Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick. In fact, I’m pretty sure I actually saw the damned thing in the movie theater when it was released. Anyway, even though it is a rather obscure feature which is nowadays pretty much forgotten, I thought it was actually a pretty decent black comedy. Ok, I’ll give you that, it never becomes really hilarious and it is probably not as smart as it would like you to believe but I still think it was a fairly original dark comedy and the general concept was actually quite intriguing. It did help that I shared the ideas developed by the characters. Not that I believe that those despicable people should be killed  or that anyone should be killed for that matter but I can’t deny the fact that there was something rather seducing about getting rid off of  the scum of the earth like this. Another interesting thing about this flick was to see a very young Cameron Diaz in her 2^nd movie. Indeed, even though she is sometimes considered as a rather vapid actress, I think she always had a fairly interesting track-record, mixing the usual blockbusters with some indie features like this one. Anyway, to conclude, even though it wasn’t really a masterpiece, I think it was a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look. 

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this flick but since it was starring Robert Redford and Debra Winger, I thought it should be worth a look. Eventually, I was really amazed about how underwhelming the whole thing was. I mean, sure, it wasn’t the worst comedy I have ever seen but it was certainly really half-baked. Basically, it was an unfunny comedy with a convoluted story and the only selling point was to have such charismatic stars involved like Robert Redford, Debra Winger and Daryl Hannah. For some reasons beyond me, the budget reached somehow a staggering $40 million and, as a result, this film was one of the most expensive ever released up to that point. Apparently, Ivan Reitman, following his success with ‘Ghost Busters’, got a little bit carried away on this movie and added some really unnecessary set-pieces including fires, explosions, chase scenes and shootouts. In fact, it could have worked, with Redford and Winger’s natural charisma,  if they had made something slightly more straightforward. Eventually, this movie would the last one Robert Redford would make in the 80’s and he would come back only 4 years later with ‘Havana’. Anyway, to conclude, I thought it was really weak and I don’t think it is really worth a look. 

I already saw this movie but since it was a while back and since it was available on Disney+, I was quite eager to check it out again. In fact, I remember very well when they released the trailers for this movie. Back then, I thought that they were just really awesome and this flick seemed to be the most original thing that Disney made for many years. So, I had some great expectations about this flick. Indeed, even though I always had a lot of respect for their work, most of their animated features basically always follow the same formula but, back then, they were finally willing to take slightly some more risks which was much appreciated. Well, 20 years later, it remains one of their most fun flicks and I especially enjoyed the tone which was pretty much pitch-perfect (for example, they even brought Marsellus Wallace to play a social worker which was pretty awesome). Of course, Stitch is still one of their best characters, so entertaining, and, for once, with a slightly darker edge. With this rewatch, I was also positively surprised by Lilo. Indeed, I always thought she was another boring cute Disney girl but she turned out to be much more complex than that, explaining why she would eventually feel a connection with Stitch. Her relationship with her sister Nani was also very well defined, something you would expect more from Pixar than from a Disney production like this one. Unfortunately, even though the tone was great, even though the characters were really neat and it was nice to have the action taking place in Hawaii, they didn’t manage to come up with a great story though. Indeed, it was really generic with some random stuff like Stitch imitating Elvis which wasn’t as entertaining as it might sound. Unsurprisingly, the ending was also rushed and rather half-baked. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I still think it is one of the most original Disney animated features and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

I already saw this movie but since it was a while back and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out again. In fact, when was the last time that Jim Carrey made a comedy which was actually a box-office success? Anyway, I remember it quite well when Carrey had his breakthrough, it was more than 25 years ago, in 1994, and he had 3 huge hits during one single year (‘Ace Ventura: Pet Detective’, ‘The Mask’, ‘Dumb & Dumber’).  A few years later, he would come back with this comedy which was also a hit. To be honest, I wasn’t really a huge fan of the whole concept though. Indeed, the story was rather generic and highly predictable but I have to admit that Jim Carrey was basically on fire back in those days. Seriously, while I was rewatching the damned thing, I was actually surprised by how hilarious he was in this flick. Indeed, with any other actor, the whole thing would have been probably so lame but he managed to make the whole thing so entertaining to behold. It would be really neat if Jim Carrey would come up with something like this nowadays (he actually did it with ‘Yes Man’ which was just too similar for this movie) but he doesn’t seem to be interested in such hysterical shenanigans anymore, in fact, we don’t seem him too much nowadays which is too bad. Anyway, to conclude, even though it was nothing really amazing, in fact, the concept was actually rather lame but it was still a really fun comedy and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Jim Carrey’s work.

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick so maybe I should give it a second chance. Basically, the point is that, even though this movie has become pretty much a cult-classic, I seriously didn’t see what was so great about it. If I remember it correctly, back then, I was living in England and my Spanish roommate came up with this movie. Apparently, he was one of those fans and wanted to share its ‘greatness’ with us. Eventually, it turned out to be one of the most generic vampire flicks I have ever seen. Seriously, I would be actually quite interesting to hear a real fan trying to argue how this movie is actually much better than ‘Twilight’ because I simply just don’t see it. I don’t know, maybe it was incredibly cool and bad-ass when it was released but, almost 30 years later, it all looks terribly cheesy and barely entertaining to me.  In fact, back then, even Roger Ebert wasn’t exactly blown away by the whole thing. To conclude, even though it was nothing really awful, I really didn’t like it much and I don’t think it is really worth a look. 

I have recently re-watched ‘Before Sunrise’ and ‘Before Sunset’ so, obviously, I was really eager to check out this last installment. On top of that, I kept hearing some great things about this flick so I had some rather high expectations. First of all, I know it might sound silly, but I was actually a little bit confused by the location. Indeed, it was only during the last 30 minutes that I understood that they were not actually living in Greece but that they were there only on vacation. Anyway, that was certainly not a deal breaker. Basically, at last, Jesse and Céline were finally together and, in fact, when the film starts, they have actually been together for almost a decade and they even have 2 cute twin girls. So, you could think that all is well but, eventually, most of the romance is now gone and they spend maybe half of the movie arguing about various subjects. I know, it might sound disappointing for everyone who just wanted to see some spotless eternal love in their movies but, if you, like me, are craving for something more down-to-earth and realistic, then you will definitely love this flick. Indeed, by now, those characters have been so well developed (after all, we have spent 2 decades following their evolution as individuals and as a couple) and they are still fascinating to behold. On top of that, most of their thoughts and feelings are so relatable, especially if you are yourself in a long-term relationship with kids, and it made the whole thing even more meaningful to me. To conclude, it was definitely a great flick, one of the best romantic features I have seen and this trilogy is just downright amazing. 

In 2015, they finally released a new sequel for this franchise but, to be honest, I never expected it to become so huge. Indeed, even though a new Star Wars installment is coming up in the next months, there is a good chance that this sequel will turn out to be the highest grossing movie released for that year. Anyway, almost 20 years ago, after the smashing success of the first installment, it wasn’t really surprising that they would come up with a new sequel and since Steven Spielberg was back in the directing chair, there was some hope that it would be a pretty good blockbuster. Well, eventually, I really didn't like this flick and I really had a hard time to care about the damned thing. I mean, of course, there were some impressive action scenes but, in my opinion, it was such an idiotic story. To be honest, I don’t think that the plot was already  the strongest aspect of the first installment but there were many elements which compensated this resulting in something really entertaining. It  wasn’t the case here and I thought that the whole thing was big, loud, kind of stupid and most of the time rather tedious to watch. To conclude, even though it might sound surprising, I actually prefer the 3^rd installment and I don’t think this first sequel was any good but you might end up enjoying it more than I did.