Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick and I should definitely re-watch it at some point. On paper, this sounded like a project with some great potential. Indeed, it was adapted from one of the better books written by Stephen King (I even read the damned thing later on), it was directed by David Cronenberg and the lead character was played by Christopher Walken. And, yet, even though this movie did have indeed a solid reputation, I actually had a hard time to care about the damned thing. It’s not that it was a bad movie as I always enjoyed Cronenberg’s directing style and he created once again a nice mood here. Furthermore, it was really neat to Christopher Walken playing the lead for once and he delivered as usual a solid performance. I don’t know, somehow, the whole thing felt like another silly supernatural tale coming from King and I guess, at the time, I didn’t care much for this genre. Anyway, to conclude, even though I thought it was slightly disappointing, I have to admit that it was still a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre or if you want to see a decent adaptation from a Stephen King book. 

Since this movie was the last one directed by Luc Besson that I hadn’t watch yet, I was quite eager to check it out. Eventually, I thought it was not bad at all. To be honest, it may have had to do with the fact that I was seriously disappointed by most of his recent directing efforts (especially ‘The Family’ and ‘Les aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec’). Still, I loved the concept of this girl using  all her brain capacity, even if it had been done before in ‘Limitless’ for example, and I liked the fact that Besson tried to pull a  ‘2001’ ending on the viewers. Scarlett Johansson was also pretty good in this and you wonder why, at this point, Marvel is still not planning a standalone ‘Black Widow’ film since it seems to be definitely a no-brainer. Still, even though it was a decent watch, there was enough stuff that did bother me. First of all, I thought it was really short, barely 80 mins, and, as a result, everything felt rushed and they could have easily expanded the whole thing to 2 hours to develop this interesting concept. The cryptic introduction which was interesting at first was eventually rather really silly after all. Indeed, why spend so much time with this suitcase if you have such a short running time? Eventually, everything happening in this sequence barely made sense after all. I wish also that they gave us a more charismatic French actor to play the cop going along with Lucy, it could have much more fun. Still, in spite of its flaws, I thought it was fairly entertaining and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Luc Besson’s work. 

When I saw this movie, I was pretty young and back then, I thought it was really neat to see to such big stars like Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt in the same movie and, only therefore, I probably gave the whole thing a few extra points more than it actually deserved. I wasn’t aware that the production on this movie was in fact a huge mess and, as a result, it was rather poorly received when it was released. Indeed, apparently, they couldn’t agree on the script which was changed constantly and, at some point, Brad Pitt even wanted to drop the whole thing but he was contractually obliged to remain on board. Still, in spite of it flaws, the whole thing was still fairly entertaining, above all thanks to the charisma of the 2 big stars involved, even if Brad Pitt was not always really convincing as an Irishman. The saddest thing is that, a year later, Alan J. Pakula would die in a car accident meaning that he would end up a rather solid career with such a hot mess.  Anyway, to conclude, even though I might have been generous with my rating here, I thought it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look. 

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick and maybe I should check it again at some point. Still, I remember it pretty well.  Indeed, I was very young, maybe 14 years old and one of my sister’s best friends brought this movie saying that we should definitely check it out. Well, I had no idea what the damned thing was and I think I wasn’t really mentally prepared for something like this. Indeed, it was probably the weirdest thing I had ever seen at the time and even though I wasn't really shocked, I still had a hard time to get a grip on the whole thing though. The funny thing is that, at the time, I really recognized only Richard Bohringer who was (and still is) a famous French actor but there were in fact plenty of other interesting actors also involved (Michael Gambon, Helen Mirren, Tim Roth, Ciarán Hinds). Anyway, after all these years, I still can't make up my mind if this movie was really bold and artistic or something  just rather preposterous and pretentious. Eventually, a couple of years later, I saw ‘The Draughtsman's Contract’ and really loved it so I think it would be interesting to revisit this movie since I’m more aware of Peter Greenaway’s work now. To conclude, even though this movie didn’t really work for me, I still think it is really worth a look, especially if you are interested in experimental movies. 

I’m pretty sure I already saw this movie but it was at least 20 years ago so I was really eager to check it out again. Even though it had a rather lame reputation, I always thought  it was actually a decent pirate movie, at least, as far as I could remember but after re-watching the damned thing, I have to agree, it wasn’t really good after all. I mean, it was visually pretty neat with some nice costumes and some great sets (especially the Neptune looked pretty awesome. It was a full scale ship that did cost almost $10 million). Walter Matthau was also a great choice to play the lead part, even if his English accent was not convincing and even rather cringe-inducing. So, it seems that Polanski had already the most important ingredients at his disposal but he apparently forgot to bring also a decent story. Indeed, even though the introduction was promising, it took the characters just way too long to take over this ship. Indeed, after 1 hour, they finally got this ship but they lost it again and this back-and-forth was just really tedious. They also tried to add a really bombastic soundtrack to make us believe that it was all really exciting but it was anything but subtle and it was also rather annoying. Eventually, this movie would be the only attempt from Polanski to direct a blockbuster so far and the end-result was certainly quite underwhelming. To conclude, even though it was a big pet project for this director (he worked on it for maybe 16 years), it turned out to be his weakest movie but even a weak movie from the Polish master is still work a look in my book. 

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick. Still, I remember it very well, I had no idea what to expect from the damned thing and I wanted to watch it just mostly because Dustin Hoffman was involved. Basically, it is a rather typical feature dealing with a con and I always had a weak spot for the genre. Of course, the story was really far-fetched but, in this case, it didn’t bother too much since there was a nice néo-noir mood and a fine cast involved (Edward Burns, Rachel Weisz, Dustin Hoffman, Andy Garcia, Paul Giamatti) and I thought it was usually quite entertaining. Concerning Edward Burns, I always thought he was an interesting actor but, unfortunately, it would be one of the last watchable movies he would make and, since then, he has been involved in some really weak productions, apparently, above all to be able to finance his own (really obscure) directing efforts.  In fact, I could say the same thing about Rachel Weisz. I mean, seriously, when was the last time she made something really amazing? Anyway, to conclude, even though it was nothing really great, I thought it was a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

I just saw a couple of days ‘Les aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec’ and I was amazed about how underwhelming the whole thing was. Well, this other directing effort from Luc Besson was maybe slightly better but only slightly. The saddest thing about this flick is that if Luc Besson would have made a movie starring such legends like Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer 20 years ago, it would have been a huge event but, nowadays, both actors and even the French director don’t really try anymore and it is not really surprising that they delivered such a weak effort. At least, it was Besson’s very first comedy so that was neat to see him trying something new but the whole thing was barely entertaining. The main issue is that the premise was actually rather weak and, to make things worse, it was so poorly developed. I mean, as a French man, it was obvious that Besson should have been bale to handle better such a American family stranded in a small French village in the middle of nowhere but his approach didn’t really impress me. For example, why all the French people did speak English in this village? I wouldn’t expect so many French people to speak English in a big city but certainly not in a small village like this one. It’s like the Manzoni family, they have been in France for a while by now so they should speak more/better French, especially the kids who went to some French schools. At least, De Niro and Pfeiffer were not bad and they had some fun with the material but their children were both poorly written. At least, Diana Agron did look lovely but her character and her brother were usually rather boring and unconvincing. To conclude, it was another really weak effort from Besson and I don’t think it is really worth a look. 

When I was a kid, I was a huge fan of Jean-Claude Van Damme and I saw all the movies he made at the beginning of his career. Eventually, at around 14 years old, I started to get interested in other kind of movies and I discovered that his movies were not so great after all. Anyway, from all these movies, back then, I was mostly fascinated by this movie, at least, until I saw the damned thing. Indeed, to have a cool martial-artists like Van Damme playing in some post-apocalyptic world seemed pretty neat for 12 year old boy like me. Of course, I didn’t know that this movie was made following the cancellations of 2 projects, a sequel to ‘Masters of the Universe’ and a ‘Spider-Man’ film, as the studio already spent 2 millions on this project, they came up with this project to ‘recycle’ their costumes and sets and to compensate their losses. Of course, in such circumstances, there was no way that the whole thing could have really worked but, since I have just a kid, I thought it was almost entertaining. Anyway, to conclude, I think I’m being really generous with my rating here, the whole thing was pretty lame and I don’t think it is worth a look. 

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this movie  and maybe I should give it another shot at some point, or maybe not. Basically, back in 2000, they released 2 movies dealing with Mars, this movie and ‘Red Planet’ and even though you might have expected one of them to succeed, both of them were poorly received and failed at the box-office. Well, with this in mind, I didn’t expect much from this flick but, to be honest, I thought it was not so bad after all. I mean, it wasn’t ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, that’s for sure, butI thought it was visually decent and the story was fairly entertaining. The fact that I always had a weak spot for such adventures in space probably made me give this movie a few extra points. Furthermore, any movie starring Tim Robbins and Don Cheaddle, even when they are poorly used like here, can’t be completely worthless. Basically, the only real issue with this movie is that, even though there were a few interesting ideas, they never knew if it should be something smart or some brainless entertainment so they awkwardly landed in the middle with some rather mixed end-result. To conclude, even though it has a rather lame reputation, I thought it was a decent watch but you shouldn’t expect much before watching the damned thing.