Reviews by johanlefourbe

Ever since I have seen 'Dead Man' when it was released, I have always been a fan of Jim Jarmusch. To be honest, I didn't care much about his latest work but I still try to catch his movies when I get the chance. Anyway, it took me many years to finally see his directing debut but I'm glad I managed to see it. He made it back in 1980 when he was still a student at a film school with a 12.000 dollar shoestring budget from a misused scholarship. Basically, it is a typical Jarmusch effort, with very little action, very little character development but some quite mesmerizing directing. It wasn't very well received by the critics and it wasn't even released theatrically but, right from the start, it established many of his trademarks that we will see in his following features. To be honest, the acting was not really impressive and the pacing was kind of sluggish but I really enjoy his directing in general. While watching this, I was thinking that if the guys from the Beat generation like Jack Kerouac for example made movies instead of books, it would have probably looked like this. To conclude, even if it was far from being really amazing, even though it is really an acquired taste, I actually liked the damned thing 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, I was quite eager to check it out again. Back in those days, Guy Ritchie was hailed as the next best thing but, unfortunately, I'm afraid he never really fulfilled my expectations even if he always had a steady career. Anyway, this movie was his directing debut but even though I thoroughly enjoyed it, I tend to think it is actually rather overrated. The point is that it is so similar in tone and style to 'Snatch', Ritchie's only true masterpiece, that I tend to be rather dismissive towards his first directing effort. Basically, in my opinion, 'Lock, Stock...' was merely a warm-up, a nice one definitely, but still just a warm-up and not much more than that. Still, it is a fun movie though, no doubt about it. Back then, Jason Statham was not yet one of the biggest action stars in the world and, instead, he played a street-wise smart ass but it was much more interesting than the usual tough guys he plays nowadays. Concerning the plot, it was not bad and entertaining enough but the main assets in this movie were all these colorful characters and the actually sophisticated dialogues full of British street slang. The funny thing with this movie when you watch it after all these years is that it actually does look pretty cheap with its ugly yellow filter which they apparently they never managed to remove, especially if you would compare this movie to Ritchie's more recent work. Anyway, to conclude, even though I still don't think it deserves its spot on the IMDb top 250, I have to admit it is still a fun and entertaining crime comedy and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Basically, it is once again one of those really obscure French movies which almost no one has seen here on Listal. It was directed by Olivier Dahan, an interesting French director who gained some major acclaim with 'La môme' which also launched Marion Cotillard's international career. Right now, Dahan is working on another even bigger high profile biopic called 'Grace of Monaco' starring Nicole Kidman. We'll see if he then becomes a major player in the US (I don't think so but who knows). Anyway, way before all this, he made this obscure flick which was barely noticed, even in France. Basically, it is a rather bleak French drama where nothing much happens actually and where the characters are usually pretty messed up but it is something that I find actually rather appealing. The main character was very well played by Isabelle Huppert, one of my favorite French actress. Basically, Huppert is pretty much the French Meryl Streep (you could argue that Catherine Deneuve should be considered but, even though she is great, I find her too glamorous for this title). Anyway, even though it was nothing really amazing, I thought it was a solid drama and it is definitely worth, especially if you are interested in French movies.

Since I'm a huge fan of Al Pacino, I watch pretty much everything he has done, even his more obscure work. Well, this movie must be one of his most forgotten ones that's for sure but I don't think it was that bad, actually. After starring in 'Scarface', he showed up in this flick but it was such a flop that Pacino didn't make another movie for 4 years. Apparently, this movie flopped so bad that it was almost single-handedly responsible for a decade-long financial crisis in the industry after the massive losses scared off the financing for other British films for many years to come. Now, that's quite something... Basically, it was a huge historical epic taking place during the American revolution and you might indeed wonder if Al Pacino was the best choice to portray a trapper. To round up the cast, there was also Donald Sutherland and Nastassja Kinski, two other actors among my favorites. I don't know, even if the story was indeed not really mind-blowing, I thought it looked really good and the whole thing was rather intriguing to watch. Anyway, to conclude, even though it was at the time a massive failure, I think it is actually worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

When I was a kid, the first Mortal Kombat was huge when I came out in arcade. Like all the over kids, I thought it was awesome and it is rather surprising that it took me almost 20 years to see the movie version. When it was released, the video games adaptations were really new and after the abysmal failures of the Super Marios Bros and Street Fighter movies, some wonder if this genre will even make any money. Eventually, this flick was a box-office hit, pretty much single-handheldly launched the genre and it is pretty much one of the reasons why we get nowadays all those dreadful adaptations. Anyway, how was the damned thing after all? To be fair enough, it was quite faithful to the game which was the huge mistake they made with the Street Fighter adaptation but it was still not really good, I'm afraid. I mean, the whole thing looked terribly cheesy, the acting was laughable (Christopher Lambert was once again pretty embarrassing) and even the fights were not convincing. Eventually, 7 years later, Paul W.S. Anderson would direct another even better video game adaptation called 'Resident Evil' and, to this day, there is still making some sequels more awful than the one that came before. To conclude, even though there were many things to enjoy in this adaptation, it was still pretty weak and I don't think it is really worth a look, even if you like the genre.

Not so long ago, I came across this website who listed which directors should retire now instead of further damaging their career. This list was pretty spot on and I really wonder if Ivan Reitman was on it. Indeed, while his son Jason has become one of the most exciting directors at work nowadays, it has been a while (a few decades?) since Ivan Reitman has done anything really amazing. From his last directing efforts, this flick was the only one which had some potential but even so, it was eventually a flop. Honestly, I don’t think it was that bad at all. Indeed, I thought there was actually a nice tone and it was really nice to see David Duchovny (obviously poking fun at his most famous character, the notorious Fox Mulder) and Julianne Moore in such a comedy instead of their usual work. However, the rest of the cast was not that interesting and, above all, the whole thing never really took off. Still, considering the two movies Reitman has made afterwards (the abysmal ‘My Super Ex-Girlfriend’ and the disappointing ‘No Strings Attached’), it remains a decent SF comedy and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Contrary to most of the viewers, I made sure to watch all the Planet of the Apes movies before watching this new installment. It is something I did last year with the Star Trek franchise as well and I think it ensures a much more rewarding viewing. Anyway, after hearing so many good things about this flick, I was really eager to check it out. And indeed, there were many things I enjoyed in this movie. The first thing that impressed me was the state-of-the-Art CGI displayed in this movie. Indeed, it was pretty mind-blowing and you can imagine that in 10 years from now, you won’t even be able to make the difference between a real monkey and a CGI one. The other thing that I enjoyed was the performance provided by Andy Serkis as Caesar. By now, after portraying such iconic figures such as Gollum and King Kong, Serkis can be considered as the undisputed master of the motion capture performance. This time, he managed to create a fascinating character and that was even more impressive when you take into account that it was almost only based on body language. So, I really loved those elements but, unfortunately, the rest of the movie was not really impressive. Indeed, even though the story was entertaining, it was still pretty generic and predictable. Furthermore, all the human characters were terribly underdeveloped and rather underwhelming. It was above all obvious with Freida Pinto’s character. I mean, in spite of the fact that she looked insanely gorgeous, she didn’t have much to do there except warning the main character that what he was doing was wrong. It was about the same thing for John Lithgow’s character who was there mostly to explain James Franco’s drive to find a cure. Hell, even the main character was rather underwhelming. Still, to conclude, in spite of these flaws, it remains a pretty decent reboot and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this flick, but since I found a cheap DVD, I thought I should give it a try. In France, for many years, the golden couple has always been Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci (Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis were their biggest concurrent but after a 14 year relationship, they eventually broke up). The intriguing thing about them is that they made a whole bunch of movies together starting with ‘L’appartement’ in 1996. Anyway, this is definitely one of the most obscure movies they have made together but I thought it was not bad at all. Basically, it is one of those European spy flicks. In contrary to the American movies in the same genre, the focus is not on the huge action set-pieces but more on the mood and the characters and, sometimes, it works pretty nicely. So, this movie is a rather typical outing in this genre but, I have to admit, it was still missing something to become truly remarkable. Eventually, even though I was entertained throughout the whole thing, it was still nothing mind-blowing though. Still, to conclude, even though it is pretty obscure, I still think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Ok, now, it is official… With Johnny Depp, Edward Norton must be the most overrated actor at work nowadays. I mean, ever since ‘Fight Club’ and ‘American History X’, Norton was hailed as the best actor of his generation and I was one of the many who believed so but everything he has done afterwards was rather disappointing. I mean, all his subsequent work was basically divided in two categories, under-performing blockbusters (‘The Bourne Legacy’, ‘The Incredible Hulk’,…) and underwhelming indie features (‘Death to Smoochy’, ‘Down in the Valley’,…) with the notable exception of ‘25th hour’ which was really good. Actually, none of his movies were really bad but all of them were really forgettable which was rather frustrating especially since I was expecting something amazing each time around. Anyway, this flick definitely belongs to the 2nd category (underwhelming smaller features). Basically, it is a really obscure movie that almost nobody saw when it was released and it wasn’t really good I’m afraid. I was actually really surprised to find out that Roger Ebert actually loved this flick. Well, we don’t have to agree all the time. Basically, it is a really misguided comedy with some rather annoying characters and after 30 minutes, I really started to worry. And then, when the two brothers got together, it really got better but the level of the whole thing kept swinging between quite compelling and really underwhelming. As usual, even if the movie itself was not really good, Edward Norton always delivers a solid performance and it was not different here. Indeed, he managed to create two distinctive individuals and it was pretty impressive. To conclude, I think I’m being really generous with my rating here but, somehow, I still think it is worth a look but, as usual with Norton, don’t expect anything amazing though.

Since I'm a huge fan of Charles Chaplin, of course, I was really eager to check this flick. Even though the whole thing had a pretty bad reputation, I was still looking for to watch it, especially since Marlon Brando was in it. Anyway, according to Quentin Tarantino, most of the great directors have messed up their 3 or 4 last movies and after watching Chaplin's last directing feature, I would tend to agree with this statement. Indeed, after 10 long years, Charles Chaplin finally came up with this new movie which was his first and only movie in color. This time, he was working with Marlon Brando who was one of the greatest actors that ever lived so you could expect something amazing with those two. Unfortunately, they didn't get along and the movie was a critical and financial failure leading Chaplin to a deep depression. Honestly, this movie was really weak. Indeed, it was basically just a really boring romantic comedy, the jokes were not really funny and there was absolutely no chemistry between Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren (who didn't get along either). Eventually, it is a real shame that one of the greatest directors would end such a prestigious career with such a disappointing feature. To conclude, to be honest, I'm not sure it is actually worth a look, even if you are like me a die hard fan of Charles Chaplin's work.