Reviews by johanlefourbe

Right now, I’m actually reading ‘Les liaisons dangereuses’ in the original French language, it is a really great book and it reminds me that, maybe, I should give this modern adaptation a 2^nd chance at some to point.  To be honest, I have always been amazed by how high rated the whole thing was and I wasn’t never really impressed by the damned thing. I don’t know, it seems to me that the whole thing was mostly loved by its target audience, the teenagers, who basically never read the book or saw the amazing version directed by Stephen Frears. Basically, it is and remains a fascinating story with some really nicely messed-up characters but, in this case, it is just a rather weak adaptation. I mean, at least, if they have pushed the eroticism as far as possible, then it could have been something slightly more interesting but, instead you get a rather vapid feature made to tease the teenagers but, eventually, it was all rather harmless. It’s like this kiss involving Sarah Michelle Gellar and Selma Blair, it seems that it is what everybody remembers about this movie and while I have to admit it, it was pretty neat, nothing else really steamy happens during the whole thing. At least, there was a pretty cool cast involving a lot of up-and-coming actors (Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Reese Witherspoon, Selma Blair, Joshua Jackson, Tara Reid). Anyway, to conclude, I think the damned thing is seriously overrated and I don’t think it is really worth a look

To be honest, I thought it was rather difficult to judge this movie. Basically, if those guys would have made this movie 20 or 30 years ago, it would have been a huge hit but, now, it seems to be too late and this movie was indeed a box-office flop (at least, in the US, in the rest of the world, it was actually fairly successful). Obviously, they seem a little bit too old to play in such action movies (they are both 70 years old by now) . At least, Stallone was still convincing but I wasn’t so sure about Schwarzenegger. Indeed, Stallone never stopped working while Schwarzenegger took a 7 years break to be Governor of California and it had an impact on him physically. In this movie, he was mostly filmed in close-ups and I wonder if he really did his stunts himself. Anyway, it was still pretty cool to see them together playing some kind of bad-ass duo. Concerning the story itself, half of it was pretty good and half of it was rather lame. For example, the escaping stuff was actually pretty neat, especially the first attempt which felt actually quite realistic. However, the whole conspiracy thing felt rather far-fetched and I think it would have worked better with a normal prison instead of this high-tech stuff which wasn’t really satisfying after all. On a positive note, I thought Jim Caviezel was a pretty cool villain and the guy delivered a solid performance. Anyway, all in all, 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.

Right now, it seems that the Bond franchise is in limbo after 2 massive box-office success and, at this point, it is not really clear if Daniel Craig will come back or be replaced. Eventually, in the future, this period would probably be considered as the Golden Age of this franchise. Unfortunately, as a result, we tend to look down on the installments involving Pierce Brosnan. I mean, sure, Brosnan was maybe not as good as Daniel Craig and Sean Connery but we seem to forget that it is with him that the franchise became healthy again. Of course, it doesn’t help that this 4^th and last installment was actually pretty weak. In fact, like the other installments starring Brosnan, the whole thing was actually quite successful and it was even the highest-grossing James Bond film at the time but, unfortunately, it turned out to be one of the weakest installment in this franchise. I mean, some elements were pretty cool, for example, it starred 2 of the very best Bond-girls with Halle Berry and Rosamund Pike and it seemed to be a great idea to have the bad guy coming from South Korea. Unfortunately, nothing else really worked, I’m afraid. Indeed, the plot was boring and moronic, on top of that, they tried too squeeze way to many winks to the franchise legacy because it was an anniversary installment (indeed,  ‘Dr. No’ was released 40 years before). To conclude, it was a rather lazy and tedious Bond feature and I don’t think it is really worth a look, unless you are a die-hard fan of this franchise.  

What the hell happened to Michael Mann?!? Indeed, during the last 10 years, he has directed only 3 movies, ‘Miami Vice’ which was really disappointing, ‘Public Enemies’ which I have probably seriously overrated and finally ‘Blackhat’, easily one of the worst movies released in 2015. It is really sad because, before that, Mann was probably one of the most exciting directors around. I guess most people would say that ‘Heat’ was and still is his best directing effort but this movie was definitely not far behind. Indeed, it was one hell of a thriller and it was one of the very few examples that, if Tom Cruise goes outside his comfort zone, the guy can be actually pretty terrific. Indeed, his character here was so much more fascinating than his usual boring heroes. Furthermore, the whole thing looked terrific and Mann managed to create here a spellbinding mood. To be honest, I don’t think the story really made sense though. I mean, why would a hit-man spend the whole night with a cab-driver like this? I mean, to use a cab to do a quick job, sure, why not, but to spend a whole night with the very same guy resulted for something quite entertaining but not really realistic. Still, this was a minor issue, it remains probably one of the best thrillers out there and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

Well, this is another really obscure French flick. In fact, if I recall it correctly it, I actually saw the damned thing in the movie theater when it was released. Jamel Debbouze must be completely unknown outside of France (he did play in 2 international productions, ‘She Hate Me’ and ‘360’, but they were both barely seen and rather weak) but, in France, the guy is pretty huge. Back in 98, he got his breakthrough on TV on Canal + and I have to admit that he was often quite hilarious. Eventually, a year later, he would make this movie which would be his first starring role and it was pretty obvious that they tried to take advantage of his new found fame.  Still, even though the whole thing was a rather shameless cash grab, I thought it was still a decent watch though. Sure, the whole thing was nothing really amazing and, without Debbouze’s charisma and humor, it would have been pretty terrible but, all in all, it turned out to be fairly entertaining. Concerning the director Djamel Bensalah, he apparently kept making such comedies focusing on the minorities in France, I haven’t seen any of them but since they were all really poorly received, I don’t think I missed much. Anyway, to conclude, I thought it was not bad and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

Basically, it is one of these really obscure French movies that almost no one has seen on Listal. The interesting thing about this movie is that it was the first time that Guillaume Depardieu,  Gérard Depardieu's son, played the lead and, right away, he became one of the most promising French actors at the time (Unfortunately, his personal life was always rather dramatic so he would never really fulfill these expectations). Concerning the movie itself, it was basically one of these typical quirky comedies but I thought it was quite entertaining.  It is rather sad that both co-stars, Marie Trintignant and Guillaume Depardieu, eventually died fairly young and above all in some really tragic circumstances. Indeed, Trintignant was actually literally beaten to death by her boyfriend, Bertrand Cantat, a famous French singer and Depardieu's death was also quite tragic as well. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, eventually, they would make a remake in England starring Bill Nighy, Martin Freeman and Emily Blunt playing the main characters. I haven’t seen this remake but I might check it out at some point.  To conclude, even though it was nothing really amazing, I thought it was a decent directing debut and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in French movies.