Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this movie and I should definitely re-watch it at some point. It is apparently Francis Ford Coppola's personal favorite of his movies. Eventually, the only reason this movie didn’t get the love it deserved was probably the fact that Coppola was really on fire in the 70’s and all his movies turned out to be some huge masterpieces (‘The Godfather’, ‘The Godfather: Part II’, ‘Apocalypse Now’). Anyway, the whole thing was a raw and realistic feature, so much more spellbinding than the modern thrillers that we get nowadays. Indeed, for example, many years later, Tony Scott came up with ‘Enemy of State’ which was also focusing on some conspiracy theory, also starring Gene Hackman in a similar part, but even though it was fairly entertaining, most of it was seriously far-fetched and borderline ridiculous. In this movie, every thing was actually likely to happen (for example, they used in this movie the very same surveillance and wire-tapping equipment that members of the Nixon Administration used to spy on political opponents prior to the Watergate scandal) which made the whole thing much more fascinating to behold. Anyway, to conclude, it is simply one of the best thrillers ever made and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre or if you are interested in Francis Ford Coppola's work.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I saw ‘The Intern’, also starring Robert Ne Niro, also playing a widower, and I was amazed about how underwhelming the whole thing turned out to be. Well, even if this movie with a rather similar character for De Niro was nothing really amazing, at least, it was slightly better than ‘The Intern’. Indeed, there was something quite genuine about this father who was neither a great father or a terrible one and who struggles to connect with his grown-up children. Unfortunately, even though the concept had some potential, I thought it was rather poorly developed. The first thing that bothered me was the fact that, of all the 4 children, none of them had an average job. Indeed, one was a musician, one was a painter, one was a dancer and one run a successful advertisement agency. Furthermore, the whole gimmick of having them talking on the phone about what the father didn’t know didn’t work at all. I mean, it would have been more efficient to discover everything at the same time with this character. Eventually, since there was too much to deal with, they threw in a rather lame dream sequence with all children when they were just kids explaining everything to the viewers. To conclude, in spite of its flaws, I thought it was a decent watch and I think it is worth a look but it was still far from being one of the best movies starring Robert De Niro.

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick and I should definitely re-watch it at some point. In fact, I even saw it the movie theater when it was released. First of all, even though I have seen pretty much all the movies directed by Lars von Trier so far (I‘m only missing the first 2 obscure movies he made at the beginning of his career) and even though I respect what he has done, I always had some mixed feelings about his work. Indeed, I always have a hard time to connect with his movies and this feature was a perfect example. Indeed, pretty much like with ‘Breaking the Waves’, the directing was really good, the acting was fine as well but everything was just relentlessly bleak and I’m not surprised that some people called it the most depressing movie ever made. I mean, I don’t mind if a movie is dark and incredibly sad but, with von Trier, it feels sometimes like a gimmick, pretty much like David Lynch with his mind-f*ck gimmick, and, as a result, after seeing this gimmick again and again, I find it rather difficult to take it really seriously. To conclude, even though I didn’t really connect with this movie, I still think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Bjork or Lars von Trier’s work. 

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick and I should definitely re-watch it at some point. In fact, I even saw it the movie theater when it was released. Well, even though this movie was critically heralded at the time, I have to admit that I actually had some mixed feelings about the damned thing.  I mean, it was a very well made movie, with some really impressive performances by Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon (she even won the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role) and the material was really strong but, somehow, it didn’t completely work for me. Basically, I had a really hard time with the angle they choose to approach this story. Indeed, even though it made sense since Helen Prejean was nun, they had to put some focus on the fact that Poncelet should be able to find redemption through God. Sure, he also admits his crimes and apologized to the victim’s family but there was always this religious aspect coming up throughout the whole thing and, as a  result, the impact of this movie was not as a great as it could have been, at least, as far as I’m concerned. To conclude, even though I didn’t completely connect with this movie, it remains a strong drama and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since I always had a weak spot for Michael Winterbottom’s work, I was quite eager to check it out. It is one of these fake documentaries that Winterbottom has been known for and it was probably the lightest movie he has made so far. Basically, you only get to see Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon driving around the north of England, eating some rather expensive food and having some (not really deep) conversations. I really liked, aside the fact that Coogan and [Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see]were pretty funny, the fact that they actually never really talked about the food. It was also refreshing that those guys were not really arguing all the time but they were not kissing their ass either which was quite refreshing. Still, even though it was a fun watch, I can’t say it was really anything amazing though. To be honest, I’m not really familiar with Rob Brydon but, apparently, the guy is mostly famous for making impressions of other celebrities which was fun but the guy keeps making those impressions constantly throughout the damned thing and it became rather tiresome fairly quickly. Furthermore, they didn’t have any real interesting conversations and I thought that it was really simplistic to show that Brydon was a happy family man whereas Coogan was maybe more famous but also really lonely. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I thought it was a fun little movie and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Michael Winterbottom’s work. 

I already saw this movie but since it was such a long time ago, I was quite eager to check it out again. First of all, after watching all his amazing Wallace & Gromit shorts, it was just really neat that Nick Park was coming up with this first full length feature with the same clay-motion technique. I was also glad that he came up with some new characters so this movie was really promising. Well, to be honest, I actually ended up with some mixed feelings about the damned thing. I mean, the whole thing looked once again quite amazing, absolutely, and it was quite entertaining but I can’t say I was really blown away. In my opinion, the story was decent but not really strong and, above all, all these chicken were not really charismatic, especially if you would compare them to the completely awesome Wallace & Gromit but it was a fun movie nonetheless. Eventually, this movie would be one of the very few attempts so far from Nick Park to do something not involving Wallace & Gromit and it is clear that the guy has been struggling to come up with something else. Anyway, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch and and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

I wasn’t really expecting much from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, eventually, it turned out to so much worse than I expected. Seriously, pretty much nothing worked with this movie. First of all, I want to point out that the body-swap thing is one of the worst gimmicks out there, it almost never works, and this movie must be the worst I have seen in this genre. I mean, in the very first scene, you get to see a CGI baby ass literally shitting in Jason Bateman’s mouth, so, right from the start, the whole thing seemed to be pretty much hopeless and it never got better. Indeed, the concept was just really moronic and never really entertaining. Furthermore, even though Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman are usually pretty funny, in this movie, neither of them was actually entertaining whatsoever.  To make things worse, I don’t think that either of them played both characters really convincingly. Finally, the last drop was the fact you didnt even get to see Leslie Mann and Olivia Wilde in their full glory, instead, you get to see some body-double with some CGI which was rather disappointing. Anyway, to conclude, I was rather amazed about how bad the whole thing was and I don’t think it is worth a look at all. 

I already saw this movie but since it was a while back, I thought I might as well check it out again. If I recall it correctly, I actually saw the damned thing in the movie theater when it was released. Anyway, in my opinion, even though it is nowadays pretty much forgotten, I think it was actually one of the most promising Disney animated features, even if it turned out to terribly frustrating after all. Indeed, the introduction was just amazing, the animation was really impressive and the movie itself was at first quite mesmerizing … until those freaking dinosaurs started to talk. Seriously, it is not very often that I felt so betrayed by a movie. I mean, sure, since it was a Disney feature, I should have expected them to make these characters talk since it is one of their trademarks but it was just so disappointing. Apparently, the whole thing was supposed to be much darker and violent, without any dialogue, which all did sound pretty awesome but, to make it more commercially attractive, they eventually added those dialogues. To make things worse, the whole plot was seriously generic and rather tedious. Basically, it was some kind of mix of ‘Tarzan’ with a more realistic looking version of ‘The Land Before Time’. Eventually, as result, they came up with something visually really impressive but everything else was actually pretty weak, I’m afraid. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I still think it is actually one of the more original features delivered by Disney and I think it is worth a look but there is no doubt that it could have been so much better.

I already saw this movie, I think I even saw it in the movie theater when it was released, but since it was a while back, I thought I might as well check it out again. Well, by now, I must have seen most of the action flicks starring Sylvester Stallone and, to be honest, I think that most of them are pretty weak and boring but I have to admit that there are a few exceptions and this movie is definitely one of them. Indeed, even after all these years, it was still quite enjoyable and I think it will always be one of my guilty pleasures. There is first the fact that I always thought that rock-climbing is quite fascinating (it probably has to do with my fear of heights) and, in my opinion, they delivered a really solid action flick around this sport and it is still one of the most entertaining blockbusters in this genre. Something I didn’t notice when I watched it when I was maybe 13 years old but did this time was the fact that they actually had some solid actors involved. Indeed, it was quite a marvel what John Lithgow and Michael Rooker both managed to do with such preposterous material. It was made even more obvious when it was the turn of the rest of the cast as they were so much less convincing and even sometimes rather borderline pathetic. The worst of the bunch was maybe Janine Turner who was maybe lovely to look at but I’m afraid she didn’t manage to deliver one single line of dialogue properly. At least, she did manage to make Sylvester Stallone sound much better than he actually was. Concerning Renny Harlin, after ‘Die Hard 2’, it was another solid directing effort but it all went down from here for him, I’m afraid. Anyway, to conclude, even though it was definitely not a masterpiece, I really have a weak spot for the damned thing and I think it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

Since I have seen all the movies directed by Tim Burton, of course, I had to see his last directing effort as well but I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Well, to be honest, it wasn’t really good, I’m afraid. I mean, sure, the whole thing looked really nice, as usual with this director, but I really had a hard time to care about this story. Basically, some of it was not bad, there were a couple of ideas that were interesting but most of it was just rather tedious. Apparently, this time, Burton went for a YA novel adaptation which was not really a good idea since the genre has been milked-dry by now. Furthermore, they used the same terrible gimmick they used in so many other YA novels like ‘Harry Potter’, ‘Percy Jackson’ or ‘Narnia’ which is to make the character start in our world and then bring him later on in some fantasy world. Even though it might be fine in a book, it almost never work with a movie because it takes forever for the story to finally get started. In this case, it was pretty terrible. I mean, I think it took the guy about one hour to get to this school/orphanage but, even when he got there, the story still didn’t really take off, I'm afraid. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I have to admit that the whole thing looked pretty neat so I guess it is still worth a look but it was definitely one of the weakest movies delivered by Tim Burton so far.