Reviews by johanlefourbe

Since I already saw ‘Unknown’ and ‘Run All Night’, I thought I might as well check this 3^rd movie directed by Jaume Collet-Serra and starring Liam Neeson. Well, even though it was nothing really amazing,  I thought it turned out to be the best of the bunch after all. Indeed, I always had a weak spot for action films taking place only on a plane and, in this very specific genre, this movie was definitely one of the best I have seen. I mean, sure, the plot was rather preposterous but I think it is rather understandable. Indeed, since the location is so limited, they have to come up with something rather far-fetched to keep the action going on for more than 90 minutes. In this case, I thought it was quite entertaining and even if Liam Neeson keeps milking his status as an action star, he was still quite charismatic. The other thing I enjoyed was that the cast was pretty big and quite interesting (Julianne Moore, Scoot McNairy, Michelle Dockery, Nate Parker, Corey Stoll, Lupita Nyong'o) and, as a result, I kept wondering throughout the whole thing who might be actually the hijacker. Still, I thought it was rather disappointing that the lovely and talented Lupita Nyong'o was reduced to such a small part with no impact at all on the story. Eventually, the ending was rather underwhelming but, with such a far-fetched concept, it was not really surprising. To conclude, in spite of its flaws, I thought it was a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this movie but I’m pretty sure I actually saw the damned thing in the movie theater when it was released. Back then, I was a huge fan of Ken Loach who was definitely one of the best directors in the world but I have to admit that it has been a while since he really impressed me. Still, when he made this movie, the guy was really at the top of this game and even though it is not considered as one of his best directing efforts, I think it is actually one of my favorites of his movies. It was in fact the first (and only) movie directed by Ken Loach in the USA and it was right away a home-run. Indeed, I thought it was a such a sharp and realistic social drama and most of it was quite spellbinding to behold. Back in those days, Adrien Brody was also one of the most promising actors at work , just a few years later, he would eventually win a Academy Award for his performance in ‘The Pianist’ and it is a real shame that his recent work has been rather underwhelming. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, I really liked the damned thing and I think it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

Nowadays, we don’t hear much from Tom DiCillo but the guy had a pretty good run in the 90’s. Concerning this movie, after his directing debut ‘Johnny Suede’ was fairly well received (I have still not seen the damned thing by the way), he quickly got the green-light to make this movie which was supposed to be his follow-up but, eventually, he took him 5 long years to finally deliver the damned thing. He got so frustrated that, in the mean time, he wrote and directed another movie called ‘Living in Oblivion’, still by far his best directing effort, about his struggle to deliver this indie feature. It is all very well but what about the movie itself? Was it actually any good? Well, it has a decent reputation and I guess it was indeed pretty good but I have to admit that I’m not a really huge fan of such whimsical indie features.  Still, there was a pretty cool cast involved (John Turturro, Sam Rockwell, Catherine Keener, Dermot Mulroney) and it was above all pretty neat to see Sam Rockwell in one of his typical offbeat performances. To conclude, even though it didn’t completely blow me away, it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

Since I really loved ‘Man on Wire’, of course, I was really eager to check this new dramatic version, even if I had some doubts. Indeed, the first issue with this movie was that ‘Man on Wire’ was such a flawless feature, it was quite an impossible task to provide something even better and even though Robert Zemeckis delivered a decent effort, it never came near the level of this fascinating documentary. They were not helped by the fact they told exactly the same story with some minor details added or modified. The other mistake they made was to hire  Joseph Gordon-Levitt [Link removed - login to see]to play the main character. Sure, Gordon-Levitt is probably one of the most interesting actors of his generation but it is obvious that it would have worked better with a young French actor. As a result, even though Gordon-Levitt gave a decent performance, he keeps switching through the whole thing between a decent but still not completely convincing French and a rather weird English with a fake French accent. It was also rather weird to have all these French characters speaking in English together, supposedly because Petit wanted to practice his English but when you already speak English so well, you don’t really need this kind of practice anymore. Still, it remains a fascinating story, in fact it is one of my all-time favorite stories and, thanks to this movie, you get to spend some extra time with Petit on this wire which was just exhilarating, frightening and so awe-inspiring.  To conclude, even though this movie was completely unnecessary, it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

To be honest, it is a rather obscure movie and it has been ages since I have seen it. In fact, I even saw the damned thing in the movie theater when it was released, probably because the lovely Patricia Arquette was involved. Indeed, just a year before, she gave her breakthrough performance in ‘True Romance’ and she was pretty much on the A list at the time. Eventually, the most interesting thing about this movie is that it was dealing with Myanmar (back then, it was still called Burma), one of the most closed lands in the world, especially back then in 90’s. To be honest, before watching this movie, I had actually no idea what was going on in this country so, only for this, it was already worth watching the damned thing. Unfortunately, they used the old gimmick of having a Western character being the main focus in a foreign country and, as a result, there was barely any attention given to the natives. I mean, I won’t blame Patricia Arquette, she did what she could but I had a hard time to really care about her character when the movie should have been dealing with the people around her. Anyway, to conclude, even though it was rather flawed, it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested by this subject. 

I have always been a huge fan of Michael Moore's work and, if I recall it correctly, I saw this movie some time after I saw ‘Bowling for Columbine’ which is still, by far, his very best movie. Anyway, 8 long years after ‘Roger & Me’, Moore was finally coming up with a new documentary and, even though it might not be his most famous feature, I thought it was still pretty good. Indeed, not only it was quite informative but it was just really fun and entertaining to behold. Eventually, 10 years later, he released ‘Captain Mike Across America’ with a similar concept with Michael Moore involved in a 60-city tour of college campuses and other venues but I was amazed about much it actually didn’t work this time around. Indeed, it was a failure because Moore has actually become a victim of his own success. Basically, each time he gets up on the stage nowadays, you don’t think you are watching a movie-director or a controversial thinker, you get more the feeling that you are watching a mix between a rock-star and a stand-up comedian and that was just plain wrong. I mean, they tried to convince you all along that all these people came for his ideas and they did but they mostly came because, by now, he has become a huge celebrity and that it is rather sad. Eventually, I missed the time when the guy was not so well known and much more interesting to follow like when this movie was released for example. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, even though it might not be Michael Moore’s best movie, I really enjoyed it 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 flick. In fact, back then , the main reason I wanted to watch the damned thing was because Robert De Niro was involved and, at the time, I had no idea that Alfonso Cuaron would turn out to be one of the most interesting directors of his generation. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, I thought it was a decent watch. I have to admit that my positive rating probably had to do with the fact that this movie was the very first contact I had with this tale and, if I read the book or watched a more heralded adaptation before, I might have didn’t like it so much. Still, I really loved the mood created by Cuaron and the beginning of the movie was quite mesmerizing to behold. Unfortunately, they didn’t manage to keep this up and the rest was not bad but it didn’t work so well, I’m afraid. Still, Gwyneth Paltrow was quite gorgeous back in those days, she was a great choice to play Estella and it was easy to believe that Finn would completely fall for her. To conclude, even though my rating might be generous, I thought it was pretty good 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 ago and since it was available on Disney+, I thought I might as well check it out again. Since ‘Alice in Wonderland’ had been a huge hit at the box-office (it was one of the first movies to reach $1 billion worldwide gross), it wasn’t a surprise that they would go for a sequel but nobody was really asking for it, especially 6 long years later. At the time, Johnny Depp and his messy divorce with Amber Heard was blamed for the failure of this sequel at the box-office but I don’t think it was really the issue here. In fact, its predecessor already had a rather lame reputation and this sequel received some even more abysmal reviews. Anyway, even though it turned out to be watchable, it was indeed rather weak though. First of all, it started with a really over-the-top action scene with Alice as a ship captain. I mean, seriously?!? It was just so misguided. Sure, Alice was supposed to be a really special girl but they really pushed her emancipation just way too far. In fact, at that point, she was not a little girl anymore as Mia Wasikowska was around 25 years old. And what about this Chinese outfit? What did it have to do with Wonderland? Then, from this introduction,  they had to get her back to Wonderland somehow so, completely at random, she went there with some mirror and this transition was just seriously awkward. In Wonderland, they decided to get her involved in some kind of 'Back to the Future' tale which was barely entertaining with a lot of bad jokes about time. In fact, when it was all over, you wonder actually why she had to go through time after all. At least, the whole thing looked really good and there was a nice cast involved so I guess it still worth a look but probably only if you really loved the first installment.

To be honest, even though ‘The Hunt for Red October’ is pretty much a classic, I always had some rather mixed feelings about the damned thing. Eventually, for some reasons, Alec Baldwin decided to not come back for this sequel and he was therefore replaced by Harrison Ford. Apparently, the fact that Jack Ryan was really the main character this time around convinced Ford to take over the role which he actually turned down for ‘The Hunt for Red October’. Anyway, sure, the story was still rather far-fetched but the whole thing was really well made. On top of that, Harrison Ford was just so damned charismatic back in those days and you don’t find many actors who can be at the same pretty bad-ass and still quite relatable like him. Recently, they tried to reboot the whole thing with ‘Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit’ with a younger version of Jack Ryan played by Chris Pine but it was a flop and I was amazed myself about how underwhelming the whole thing was. Anyway, coming to back to our main feature, even though it was nothing really groundbreaking, I though it was a solid and entertaining spy feature and I think it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.