Reviews by johanlefourbe

Since 'Happy Feet' was a huge success, it was rather expected that they would come up with a sequel but, to be honest, even though I was pleasantly surprised by the first installment, I was actualy rather skeptical about the potential for a sequel. And indeed, the end result was nothing great and this movie never reached the same success as its predecessor. I mean, the animation was once again pretty good but, this time, it was nothing new and it was the same thing for the whole ecological message. To make things worse, the story was rather generic and even rather underwhelming. At least, I have to admit that I Ioved these 2 krills (voiced by Brad Pitt and Matt Damon) and these new characters were totally awesome. They were really funny and the whole concept (some krills become individualist and decide they won't follow the rest of the pack) was a real masterstroke. Unfortunately, they had just a subplot which was too bad. Still, the whole thing remained a well made animated flick, the characters were still charming enough and I guess it is still worth a look, especially if you have some young kids to entertain as they will probably love the damned thing.

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from the damned thing but since I’m a big fan of Werner Herzorg, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, following 'Grizzly man', this was  the 2nd documentary directed by Werner Herzorg that I had the pleasure to watch and, once again, I was quite impressed. Herzorg actually has a very peculiar style since his narration is omnipresent and I have to admit that it must be an acquired taste. Fortunately, the guy didn't annoy me but I can imagine that it can be bothering. Furthermore, there were some really awesome shots here and, only for that, it was worth it to check out the damned thing. Indeed, the landscape was really awesome but the 'natives' gave some unexpected interesting insights and you could feel that Herzorg was really enjoying meeting some fellow adventurers. Indeed, during his whole career, the guy has been pushing the boundaries and, there, he met some rather weird and adventurous characters who decided to check the end of the world. My only critic would be that the whole thing was rather unfocused but, a part from that, I really enjoyed it and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Herzorg's work.

Wayne Wang is not really a famous director nowadays but I have a weak spot for him so when I get the opportunity, I always check his movies. Furthermore, my father is Dutch and moved to live in France and I'm French and moved to live in the Netherlands so the subject of this movie really touched me personally. Anyway, it was basically a really simple story with only 2 characters and most of the movie took place in one location. The lead character portraying the father was very good and I really enjoyed the way they displayed the issues when you mixed up different cultures and generations together. In fact, the father and the daughter in this movie didn't have a real conversation for years, they never had learned to show and talk about their feelings and, as a result, you got here some touching and even rather heartbreaking scenes. Eventually, they spent most of the time dealing with the father, as a result, we only understood what was going on with the daughter only during the last 10 minutes of the movie and it would have been interesting if they did spend more time with her. Still, even though it was nothing really amazing, it was a nice and interesting little movie and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

Nowadays, I have Netflix and Popcorn and not only I have since then an endless selection of movies to choose from but, as a result, I have become slightly more picky regarding the movies I watch. Before, I used to watch pretty much anything as long as it was starring one or two actors I was interested in and, as a result, I would sometimes end up watching some really obscure features. This movie was a perfect example. Basically, since I have been living in the Netherlands, I try to watch from time to time a Dutch movie. However, even though some of them are really awesome, some of them are actually really terrible. Unfortunately, this flick belonged to the 2nd group... In fact, I didn't know before watching the damned thing but, according to a poll, it had been chosen as the worst Dutch movie released during the last 25 years. At first, I thought it would be a bad family feature but, eventually, it was just a bad comedy with some fantastic elements. Concerning Daniel Boissevain, he is actually one of my favorite Dutch actors but even him couldn't save this mess. Indeed, the story was just terrible, the special effects were pathetic and the jokes were just bad. To conclude, it was a big waste of time and you should definitely avoid it, even if you are interested in Dutch movie like me.

For some rather obscure reasons, I have always been intrigued by this movie. Indeed, I remember it very well when it came out in 1996, the critics seemed to decent enough. Anyway, somehow, it took me about 16 years to finally watch the damned thing and, eventually, I thought it was not bad at all. First of all, it was featuring 4 promising actors at the time (Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell, Skeet Ulrich) but, eventually, none of them really ever managed to make it big after all. The movie itself was basically an interesting mix of teenage anxiety and witchcraft. However, even though the whole thing was rather spooky, it never became really scary but I guess it wasn't what they were trying to achieve here. Unfortunately, above all during the last 30 minutes, they competely lost their focus and it became a rather generic and boring fantastic horror flick. Still, there was some interesting stuff, especially Fairuza Balk who gave a very nice performance here and I wish I would see her more often as she seemed to be really talented. Anyway, to conclude, even though it was a rather flawed feature, it was still fairly entertaining and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.