Reviews by johanlefourbe

John Carpenter’s movies have always been appreciated by the remakers and, so far, already 4 of his classics have been remade (‘The Thing’, ‘The Fog’, ‘Halloween’ and of course ‘Assault on Precinct 13’) . However, this time, if I’m not mistaken, Carpenter picked up the director himself and chose Jean-Francois Richet, a rather unknown French director at least abroad who made some solid flicks in France so I was really curious to see the end-result. Unfortunately, it is quite common for European or Foreign directors to make their debut in America with a remake and, usually, the outcome is pretty disappointing. And indeed, unfortunately for Richet, his American debut was far from being impressive, I’m afraid. I have to confess, I first saw this remake and then many years later, the original version made by Carpenter but after seeing the real thing, the issue with this remake was even more obvious. In my opinion, the first version was pretty good but nothing really amazing but, above all, most of the choice made concerning this flick were made because there was basically not enough money and to remake this with a budget ten times bigger didn’t make much sense. The fact that it looked cheap made it in fact more appealing and it was definitely part of its charm. Furthermore, this time, they modified the plot and basically removed the darker tone, the political/sociological message and instead, they gave us some rather standard action fare with some really annoying multiple twists. I’ll give you that, there was a pretty neat cast (Ethan Hawke, Laurence Fishburne, Gabriel Byrne, Maria Bello, Drea de Matteo, John Leguizamo) but, a part from that, there was not much to enjoy with this remake. To conclude, I thought it was a rather disappointing action flick and it is not really worth a look in my opinion.

Since I enjoyed both previous movies made by Wayne Kramer, ‘The Cooler’ an underrated and overlooked gem and ‘Running Scared’ a somewhat overrated but still pretty cool cult classic, I was definitely eager to check his following directing effort. This time, the material was once again really interesting and he had a massive cast at his disposal. Basically, it is one of those hyperlink features with various tales more or less connected with each other. Unfortunately, except for one very good segment, I thought the whole thing was rather underwhelming. Indeed, there was this very good bit about a teenage Muslim girl who wrote a heartfelt but very controversial essay about 09/11. Since she is just a teenager, she obviously didn’t fully realize the awful repercussions this essay would have on her family. This story was powerful and really heartbreaking and even though some of the other stories were rather interesting, none of them reached the intensity displayed in this segment which surprisingly didn’t feature any of the big name actors. There were a couple of things that also bothered me in this movie. First of all, Ashley Judd had one really messed up eyebrow (probably the result of some bad plastic surgery) and she looked half-astonished each time she showed up. I know, it was something rather trivial but I thought it was really distracting. The other thing that bothered me were all those nude scenes starring Alice Eve. Don’t misunderstand me, she looked really stunning and I really don’t mind nudity in a movie. But what was the point to show her not once but maybe 4 or 5 times completely naked? I thought it was really gratuitous and actually really exploitative. To conclude, it is a flawed movie and apparently Harvey Weinstein has recut the movie without Wayne Kramer and removed 30 minutes, but even so most of the stories were not compelling enough. Still, since I’m myself an immigrant, son of an immigrant, it remains a dear subject to me and I think it is worth a look.

Honestly, for many years, I have been defending Nicolas Cage, arguing that he is actually a very good actor but the amount of garbage he has been making lately is quite remarkable. I know many of us would categorize this movie as yet another Cage piece of turd but it was actually not bad at all, at least that’s my opinion. Of course, it is not a masterpiece whatsoever but what did you expect exactly?!? It is and remains after all a blockbuster produced by Jerry Bruckheimer so if you expected something award worthy, you’ll be disappointed. Personally, I have to confess, ever since I have seen Indiana Jones as a kid, I always had a weak spot for those treasure hunting movies and this one was not an exception. Of course, it never comes near the level of awesomeness of the original Indiana Jones trilogy but I thought it was entertaining enough. Of course, the plot was really preposterous and to try to make us believe that Nicolas Cage could be a scientist was downright laughable but it was never meant to be a serious flick, it was meant to be a fun feature and as such, it was rather successful. Furthermore, the action scenes were decent and the cast was pretty neat (Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger, Justin Bartha, Sean Bean, Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, Christopher Plummer) so what else should you ask for? To conclude, in my opinion, I think it is actually a rather entertaining blockbuster and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre but don’t expect anything amazing though.

Like many other viewers, I was really impressed by ‘Narc’, a criminally underrated and underseen cop flick, and I was really eager to watch Joe Carnahan’s following directing effort. At first, it was supposed to be ‘Mission Impossible III’ but it seems that he and Tom Cruise didn’t get along very well so he left the project. Eventually, he made this flick which had some pretty good buzz before its release. Eventually, I thought it was not bad and quite entertaining but, honestly, still fairly disappointing. On the positive side, I thought the directing was really solid, they were was a really cool massive cast (Ryan Reynolds, Ray Liotta, Jeremy Piven, Ben Affleck, Peter Berg, Martin Henderson, Common, Andy Garcia, Alicia Keys, Taraji P. Henson, Chris Pine, Kevin Durand, Joel Edgerton, Jason Bateman, Matthew Fox) and the whole thing was rather fun to watch. Unfortunately, I thought the plot was pretty weak and it felt really shallow. I couldn’t help thinking while watching this that the writer(s) seriously watched too much ‘Pulp Fiction’ and/or ‘Snatch’ and obviously tried to emulate the kinetic style of those classics. The point is that even though these movies seemed to be messy, they were actually the opposite as they were carefully crafted and, at the end, they completely made sense. This movie, on the other hand, was just style with no substance whatsoever and I didn’t care for the story or any of the characters involved. Still, even though I thought the whole thing was rather disappointing, it still remains a fun flick and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Since I’m a huge fan of ‘Akira’ (the comic-books and the movie), of course, I had to see this flick at some point. Unfortunately, I can’t say it was as awesome as ‘Akira’. I mean, visually, it was really impressive. It is pretty obvious that Otomo took advantage of his huge reputation in Japan and made one hell of an animated feature. Indeed, the hand-drawn animation was quite marvelous with tons of meticulous little details. But, it didn’t stop there, no, no, Otomo has also added some CGI and the combination of both techniques was quite seamless and really impressive. So, on the visual side, I was quite satisfied but, unfortunately, I can’t say that the plot was that good. Indeed, this time, Otomo decided to take the action in 1860’s Britain but, seriously, why?!? I mean, there was something really fascinating about his take of post-apocalyptic Tokyo but his vision of 19th century England was honestly rather dull. This period of time has been depicted so many times before by other authors and movie directors much more familiar with this age and it frankly felt that Otomo just took his stuff and just put it randomly in another place and another time,. Furthermore, I didn’t care much about the story which was honestly rather boring and I couldn’t believe that he ended up the whole thing again with some huge mayhem… I mean, the ending was really mind-blowing and unforgettable in ‘Akira’ but to see yet again the same thing happening in this follow-up felt just really redundant. To conclude, this flick is definitely no masterpiece but since it is visually really amazing, I still think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Even though I'm a huge fan of Charlie Chaplin (I basically grew up with the guy), I must confess, I have always been kind of oblivious about Buster Keaton. Indeed, so far I only saw 'The General' which didn't really blow me away (but I definitely need to re-watch it though). Anyway, this was my second movie starring Keaton and I really enjoyed it. Basically, the plot was some kind of typical 'Romeo and Juliet' tale and it was a good excuse to get some funny jokes and spectacular stunts. And that's also probably the reason I still prefer Chaplin to Keaton. Indeed, even though Chaplin's work was also constantly hilarious, there was also this amazing poetic tone and/or some really deep thoughtfulness and I kind of missed that in Keaton's movies. I mean, don't misunderstand me, it was a really funny flick and I was laughing my ass off more than once and some of the physical stunts were just amazing and became deservedly quite legendary but I think that it was basically the whole point of this production, to make us laugh and surprise the audience but it stopped there and it didn't go the extra mile like the movies of Chaplin. Still, it is a great classic and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

By now, I have seen almost all the movies directed by Marc Forster and he is definitely a hell of a director. Unfortunately, his career took a huge blow with 'Quantum of Solace' and even though I don't think this movie was that bad, he received much of the blame. Anyway, I hope he will recover soon and deliver once again some other great gems. Unfortunately, it seems that we will have to wait for a little bit longer since his following feature was once again rather disappointing. I mean, this true story was quite amazing but even though the material was really interesting, the whole thing never really worked and I never felt really involved during this movie. Let's take the intro for example. Basically, you get to see Sam Childers getting out of prison, then he gets back on the drugs and the booze, robs some drug dealers, almost stabs a man to death, cleans up his act, goes to church, some guys shows up there, talks about Africa and off he goes to fulfill his mission. And all of this took just about 30 minutes. That was serioulsy a awful lot to digest in such a short time. Unfortunately, even when the guy got to Sudan, the whole thing was still not really convincing. Basically, it became one of those movies such as 'Blood Diamond', 'Shooting Dogs' or 'Cry Freedom' where the action is focused on one single white man who seems to solve all the problem of the poor helpless African people. I know that most of those stories are actually true but I'm sure that there are 1000s of inspiring stories about African people rising up and helping their own kind. Above all, I was missing some depth concerning the main character and there was not much ambiguity about him but just the usual stereotypes going with this genre. Eventually, especially coming from a director like Forster who already tackled some pretty sensitive subjects in the past, the whole thing felt rather uninspired. To conclude, it remains a hell of a story and I still think is worth a look but the whole endeavor felt like a missed opportunity.

Honestly, I have never heard of this movie before but since I'm a huge fan of Peter O'Toole, I still wanted to check it out. On the other hand, I can't say I knew much Richard Burton and I was more acquainted with his tumultuous relationship with Elizabeth Taylor than his work. Anyway, these two guys were just amazing in this movie. Indeed, they provided such great performances, it was just quite impressive. This movie was actually an adaptation of a play written by a French dude called Jean Anouilh who wrote many plays such as 'Antigone'. Apparently, Anouilh didn't care much about historical accuracy but he sure was able to write some fascinating characters. Indeed, the king and his best 'friend' were some of the most spellbinding fictional creatures I have ever encountered. I mean, they were smart, ambitious, arrogant, fun, reprehensible, friends, enemies and many other things. This story was also filled with some homo-erotic tones, just to add even more ambiguity to the whole thing. It is quite remarkable that even though the movie lasts about 150 minutes and even though you basically just have those two men talking to each other, it was really spellbinding to watch. To conclude, I really loved this movie and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

I didn't expect much from this movie and, indeed, it was nothing really amazing. At first, it seemed that it was going to be some kind of juvenile Fight Club but, no, after introducing this concept (not really interesting if you ask me), they just dropped it within 5 minutes without coming back to it at any moment. Why would they show this to us if they decide to go towards a completely different direction?!? Anyway, after that, the rest of the movie was just a MMA version of The Karate Kid. Indeed, they faithfully followed the genre with the mentor, the douchebag, the love interest (who, of course, used to date the douchebag), of course the training montage with some inspirational music and the final showdown. I must admit it, it was actually well made but so unoriginal, so predictable, I really had a hard time to care about the whole thing. At the end, there was even this tournament, when the two guys were supposed to fight it off in the final but, no, instead they end up fighting on the parking lot... The makers probably thought it was a neat way to go against expectations but it wasn't. I mean, why should we bother at all with this tournament if they eventually will fight on some random parking lot?!? The other thing that annoyed me was the usual message you get in those movies that the main character shouldn't fight... I always find it some hypocritical BS... I mean, if you watch this kind of movies, of course you want to see them fight, of course you want to see them kick some ass and because it's a movie, nobody is actually getting hurt, so in this case, violence is fine as it is pure and simply entertaining so just cut the crap... To end on a positive note, Djimon Hounsou was dependable as usual and Cam Gigandet had a nice charisma but both characters were reduced to some disappointing stereotypes. To conclude, if you love this genre, you will probably like this movie but I thought it was pretty average and it is eventually not really worth a look.