Reviews by johanlefourbe

I already saw this  movie but since it was a while back and since I have it on DVD, I was quite eager to check it out again. For once, Tony Scott decided to make a movie without Denzel Washingtion and to hire Mickey Rourke instead who was making his comeback at the time. First of all, it was a really awesome story. I mean, a model who decides to become a bounty hunder, it doesn't really get better than this. It was also nice to see Keira Knightley trying something completely different than her usual costume dramas, even if her performance was not always completely convincing. Furthermore, the directing was visually really neat, kinetic with a nice sense of chaos. Unfortunately, the whole thing still didn’t completely worked though. Indeed, the issue with this chaotic approach was that the whole thing was basically a mess and, in this mess, half of it was pretty much some garbage. On top of that, Scott maybe displayed how badass Domino has become but he didn't really get much further than that and we never get to know her, what makes her tic and what she is actually thinking and feeling. Eventually, they basically turned a rather intriguing story into a mildly entertaining action flick and that was rather disappointing. Still, like I said before, Tony Scott was one of the best action movie makers and I wasn't bored watching this. To conclude, even though it never reached its full potential, I still think it is a decent flick and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in the late Tony Scott's work.

To be honest, I have never been really a fan of Harry Potter but my wife really loved the first installments so we went to see this one in the theater as a date. It was the first HP movie we saw in the theater and we would eventually watch all the following sequels in the theater but with the kids this time. I must admit it, there was at some point a nice progression with this franchise. Indeed, ‘Azkaban’ was finally a decent entry and ‘The Goblet of Fire’ was my favorite so far so I was really intrigued to see how this new movie would turn out to be. Unfortunately, this flick was eventually rather disappointing and a step-down in my opinion. At least, Daniel Radcliffe easily gave his best performance so far and the whole thing was rather entertaining and visually rather appealing with some pretty cool special effects but I thought that the story was seriously underwhelming. Indeed, the whole concept of most people not believing that Voldermort was back was just really weak and misguided in my opinion. Furthermore, the whole thing about Harry Potter finally getting a girlfriend was poorly developed  and really anti-climatic. Finally, the last thing that really bothered me was the fact that the whole franchise shift its focus. Indeed, from that point, the whole school life which had been a major element in the franchise didn't really matter anymore and, suddenly, it became all about fighting Voldemort which I found rather boring and disappointing. Back then, I saw this movie in IMAX with, at the end, about 15 minutes in 3D. That was before the whole 3D swindle started with ‘Avatar’. I thought it was not bad, especially the sequence in the library where all those glass balls falling on the ground. To conclude, even though it seemed that this franchise was showing some improvement, with this installment, it became pretty obvious that these movies wouldn’t deliver anything really amazing, at least, that’s my opinion. Still, it remains a well made and entertaining blockbuster and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.