Reviews by johanlefourbe

I didn’t expect much from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Sandra Bullock, I thought I should give it a try. Back then, Bullock just had her breakthrough with ‘Demolition Man’ and ‘Speed’ and it was the first time she got the lead. Another interesting aspect about this movie is that it was the first movie they made with the internet as main topic. As usual, Hollywood is always keen on surfing on the last new hype to make a few bucks and, back then, the internet was really booming (it is difficult to imagine that 20 years ago we were living without this tool which seems to be nowadays really essential). I think it was actually a pretty neat idea to make a movie about this subject, it is just too bad the end-result was really disappointing. Indeed, I really wonder if casual internet and computer users found the whole thing believable but, myself, I have been in the IT for almost a decade and I thought the whole thing was pretty laughable. It is like Sandra Bullock. I mean, she was and still is really charming but, come on, I didn’t believe one second that she was some kind of nerd. Maybe it gave some wet dreams to many gigs but I thought she was a rather poor casting choice. Finally, the plot was really preposterous, you know, the typical Hollywood thriller with some inane twists. To conclude, even though it wasn’t really awful, I didn’t like it much and I don’t think it is really worth a look.

Since I have a weak spot for Sean Connery, Meg Ryan and Peter Hyams' work, I thought I should check this one out. To be honest, Peter Hyams is far from being a great director. I mean, I have seen a whole bunch of his movies and none of them was really that amazing. On the other hand, they were usually pretty fun to watch and his movies are definitely among my guilty pleasures. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, it was basically a typical Hyams effort. Indeed, the script was pretty weak and pedestrian (especially everything involving Meg Ryan, her relationship with Harmon, with Connery was just pretty lame). It is like the chase at the beginning of the movie : on one hand, it was pretty badass and entertaining but, on the other hand, it was also honestly cheesy and unconvincing. Still, I liked the mood created, Mark Harmon and Sean Connery had a decent chemistry and I was fairly entertained throughout the whole thing. Anyway, to conclude, spite of its flaws, I think it must be one of the better movies directed by Peter Hyams and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

To be honest, I wasn't expecting much but since I'm a huge fan of Michael Caine, I thought I might as well give it a try. Pretty much like I expected, it was indeed pretty bad. To start with, I haven't seen many movies with Steven Seagal but I disliked all of them, even his so-called classic 'Under Siege'. Well, from all the garbage he has made and I have seen so far, this flick was the worse one. Indeed, it was basically a vanity project for Seagal who, at the height of his popularity demanded to direct this flick. Basically, it is some kind of environmental action flick during which, at the end, they blow up an oil raffinery because, obviously, it is the best way to preserve the environment. After that, you have a ridiculous preachy speech by Steven Seagal himself which goes on and on during which he explains that the big corporations are basically f*cking with us and our planet (originally, this speech was supposed to last more than 10 minutes but, fortunately, they cut the damned thing). So, it was a boring and completely misguided flick and I gave it a few extra points only for Michael Caine who was there obviously only for the paycheck. To conclude, it was pretty bad and I don't think it is really worth a look whatsoever.

When I first heard about this movie, I got pretty excited. At last, we had a blockbuster starring Brad Pitt, one of the most reliable actors at work nowadays, with Marc Forster, a really exciting director, and it was an adaptation of a best-seller dealing with zombies. Basically, it sounded really awesome. Then, like everyone else, I heard that the production was far from being peachy, they re-shot a whole third and the release date was pushed by a full year. It didn't really sound promising anymore but guess what? I still enjoyed the damned thing. Of course, it was nothing great like I was hoping for but, for a blockbuster, it was still pretty entertaining. Basically, Brad Pitt carries the whole thing on his shoulders (there were maybe 3 actors I recognized and one of them, Matthew Fox was basically an extra, rather surprising for a production of this size) but he did a pretty good job. Furthermore, there were a couple of a really impressive scenes (the fall out of Israel and the plane crash). Still, the story didn't work very well. Honestly, I hope the book is better, otherwise they pretty messed up the script. I mean, I liked the background they created for the main character but, a part from that, there were so many awkward moments. Let's take the beginning for example. Indeed, Pitt's family is enjoying their breakfast, they go on their daily routine and, suddenly, out of f*cking nowhere, there is a zombie outbreak. How come they didn't hear about it before? It should take at least a couple of days for such an outbreak so they should be aware about what's going on. Also, when he goes to Israel, there is this Mossad guy explaining how they ended up protecting themselves. Seriously, what he said, did it make any sense to you? Basically, our main character got there just to make sure we could see this awesome action sequence, that's it. Finally, the way he picks up completely at random a deathly virus and by miracle the trick works was also rather unbelievable. I also wonder how this camouflage-virus does work. So, there were many things in the story that barely worked (not mentioning how often the whole theater was laughing at the behavior of the zombies) but, still, I had a good time. Nick, my step-son, is a huge fan of zombie flicks and had a blast watching this and I shared his enthusiasm. So, from a really ambitious project, it turned out to be a rather half-baked but still entertaining blockbuster and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Since I have a weak spot for Denzel Washington and since there was a pretty good buzz around this flick, I thought I should check it out. It was also one of the last movies directed by Norman Jewison (who seems to be retired nowadays) and probably one of his very best. To be honest, I don’t think it is really a great movie but it is sure a good one. First of all, Denzel Washington was pretty good and really convincing in this (he even won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film festival for his performance). You could argue that, as usual, Washington keeps playing ‘the righteous man’ and therefore remains in his comfort zone but, once again, he does it so well, he is so charismatic, he is basically one of the very few actors for whom I never get tired of, even though they keep playing basically the same character over and over again. Considering the story, they kind of romanticized the whole thing a little bit (Carter is a little bit too perfect to be true) and the whole thing remains a little too stereotypical for my taste. Still, it remains a very solid and interesting court-drama and I was entertained from the beginning until the end. To conclude, even though it is not really mind-blowing, I still liked this flick 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 have a weak spot for Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen, I thought I should give it a try. Apparently, it was a financial and critical failure when it was released. Honestly, even though the whole thing was indeed rather misguided, I still don’t think it was that bad at all. Indeed, you can say whatever you want about Angelina Jolie, at least, she tried to make the mainstream audience a little bit more aware about some terrible things that happens in the third world. And indeed, it was really intriguing to see those humanitarian aid workers doing their job but, unfortunately, they had to wrap up a very conventional and unwelcome romantic plot to the whole thing. It is as if they didn’t trust that their main subject was interesting enough so they added some very underwhelming elements that you get from your typical Hollywood productions. Also, there was the all issue of the CGI dying baby. Indeed, there is a point in the movie, when they show a baby dying of hunger and since they obviously couldn’t show a real baby dying, they made a CGI one. It was a really unsettling sight and you really wonder if it was a good idea. It looks really fake so it feels a little bit weird but if it would have looked more realistic, it would have been probably even more creepy. Still, on the other hand, if you are dealing with this subject, should you leave out this aspect or confront the audience? To conclude, even though the whole thing was really flawed, it still provides enough food for thought and I think it is worth a look.

Since I'm a huge fan of Michael Caine, I was really eager to check this flick. Eventually, I have even seen it a couple of times. Basically, it is a pretty solid spy feature with, as usual, a terrific performance by Caine who was even nominated at the Academy awards. Basically, it is a rather sober and realistic spy feature, especially if you compare it to all the non-sense displayed in the James Bond franchise. So, here, you don't have some huge action pieces but some pretty interesting characters instead. I think Philip Noyce should be credited as well as he managed to create a really nice mood and there was definitely something fascinating about Saigon in the 50's. Still, even though I enjoyed this flick, I wasn't completely blown away though. First of all, I always have a hard time to take Brendan Fraser seriously as a dramatic actor, or as an actor altogether, but I have to admit, he gave one of his better performances here. Furthermore, even though the plot was entertaining enough, it was not really fascinating in my opinion. Still, it remains a pretty good flick and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Even though this flick had a pretty bad reputation, I was still eager to check it out. I mean, before it was released, there was pretty good buzz about it. Indeed, after 5 longs years, Richard Kelly was finally coming up with a new directing effort after the acclaimed 'Donnie Darko'. Eventually, his sophomore outing was a huge flop, critically and financially, and his career has never really recovered from the blow. So, how was the damned thing? Well, it was indeed a huge mess... I mean, I think I liked the 5 first minutes. Basically,  it was some kind of home video of a birthday, and at some point, there was some nuke exploding starting WWIII. It was a promising beginning but, unfortunately, all the rest was just a disjointed and tedious mess. At some point, I got so bored and started to count all the actors involved who obviously thought this movie could shake their image and boost their career (Sarah Michelle Gellar, Dwayne Johnson, Mandy Moore, Seann William Scott, Justin Timberlake,...). Honestly, I gave here Kelly a few extra points just for trying something highly ambitious but, dear, the end-result was just so underwhelming. After watching this, it felt as if he just got lucky somehow with 'Donnie Darko' which must be one of the most inspired mind-f*cks ever created. Well, this time, he managed to create the most cringe-inducing mind-f*ck ever made. To conclude, I think I'm being really generous with my rating here, this movie is a real mess and a boring one and it is not really worth a look, I'm afraid.

I already saw this movie but since it was such a long time ago, I was quite eager to check it out again. Well, I'm really glad I gave this movie a second look after all these years. Indeed, as a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure it was the first movie directed by von Trier which I have seen but, to be honest, at the time, even though it had been universally heralded, I have to admit that I didn’t like it much. Basically, Lars von Trier is one of those directors which I always found interesting without ever really enjoying his movies. Eventually, it's not that his movies are extremely difficult to watch (they're are not easy though), it's above all because they're all so dark and depressive. Anyway, after watching pretty much every single movie directed by the Danish master during the next 30 years, I was now much more able to appreciate this classic. Indeed, afterwards, von Trier would deliver some movies which were so much more darker and messed up than this one so it wasn't so hard to swallow now (it was still nothing really cheerful though). First of all, I thought it was interesting that, even though everyone in the film and the audience should find Jan's request to be appalling, I didn't think that it was now so revolting after all and I'm sure there are other couples where such things actually do occur. I'm not saying that it was usual or that it was a great idea but I'm just saying that the concept was not as revolting as it might seem at face value. Eventually, if Bess could have been slightly more discrete instead of becoming basically a cheap prostitute in plain sight in the middle of a very religious conservative community, I actually believed that it could have worked somehow. However, Lars von Trier has always been obsessed in relentlessly punishing his characters but, after all these years, I can handle that. In this case, everything Bess did and everything that happened to her was not because she believed in God but out of sheer love and, in fact, the basis of Religion is actually love, so, it seems that it all came together somehow, in a very neat way, even if von Trier did choose a really dark path to make his point. Of course, I shouldn't forget to mention that Emily Watson was absolutely brilliant in this. Indeed, her performance was really impressive, one of the best acting debut ever, and I wonder why Lars von Trier didn't work again with her afterwards. The first time I watched this movie, the last thing that really bothered me was this ending with those bells in the sky… As a matter of fact, at first, I even despised this ending, seriously. However, it didn't bother me again the second time around. Anyway, to conclude, even if I'm still not a huge fan, I have to admit that it is actually really good and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Lars von Trier’s work.

I wasn't expecting much from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Ray Liotta, I thought I should check it out. Eventually, it wasn't really good, I'm afraid. Basically, it is a really obscure comedy and, for once, Liotta was not playing one of his usual psychos but an insecure and sensible family man for once. Somehow, it reminded me of ‘American Beauty’ but it was then a very weak version. Indeed, the tone was never dramatic enough or funny enough to make it entertaining. At the beginning, we are introduced to 2 characters which are very awkwardly linked after the first 20 minutes. Eventually, I was above all amazed about how underwhelming some scenes were played out (one example that pops to my mind is when the main character drops a CD at his own work…). To be honest, I think the whole thing had some potential if they had made it way darker or way funnier but the way they handle it was just so , well, boring. Somehow, I still think Ray Liotta did a decent job but the rest of the cast was terribly uninspiring. To conclude, I think I’m being pretty generous with my rating here, it is a really weak comedy and I don’t think it is really worth a look.