Reviews by johanlefourbe

Since I kept hearing some pretty good things about this movie, I was quite eager to check it out.  On top of that, my wife has always been a fan of this franchise so we watched it together which was pretty neat. Eventually, to be honest, I actually ended up with some mixed feelings about the damned thing.  I mean, sure, it was a decent Rocky installment, absolutely, but that’s exactly what it was, a decent movie and not much more than that, I’m afraid. Seriously, while watching this flick, I was really not able to see what was supposedly so deep about the damned thing and, in my opinion, it pretty much followed the very same formula already provided almost 40 years ago by the very first installment without adding anything really new.  Still, I have to admit it, I had a good time watching this flick. Indeed, even though it was nothing really groundbreaking, it was still quite entertaining, thanks to some pretty good performances by Sylvester Stallone and Michael B. Jordan and some solid directing by Ryan Coogler. Anyway, to conclude, even though I thought it was slightly disappointing, it was still a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

For some reasons, even though I have been following Woody Allen’s work for several decades now, I have never been a huge fan of this movie. I mean, the first time I saw it, I was much younger and maybe I wasn’t able to really appreciate it but, eventually, after all these years, I have to admit that there is no doubt that it was actually better than anything Allen has done during the last 20 years. Anyway, when it was released, it was definitely a big success and, with a box office gross of over $40 million, it was Woody Allen's most financially successful film until ‘Match Point’ was released almost 20 years later. I don’t know, in my case, even though there was a stellar cast involved (Mia Farrow, Barbara Hershey, Carrie Fisher, Michael Caine, Dianne Wiest, Max von Sydow, Woody Allen) and the story itself was fairly entertaining, it never really reached the level of such Allen’s classics like ‘Manhattan’ or ‘Annie Hall’. To conclude, even though I wasn’t completely blown away by the whole thing, it is still a really solid drama and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Woody Allen’s work. 

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick and I should definitely rewatch it at some point. Anyway, when it was released in France, it was actually poorly  received by the critics but, eventually, it turned out to be a massive box-office success and it is now considered a French classic. Well, personally, I have actually always had some mixed feelings about the damned thing. I mean, like all the movies directed by Luc Besson, it was quite ambitious, visually really impressive and the soundtrack provided by Eric Serra was quite mesmerizing as well. And yet, it did kind of rub me in the wrong way. Indeed, like most of the work coming from this director, the whole thing felt rather pretentious to me. I mean, after all these years, I still don’t know what to think of the freediving sport. On one hand, it seems like one of the dullest sports ever conceived but, on the other hand, I have to admit that Besson still managed to deliver something sometimes quite mesmerizing. To conclude, even though I’m not a huge fan, it is still a really interesting movie and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in French movies. 

This is another movie I was eager to watch for ages. Seriously, I think it took me about 20 years to finally watch the damned thing. I have to admit that, even though I really wanted to see it after all this time, it was still worried about watching a 4 hour Shakespeare adaptation. Indeed, I managed to watch the huge director’s cut, also shot in 65mm (unfortunately, not on wide theater screen but on my own TV) , it was quite a marathon and, at the end, I have to admit that I was rather exhausted.  Still, we should praise Kenneth Branagh for providing the ultimate adaptation of one of the most famous plays written by William Shakespeare. Yes, it was the very first time that someone tried to adapt all the text and all the dialogues and even though the idea of getting 4 hours of non-stop Shakespearean dialogues might sound pretty scary, it actually worked very well. Indeed, the whole thing was quite fascinating. On top of that Branagh always had a passion for the genre, he managed to have a top cast here and they all delivered some really strong performances. To conclude, I believe that this movie is mostly for the huge fans of Shakespeare’s work but, if even you are not,  I still think it is definitely worth a look. 

Even though it might be surprising, from the 3 classic Disney fairy tales ('Snow White', 'Cinderella' and this feature), this movie is actually easily my favorite one. Indeed, the animation is just gorgeous, even after all these years, it has one of the best soundtracks ever delivered by Disney and even the songs worked for me. Obviously, Maleficent was such a great villain, one of their very best, that they would even focus their recent live-action version on her instead of Aurora. Concerning Aurora, she was just quite stunning to look at, easily one of their most beautiful princesses. Eventually, the only thing preventing this movie to become truly amazing was the fact that they didn't take any risks at all. Indeed, they just followed their traditional fairy tale formula and, as a result, all the characters were terribly one-dimensional. Basically, the whole tale is really sweet but it also feels rather childish and, eventually, you never feel that anything is really at stake so it is rather difficult to really care about what's going on. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it is still a timeless and charming animated fairy tale and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.