Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was directed by Antoine Fuqua and was starring Jamie Foxx, I thought I might as well check it out. First of all,  even though Jamie Foxx originally started out with some comic parts and, eventually, became an Academy Award winner, in between, he actually tried to become an action movie star but it never really worked out very well. I mean, it seemed at first like a good idea, to combine his wisecrack humour with some badass action scenes which is reminiscent of Bruce Willis, probably my favourite action movie star ever. The problem was that, in this movie, his character should have been  entertaining but, eventually, he turned out to be more obnoxious than anything else. Furthermore, Antoine Fuqua is a decent director but the whole thing was rather uninspired and bland in my opinion. Sure, you had some unexpected twists but they felt pretty random and obligatory. Above all, I was rather bored by the whole thing and even though it may not have been one of the worst action movies I have ever seen, it was still pretty much unremarkable. Anyway, to conclude, it is a rather average action flick and it is not really worth a look, even if you like the genre.

Since it was the last movie directed by Tony Scott which I hadn't seen yet, I definitely had to see it at some point. I have to admit that I'm not really a big fan of action movies since most of them are rather preposterous and predictable. However, this one turned out to be quite enjoyable. Indeed, Tony Scott was one of the best action movie directors and it definitely showed on the screen. I mean, how could you make an exciting movie about such a static and inert thing such as a train?!? But Scott did pull it off and, for 90 minutes, I was actually wondering what would happen next. For the 5th time around, Denzel Washington was working again with this director and he delivered one of his usual performances, the righteous man under a terrible ordeal. To be honest, it could be nice if he did something else once a while but he does it so well, I won't blame him. Honestly, Washington and Pine didn’t have actually much to do and actually nothing much happened during the whole thing but, surprisingly, it was still quite entertaining and I think it had to do with the fact that they chose a realistic approach and it worked very well. Anyway, to conclude, even though the whole thing was nothing amazing, it was still a well made and entertaining action flick and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

I already saw this flick but since it was a while back and since I have it on DVD, I thought I might as well check it out again. Well, following the abysmal 5th entry, they gave us once again and for the last time, the original crew and, I must say, it is one of my favorite Star Trek flicks. Indeed, at last, they gave us some decent special effects, still nothing mind-blowing though but compared to the cheesy stuff they gave us in all the previous movies, it was way better and I also enjoyed all these weird looking aliens. Furthermore, it was their best story so far, it was really entertaining and finally, the Klingons had a central part. I never understood why in the previous movies the Klingons were barely used. Furthermore, the original cast was there including a few guests (Kim Cattrall, Kurtwood Smith, Christopher Plummer, Iman, Christian Slater) and Plummer was pretty awesome, as usual, but I wasn't so sure of Kim Cattrall as a Vulcan. Maybe it is too bad they didn't develop more the whole concept concerning the Klingons needing help when they were in fact the archenemy. Anyway, to conclude, even if it was nothing really groundbreaking, it was still an entertaining flick, a great farewell for this mighty crew, and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

I was quite blown away by 'Mar adentro' which was basically the best Spanish movie I have ever seen so I was really eager to watch Alejandro Amenabar’s following directing effort. I was rather amazed that this movie was barely seen and quickly forgotten. Indeed, it might not have been Amenabar's best movie so far but I thought it was still pretty good. Basically, it was dealing with philosophy, science, religion and love and most of it was actually quite spellbinding. The main issue was that it was probably too ambitious and all those ideas were not really well developed after all. For example, there were not one but two romances around Hypatia but I understand why they added those. Indeed, it was to add some human dimension to these grand scale events but those romances were more annoying than anything else eventually. Furthermore, the movie was fairly anti-Christian since the Christians were portrayed as merciless bullies. Of course, they destroyed some invaluable books and artifacts in the past but so did the Muslims, the Jews, the Pagans or any other religion. Eventually, the message was really striking but the execution was rather heavy-handed. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still an intelligent film, something rare nowadays, and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Religion.