Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was starring Jesse Eisenberg, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, even though it turned out to be an interesting story, the movie itself was not really good, I’m afraid. Indeed, it seems that they took the wrong approach to this otherwise interesting material. First of all, the intro with Ed Harris was seriously lame and completely useless. Above all, even though Marcel Marceau became a war hero because he helped 100’s of children to escape Nazi France, it was never really the focus of this movie and such an actual escape took place way too late during the movie. To make things worse, Klaus Barbie actually figured out what they were doing and who was helping these kids during their very first rescue operation so how did Marceau manage to rescue more children afterwards? Instead, the movie spent way too much time focusing on the main character flirting with some random girl, something that probably never happened at all. There was even another even more half-baked romance involving his brother and the sister of the girl he had a crush on. Concerning Jesse Eisenberg, I thought he did deliver a solid performance though but you might wonder what an actual mime could have done with this part. On the other hand, they probably needed someone more famous than some obscure mime actor to be able to bankroll this movie. Eventually, I was actually above all impressed by Matthias Schweighöfer who was really convincing playing the infamous Klaus Barbie. However, it was rather weird the way they introduced this character as he randomly showed up in some clandestine gay bar in Berlin which was something completely unrelated with the rest of the movie. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was not bad and I think it is worth a look but there is no doubt that it could have been so much better.

Since I kept hearing some really good things about this movie, I thought I should finally watch the damned thing at some point. First of all, it’s too bad that Netflix did provide only the version dubbed in Hindi instead of the original version in Telugu. Still, it turned out to be such a f*cking blast, I have seen around 7000 movies and I had never seen anything like this. Seriously, it was probably one of the craziest movies I have ever seen. Basically, they took so many different genres such as action, romance, comedy, drama, historical epic, patriotic propaganda,… and cranked up all these genres to the max and, even though it should have been a total disaster, it actually worked so well. On top of that, it featured some of the most exhilarating action scenes I have seen and, without ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’, it would have been hands-down visually the most impressive movie released in 2022. It also featured one of the most fascinating bromances. Eventually, I still think that there were a (few) dull moments though. Above all, I didn’t care much for the half-baked romance between Bheem and Jenny and it was pretty obvious that this romance was added just so that Bheem could find Malli in a completely random way. In fact, since he knew that Malli had been abducted by the governor and his wife, I don’t understand why it was supposed to be so difficult to find Malli’s location. Still, it was some minor flaw and the whole thing was just so freaking entertaining. Anyway, to conclude, even if I don’t think it was a masterpiece (it wasn’t far from it though), I really enjoyed the damned thing and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre or if you are oblivious about Indian movies (like me) and want to discover them. 

To be honest, after the really useless live-action version released by Disney this year, I can’t say I was really dying to see again another version of this famous tale, especially so soon. However, a new movie directed by Guillermo Del Toro is always a big event, especially when it is a passion project like this one on which he has been working for more than 10 years. Well, first of all, there is no doubt that the damned thing was visually really neat and if you’re into stop-motion, this flick is definitely a must-see. Concerning the story itself, it was pretty cool that they did extend the introduction and displayed in the process the relationship between Geppetto and his deceased son, Carlo. They also combined some elements from Frankenstein’s story. As a result, Geppetto actually really freaked out when Pinocchio came to life and it took him a while to accept him and eventually love him. It really deferred from the other adaptations but I thought it was a really interesting approach. For some reason, the action was also taking place in the 30’s in Fascist Italy which was not necessarily a bad idea but I’m not sure if it really had such an interesting added value. Unfortunately, even though Del Toro did tweak the story a little bit, in my opinion, it was still the same old tale that I have seen so many times by now and I find it hard to really care at this point. Above all, I think they should have dropped as many details as possible from the Disney classic adaptation to make sure that this movie could really stand on its own. Anyway, to conclude, even if it didn’t really blow me away, it was still a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre or if you are interested in Guillermo Del Toro’s work. 

In 2009, I saw ‘Avatar’ with my step-kids in the movie theater when it was released. Back then, they were only 12 and 15 years old. Yesterday, we went to see this sequel together (with their little sister as well) and it was just awesome to share again this experience with them. On top of that, this time, we saw it in IMAX 3D (something I always wished we did with the first instalment) and the damned thing was just visually so impressive. Seriously, some people might complain that it’s too long but I thought the time passed by really fast. What I enjoyed the most was probably the fact that James Cameron several times actually completely ignored the plot to focus instead on this fascinating world. It was also a great move to focus on a completely different Na'vi tribe living on the shores of some islands. Finally, the last thing that really worked was the fact that they didn’t focus only on Jake Sully but on his whole family instead. As a result, there was not really a main character but several characters in the spotlight and I was positively surprised by how complex they were portrayed. Indeed, as displayed in this movie, Jake Sully was still a charismatic leader but also an authoritarian jerk and Neytiri was still a fearless warrior but also apparently a rather psychotic mama bear. Still, in spite of what some reviewers might argue, I don't think this movie was such an improvement on its predecessor. Indeed, back then, the first installment was so mind-blowing above all because it was so much ahead of the game and, in my opinion, it had at least a 10 years lead on the rest of the competition. However, this movie, even if it was more than a decent sequel, didn’t feel like such a game-changer after all. Anyway, to conclude, even if it didn’t completely blow me away like ‘Avatar’ did so many years ago, I still really loved the damned thing and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.