Reviews by johanlefourbe

After taking a long break of 8 years as a lead actor, Mel Gibson was finally back in 2010 with 'Edge of Darkness' but since then, he has been struggling to recovery his A list status. Of course, you could argue that the current box-office is ruled by the super-heros, YA book adaptations and the animated features and no movie star can't secure a box-office success on his own but, to be honest, none of his latest projects have been really amazing enough to deserve a better reception and this movie was a perfect example. I mean, it was not bad at all, I really enjoyed how gritty the whole thing was and it is always a pleasure to see Mel Gibson playing such a shaddy figure. So, the tone was pretty dark but, unfortunately, as soon as Gibson got acquainted with the little Mexican fellow, the whole thing pretty much lost its edge. Indeed, the main character was not such a bad guy after all and that was rather disappointing. On top of that, the 3rd act was quite preposterous as well which was too bad. Still, they managed to create a really interesting underworld, Mel Gibson was really entertaining throughout the whole thing so I think it is actually worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

When I was a kid, I used to watch a lot the movies starring Louis de Funès. Indeed, back in the 60’s and 70’s, de Funès was probably the most popular comic actor in France and after his death, he was still massively popular when I was growing up in the 80’s. His movies were very often on French TV, I watched many of them and I thought they were really hilarious. To be honest, not all his movies were so great though and this one which he made towards the end of his career was actually rather lame. I mean, somehow, it still managed to become a cult-classic in France but, at the end of the day, the whole concept was actually rather abysmal. I mean, basically, you have 2 farmers, some cabbage soup, an alien and many, many farting jokes. Sure, when I was a kid, I thought it was rather funny and Louis de Funès was always entertaining but I think the whole thing is nowadays terribly dated. To conclude, in my opinion, it might be the weakest comedy starring de Funès and I don’t think it is really worth a look, expect maybe if you are a huge fan of those old French comedies.

Back in 2010, Joe Carnahan released his version of 'The A-team' and even though it didn’t get much love, I thought it was actually not bad at all. Well, a year later, Carnahan came again with another flick starring again Liam Neeson and if you would have expected another brainless action flick, you couldn't have been more wrong. Indeed, it is a bleak and relentless survival feature and nothing was glamorized whatsoever this time around. Indeed, ever since the surprise success of 'Taken', Liam Neeson has somehow become a new action star and it works mostly because he was, way before this new trend, a very fine actor so if you combine him with such a gripping tale, the result is rather spellbinding to behold. To be honest, I don't think the premise was actually really realistic though. I mean, what are the odds that anyone would survive with such harsh conditions, without any food or weapons, with a pack of wolf chasing them?  On top of that, I think I have seen too many movies dealing about some impossible survival but there is no denying that this one was very well made and I was on the edge of my seat until the very end.

Honestly, I find it rather difficult to judge this movie. I mean, on one hand, half of it is complete garbage and there is no way I actually should say anything positive about the damned thing but, on the other hand, there was in fact a lot of cool stuff going on and I have to admit that the damned thing was actually quite entertaining. Take the introduction for example : it is completely over the top, it doesn’t add anything really substancial to the plot but, damned, it was really amazing to behold and definitely one of the most impressive intro I have ever seen. This scene pretty much sums up the whole thing: it is a rather generic action flick with a rather preposterous plot and, from time to time, you get some really unexpected and even more ridiculous scenes to spice up the whole thing. So, you get this intro, and this notorious scene when Halle Berry shows up her boobs for no reasonable reasons (on the other hand she got 500,000($) good reasons to do it) and this totally gratuitous bit when Hugh Jackman is getting some blowjob while hacking some computer with at least 10 witnesses. It pretty much sums up the level of this demented flick and, to make things better (or worse), you have John Travolta giving in one of his typical over-the-top bad guy performance so event though I think it is worth a look, it is definitely an acquired taste.

Even though it is not really considered as one of the real classics made by Disney, it was still fairly successful and it is actually considered to be the last major box office success of the Disney Renaissance before the studio's decline at the beginning of the 2000’s. Personally, even though I thought it was a decent effort, I still think it was missing something to become really remarkable. The main issue, in my opinion, is that the whole thing was too easy. Indeed, they took one of the oldest stories ever created and they gave one of the most straightforward adaptations you could possibly imagine so the whole thing was rather predictable. On the other hand, it was in fact surprisingly the very first animated adaptation of this tale so maybe they were wise to remain faithful to the material. Still, all in all, I thought that it was an enjoyable movie nonetheless. Indeed, at the time, Disney had really mastered the combination of traditional hand-drawn animation with CGI animation. As a result, you got some really impressive scenes and I especially enjoyed the scene when Tarzan was literally ‘surfing’ in the trees. Anyway, to conclude, even though I don’t think it is really a masterpiece, I still think it is a really solid animated feature and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

To be honest, I really didn’t like the first installment but my youngest daughter really enjoyed it, so I bought this on dvd (thank God, it was pretty cheap) for her as a gift for St Nicolas (some Dutch version of Santa Claus) and I ended up watching it with her. Eventually, it wasn't really worse than the first installment but since it was a sequel, I still gave it a lower rating. The main issue I had with this flick, is that they took the same misguided formula and did exactly the same thing with it with an even more underwhelming result. At least, the first time around, I was quite generous and I gave them some few extra points for at least trying and those little blue guys did look pretty good. But, for this sequel, even the novelty was not there anymore and the whole thing became this giant snooze party and a massive cash-grab for Sony hoping that the parents won't check the other available family features when they go out with their kids. Even though the Smurfs were not my favorite cartoon when I was a kid, there was still something charming about them but it is now long gone with this franchise.

Even though many of my fellow Filmclub members thought it was dark and gloomy, since I was a little bit more familiar with Andrey Zvyagintsev's work, I was expecting something actually even bleaker. I mean, it was still hardly a picnic, you don't really get a positive image of Russia as it seems that all the governmental workers are either incompetent or corrupt and most of the adult population seems to be half of their life completely drunk. Still, it was quite bearable and Zvyagintsev managed again to give some gorgeous shots and I thought that the directing was really solid. The actors did a fine job as well but, in my opinion, the wife's character was too ambiguous and eventually, you never really get the opportunity to understand her motivation behind her actions. I also had a hard time to get what the director was eventually getting at (apparently, it was a modern reworking of the Book of Job but since my knowledge of the bible is rather limited, I kinda missed that). Still, even though I still don't think I'm a huge fan of this director, it was definitely an interesting watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Even though I did like 'Despicable Me', I didn't think it was really amazing but since it was a big success at the box-office, of course, they had to bring a sequel. Eventually, I thought it was a decent follow-up and it was fairly entertaining but I can’t say it was really an improvement on the previous installment. In fact, in my opinion, the story was actually pretty messy. Indeed, why did they hire Gru for this mission? What was his mission in fact? Maybe I didn’t pay enough attention but it was rather murky to me. Even though those movies are massively popular, I think they are mostly aimed at young children who won't mind such a rather weak story but since I don’t belong to the target audience, I didn't really buy it. Still, I have to admit that those Minions were again pretty awesome, Gru was really fun as well and, obviously, they had to add a mum to this family but Lucy was actually a very nice addition and she made me smile a couple of times. To conclude, I still think that this franchise is rather overrated but it remains a decent animated feature and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Unfortunately, it has become a real chore to watch Nicolas Cage's movies and even though I wasn't expecting much from this flick, it was still rather disappointing. The only interesting thing was the working title which was 'The Hungry Rabbit Jumps' and this title made me believed at some point that he could be something more than another average action flick starring Nicolas Cage but they got rid off it for something much more generic so you could be sure that the whole thing had nothing really amazing to offer. Evenually, right from the start, the whole thing felt terribly misguided. I mean, Cage portraying a school teacher who plays chess in his spare time? Definitely not believable. And then some random guy shows up at the hospital and propose to kill his wife molester and he doesn’t guess that the whole thing completely stinks? Again, hardly convincing. At this point, the damage was already done and what you had left was watching Cage running endlessly to save his ass which was as boring as it sounds. To conclude, it could have been worse, I guess, but the whole thing was still a waste of time and I don't think it is worth a look whatsoever.

Nowadays, Marvel is pretty much ruling the box-office, the super-heros have become the new cash-cow and you wonder how long this new trend will last. In fact, almost 40 years ago, they had already released a big blockbuster in this genre (it was in fact the most expensive movie ever made at the time and it remained so for a decade) and it was a huge success at the time. It is rather surprising that even though the Superman franchise was really successful, they didn’t launch some other franchise around some other super-heros. Apparently, they were waiting for the technology to catch up to be able to create something visually acceptable. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, it was definitely groundbreaking and I certainly thought it was pretty cool when I was a kid but, to be honest, the whole thing feels rather dated. I mean, sure, the whole thing still looks decent, especially after all these years, and it was quite entertaining but I never thought it was really amazing though. The issue I always had was actually with Superman is that the guy is pretty much invincible (except for the good old Kryponite so the options are rather limited), rather bland and actually pretty boring, especially compared to the much more interesting Batman with his borderline sociopatic behavior. To conclude, even though I’m not a huge fan of this movie, it is pretty much a classic and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.