Reviews by johanlefourbe

Seriously, right from the start, this movie seemed to be a disaster. First, they gave us a really annoying scene with Katherine Heigl and her parents in a plane. Then, they gave us a really pathetic scene when Ashton Kutcher was supposed to convince us that he is a spy. Finally, they both got together in a lift and Kutcher was pretending he could speak French fluently.... I mean, I'm French and I could barely understand a word he said! I mean, from crying out loud, the guy is supposed to be  a freaking actor! Couldn’t he learn how to speak properly 2 lines of French?!? And those were ony the very first 3 scenes of the movie... I mean, the running time was, at that point, maybe 15 minutes and the thing was already hopeless. The weird thing was that there was actually a potentially good movie, there hidden somewhere, and there were a few good ideas like the friend/neighbour/colleague who tried to kill Kutcher. But then, they made literally EVERYBODY trying to kill him which was completely redudant and annoying. Honestly, I do think that Katherine Heigl did look charming and I always thought she had some potential but ever since 'Knocked up', she always got involved in some rather worthless comedies like this one. Anyway, to conclude, the concept was not bad but the execution was just terrible and it is not really worth a look at all. 

To be honest, I wasn't expecting much from this flick and, indeed, it was pretty weak. One of the issues was that even though Robocop is and remains really badass, it is also a rather limited character and the whole thing tends to get really redundant. Furthermore, after 2 new installments, there was not much left from Verhoeven's vision and what was left a rather lame futuristic action movie. Indeed, the story was not interesting, the characters were pathetic and the dialogues were lame. They even added a few gadgets for Robocop but it wasn't really impressive. On the positive side, the plot was less messy than the previous installment but it was still pretty damned average though. I also felt sorry for Nancy Allen who didn't have much to do in this second sequel and, in fact, she even got killed within the first 20 minutes... It is pretty obvious that even though the first movie was an inspired blockbuster, the following sequels were just produced to make some easy money. Anyway, to conclude, like most of the sequels, the damned thing was really disappointing and it is not really worth a look, even if you love the original classic by Paul Verhoeven.

Since I kept hearing some good things about Rob Zombie's work, I was really eager to check out one of his flicks. Eventually, it turned out to be pretty good. Indeed, there were many aspects which made it look like any other uninspiring slasher flicks but there were also some details which made it stand out and worth watching. For example, it all started with a shoot-out which is something that usually comes towards the end. The weird thing was that, during this shoot-out, I was actually rooting for the bad guys and not really for the police. That was some clever directing here. The psychopath familly was actually quite charismatic and they kept throwing some clever and witty oneliners throughout the whole thing. Of course, at some point, they had to molest and kill a bunch of people otherwise they wouldn't be some serial killers but those scenes were not really interesting. I mean, I have seen my share of slasher flicks so I didn't care much about those scenes but I definitely enjoyed the way they developed the characters which was quite refreshing. Even if you don't like the genre, you have to admit that the guy knows how to direct a movie and I really enjoyed the music as well. To conclude, even though it was not a masterpiece whatsoever, it was still a well made and original horror flick and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.