a while back and since I had it on DVD, I thought I might as well check it out again. Well, even though my wife always had a weak spot for this movie, I always had a hard time to care about  the damned thing. I have to admit it, it was still a decent watch and probably the most ambitious adaptation I have seen dealing with the musketeers but I'm afraid it was actually victim of its own ambition. I mean, sure, there was an impressive cast involved  (Leonardo DiCaprio, Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, Gérard Depardieu, Gabriel Byrne, Anne Parillaud, Judith Godrèche, Peter Sarsgaard, Hugh Laurie) but it was so over-crowded that there was barely any room to develop any of these characters. The funny thing was that, even though they all delivered some decent performances, DiCaprio, easily one of the best actors around nowadays, was probably the weakest of them all. Indeed, even though it took some balls to play such a rather despicable character just after becoming overnight a huge star thanks to 'Titanic', he was never convincing here and I always had the feeling that I was watching a young American pretending to be a very mean king. Anyway, in spite of its flaws, it is watchable and I guess it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

I already saw this movie but since it was a while back and since I had it on DVD, I was quite eager to check it out again. I have noticed that, even though there are countless movies about cops, there are somehow not so many movies about firefighters and this movie must be by far the most famous one about this subject. It is easy to understand why as the firefighting scenes were just so damned impressive, even more than 20 years later. Indeed, you really get the feeling that you are out there with those guys and they managed to give the fire some kind of mesmerising quality. Unfortunately, to be honest, pretty much everything else wasn't really good, I'm afraid. I mean, they had a really solid cast and they did what they could but instead of focusing only on the MacCaffrey brothers which seemed to be like a no-brainer to me, they kept adding layers upon layers of boring sub-plots. Indeed, you had some romantic angles for the two brothers, some investigation, even some interrogation scene with some kind Hannibal Lecter figure,.... And Brian managed to join the firefighters not once but twice during the whole thing. Basically, it felt as if they didn't really trust this material, that they felt that it wasn't dramatic enough somehow which was too bad. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I have to admit that it was still a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

When I first heard about this movie, I had actually some high hopes. Indeed, for the first time around in almost 20 years, Clint Eastwood was finally playing the lead for another director than himself so I thought that if he would make such a come-back, it would be only for something really interesting. Eventually, this movie didn’t make much waves when it was released but I still wanted to check it out anyway. Well, to be honest, the whole thing turned out to be rather disappointing. I mean, sure, Clint Eastwood and Amy Adams delivered some solid performance and it was still a decent watch but, at the end of the day, it was just a rather generic and predictable drama. Above all, what bothered me the most was how boring their relationship was. Seriously, the old gimmick of the old man who has a difficult relationship with his daughter and goes on a road trip with her and patch things up in the process has been done to death by now. Furthermore, it didn’t make much sense. Indeed, on one hand, it seemed that they had a close relationship but, then, you discover at some point that he gave her away very young and that she spent much of her youth without any contact with her father. On top of that, even though Mickey spent all her youth, her education and her career learning to be a top lawyer, almost managed in becoming a partner in her law firm and, yet, she still came to the conclusion that she didn’t care at all about the law after all. Seriously , it pretty much meant that she had wasted her whole life and this conclusion was just lame. Anyway, eventually, it was still not a bad movie but it’s too bad that, with such fine actors involved, they couldn’t come up with something more interesting.