Reviews by johanlefourbe

Since I'm a huge fan of 'Dark City' and since, according to Roger Ebert, this movie was one of the best released in 2008,  I was really eager to watch the damned thing. However, it turned out that Ebert was in fact the only person who was actually postive about this movie so I wasn't really sure what to expect. Well, after watching the damned thing, to be honest,  I don't really understand why Roger Ebert was so enthusiast about. I mean, I have to admit it, it was definitely an interesting mix of different genres such as science-fiction, thriller, horror and even the disaster genre. Furthermore, I must say that the special effects were pretty awesome and the directing was in general pretty decent, as expected from this director. However, I wasn’t really impressed by the story, I’m afraid. Indeed, this tale was just so preposterous and I had a hard time to understand the motivations of the lead character, except for moving the plot along. There were here and there some of the brilliance displayed in 'Dark City' but it never reached the level of this great underrated classic. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I still think it is decent science-fiction flick and it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Alex Proyas's work.

Even though the critics were rather negative, since it was starring 2 oscar winners (Jessica Lange, Gwyneth Paltrow), I was eager to watch the damned thing. Anyway, it was basically a standard thriller but it was just very slow to take off. I mean, during most of the movie, there was nothing much happening. Furthermore, the ominous music kept coming back from time to time and everytime, they would repeat the very same shot of Jessica Lange giving her evil look. Otherwise, I actually would have had a rather hard time to notice that I was watching a thriller and, in my opinion, the story (which had some potential) was better suited for a psychological drama. The acting was not bad in general, even though Jessica Lange did push it a little but who can blame her? Indeed, most of the actions of her character didn't make much sense which is something unfortunately quite usual in such weak thrillers. As you maye have already guessed, I wasn't really impressed by this movie and it was indeed a rather generic and predictable thriller with many plot-holes. Like I said before, nothing much really happened which I didn't mind but since it was a typical Hollywood thriller, they finished up with this really over-the-top and really badly acted ending. It was apparently supposed to really dramatic but it just sounded so corny. What I found also quite ridiculous with this ending was that they tried to make us believe that Gwyneth Paltrow and her husband didn't have one single conversation after they moved in with the mother-in-law during the whole duration of the movie (Why? Even if their relationship was not doing really good, you would expect them to have at least one decent conversation about their current situation) but in the final 5 minutes, Paltrow spit finally het guts out and her husband swallowed every single word without any hesitation. They could have at least provided some kind of argument, just for the sake of it but, no, it felt as if they were thinkin 'let's wrap it up as quickly as we can'. To conclude, I have seen worse movies and I think that if they had decided to make a pyschological drama about a mentally instable mother-in-law, instead of a standard thriller, it would have worked better. But, unfortunately, it was a rather average Hollywood thriller and, frankly, it is not really worth a look whatsoever.

I wasn't really planning to watch this flick but since the reviews were fairly positive, I thought I should give it a try. To be honest, the first half was rather disappointing. Indeed, the material was pretty neat but, as it was a family feature, the tone was not dark enough, in my opinion. Indeed, Hugh Jackman's character should have been nastier, like a Billy Bob Thornton’s Bad Santa for example and the boy should have been tougher. Furthermore, the acting was seriously average from all the characters involved including Hugh Jackman, Evangeline Lilly and the young boy portraying his son. And it was just so slow... I mean, seriously, it was rather predictable that he would trash one robot but two robots! So, I pretty much lost hope during the first half but then they suddenly realized that they had some kick-ass robot and then, finally, they gave us some neat action scenes. And, I must admit it, the final fight was really awesome. It was emotional, entertaining and just very very well made and finally, I cared about the story and the characters involved. At this point, it basically became a remake of 'Rocky' with some robots but it didn't bother me, in the contrary. To conclude, it was not a masterpiece whatsoever but it was still worth a look, especially if you're looking for some brainless entertaining popcorn action flick.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Matthew McConaughey, I thought I might as well check it out. Basically, at the beginning of his career, McConaughey was involved in some interesting movies but, from the beginning of the 2000's, he kept getting typecast in such boring romantic-comedies and, from all these rom-coms, this was probably the worst one he made at the time. First of all, I thought he was actually really miscast for this movie. Indeed, the guy looked way too good, he was way too charming,  way too clever to be still living with his parents. Concerning Sarah Jessica Parker, I thought she was in fact also miscast. Indeed, in m opinion, they should have chosen a younger actress who really seemed irresistible. On top of that, it seems that Parker cannot get rid off of Carrie Bradshaw and she basically keeps playing this character over and over again in all her movies. On the positive side, I must say that the supporting cast was not bad (Justin Bartha, Bradley Cooper, Kathy Bates and, above all, Zooey Deschanel). Still, it was such a boring and predictable romantic-comedy with a really tedious plot and I don’t think it is really worth a look whatsoever.

To be honest, I wasn't expecting much from this flick but, even with some rather low expectations, the damned thing still turned out to be pretty disappointing. At least, I have to admit it, the special effects were pretty decent, the supporting actors did a pretty good job and Ben Stiller did his usual hysterical guy but he didn't really bother me. In fact, what really bothered me about this flick was the actual concept. I mean, I do love museas and I don't think that making the exhibits 'alive' would make the museas more interesting whatsoever. In fact, I think that the whole idea was actually rather insulting. Anyway, as a result, the whole thing was not really enjoyable to me and, to make things worse, I thought it was pretty boring. Eventually, I never understood the popularity of  this franchise. I mean, somehow, how they managed to deliver a trilogy with this concept is beyond me and the fact that all the instalments turned out to be failry successful at the box-office was just really unbelievable.  To conclude, I have seen worse movies but it was still a really weak family feature and it is not really worth a look.