Reviews by johanlefourbe

Apparently, Clint Eastwood has found a new gimmick as this movie was already his  4^th biopic in a row. On top of that, since he had a big box-office success with ‘American Sniper’, he decided to once again tell the story of another American hero. Well, even though ‘American Sniper’ was quite popular, to be honest, I actually didn’t care much for this movie and I thought that this story was actually much more interesting. Still, I didn’t really like the approach they chose to tell this true story. Basically, the tricky thing was that the crash and the rescue altogether didn’t even take an hour so they had to add some stuff to reach a decent running time (eventually, it was still only 96 mins and the shortest film directed by Eastwood). Eventually, they tried to focus on the fact that Sully was, at first, blamed by the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) of reckless flying but, even though it might have been true, it didn’t result in something really interesting. Indeed, what the guy did was just simply amazing, he saved everyone for crying out loud  and it felt like a waste of time to spend so much time on the NTSB arguing otherwise. To conclude, even though it didn’t completely work, I thought it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

I already saw this movie but since it was a while back, I thought I might as well check it out again. Well, to be honest, I have never been a huge fan of this movie. Indeed, I always had a hard time with Disney's animated features starring some talking animals but, at least, I have to admit it, in this genre, it wasn’t really the worse movie they made. Eventually, the biggest issue with this movie is that it came after ‘Lady and The Tramp’ and, in my opinion, the whole thing was pretty much a remake switching the dogs with some cats. As a result, it must be one of Disney’s laziest efforts. And yet, in spite of its flaws, it still think it is a really cute movie. Indeed, the animation was not bad at all and the intro sung by Maurice Chevalier was nice. On top of that, it was pretty neat that the action was taking place in Paris. Furthermore, the various chases involving the butler in some side-car and those 2 dogs were actually pretty awesome and in fact probably those were some of the best action scenes I have ever seen in a Disney animated feature. Eventually, it is actually a decent watch, especially for the very young kids. Anyway, to conclude, even though it is rather minor effort from Disney, I still think it is a classic and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this movie and maybe I should re-watch it at some point. Basically, after going through a rather dark period, Don Bluth finally managed to make a come-back with this movie which would be his last critical and commercial success. Of course, you could argue that Bluth basically copied the standard template used by Disney in many fairy tales but he did it very well and the end-result was really quite entertaining to behold. Indeed, they chose a really strong tale, actually based on some famous historical events, and they gave it a fairy tale interpretation which worked very well. Concerning the characters, they were rather stereotypical but I thought they worked pretty well, even Rasputin was actually pretty cool as the bad guy but his sidekick Bartok was too much over the top for me. Following this success, Don Bluth would release one last directing effort, the even more ambitious ‘Titan A.E.’, but it would be another flop for Bluth and it would pretty much end his directing career which was too bad. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, to conclude, even though it was maybe not a masterpiece, I thought it was still a decent animated feature and I think it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.