Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, I had no idea what to expect from this flick but since John Sayles is an intriguing director and since there was a pretty decent cast, I thought I might as well give it a try. Indeed, John Sayles is a rather underrated and unknown director here on Listal but I think his movies are always really interesting and this flick was a very good example. In my opinion, there was an original and interesting story and it featured an impressive female cast and they all delivered some solid performances (Daryl Hannah, Lili Taylor, Mary Steenburgen, Marcia Gay Harden, Maggie Gyllenhaal). Above all, I really enjoyed how 3 dimensional all those characters were represented and that's basically a quality you'll always find in most of John Sayles feature which makes his work really attractive to me. However, I have to admit it, even if the story was interesting, I was still not really fascinated by the proceedings and I kept wondering what was the point of all this. I guess, it is Sayles approach, to give you some flawed characters without judging them or their actions, and eventually, you have to make up your mind about them on your own. Anyway, to conclude, even though it wasn’t a masterpiece whatsoever, it was still an interesting flick and it is definitely worth a look.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from this flick but since it starred Steve Martin, I thought I should give it a try. Through the years, I kept trying with Steve Martin, I gave him the benefit of the doubt so many times but, eventually, I came to conclusion that most of his movies are actually rather worthless. I mean, he has made a few good movies, not many though, and I’m pretty sure I can count them on one hand (for a career including more than 40 movies and going over more than 3 decades, it is pretty pathetic in my opinion). Anyway, this time, we have here a tired remake of an old family feature and the end-result was pretty weak. The first question that you might ask is was the original version anything good to start with? I have seriously no idea and this remake is not really awful whatsoever but the whole thing was just purely routine. Indeed, the plot was not interesting, the characters were not interesting either, the jokes were not really funny and I really had a hard time to care about the whole thing. To conclude, it is a really average and boring flick and it is not really worth a look, I’m afraid.

Personally, I have some rather ambivalent feelings about this franchise. The first one is usually highly praised but I found that the story was really far-fetched but it was still an alright action flick. The second one was hugely criticized but I thought it was not bad at all with some awesome action scenes. Eventually, in spite of the positive buzz, I can't say I was blown away by this third installment. I mean, I did enjoy the action scenes, I thought that Tom Cruise provided a decent performance and Philip Seymour Hoffman was definitely an awesome bad guy, by far, the best one in the whole franchise. However, precisely like the previous movies, the story was far from being convincing. I mean, it was nothing bad whatsoever, but in my opinion it was pure action routine and, as a result, I was amazed by the action sequences but I didn't care whatsoever about the story or the characters involved. And why is there always a rogue agent involved? Couldn't they come up with something else ? Above all, the biggest mistake was to, once again, involve Ethan Hunt's love interest. It terribly dragged down the story (like in the 2nd installment) and it didn't add much to the whole thing. Still, in spite of its flaws, it remains a very well made and entertaining action flick and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you enjoyed the previous installments.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this flick but a movie starring both Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio del Toro, plus directed by William Friedkin definitely seemed appealing to me. Indeed, I think Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio del Toro are both some impressive actors and to have them together on screen was a good enough reason for me to watch this flick. However, I have to admit, William Friedkin has way passed his prime so I was rather skeptical about the overall potential of this movie. I still checked it out anyway and I eventually ended up with some mixed feelings about the whole thing. First of all, both actors were quite terrific and delivered some solid performances and they were some good action scenes so the whole thing was rather thrilling to watch. However, somehow, it failed to really impress me since there was a terrible lack of originality in the story department. I mean, the whole thing was basically some kind of remake of 'First Blood' and such similar movies and they didn't add anything new or interesting to the formula. Still, in spite of its flaws, it remains a well made and entertaining flick and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Honestly, I had some pretty high expectations with this flick. I mean, come on, a movie directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring the king of cool, Steve McQueen, it really sounded great on paper. Indeed, I think that Steve McQueen was a really awesome actor and I try to catch up his movies whenever I get the chance and, this time, he was working with Sam Peckinpah so I thought this flick should be a winner. However, the whole thing turned out to be rather disappointing. I mean, it is definitely not a bad movie and McQueen does his usual cool guy act and he was indeed awesome as well and the movie, in general, was rather well made. Eventually, my main issue was that I never really cared about the story or the characters involved. I mean, they deliberately chose a slow pace and the whole thing was rather contemplative but the end-result was rather mixed. To put it simply, the whole thing was actually rather boring and uneventful which was rather surprising coming from a guy like Peckinpah who made, at the time, one of the most violent Westerns with ‘The Wild Bunch’. Still, even though it was rather disappointing, it still remains an intriguing feature and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in McQueen's work.

Like everyone else, I heard about the hype surrounding this movie and I was rather curious about it. Eventually, I thought it was pretty good. Basically, it follows the same concept as 'The Blair Witch project', the big differences are that they replaced the witch with a monster and, this time, it takes place in New York instead of a forest. Otherwise, the style was really identical and it is a style that you rather dig or not. Since I loved 'The Blair Witch project', the directing style didn't bother me, in the contrary, but this time, it didn't feel really original. Eventually, what I really liked about this flick is how they suddenly shift gears. Indeed, it starts out as a romantic drama/comedy but suddenly (very suddenly), it becomes a disaster movie. Personally, I thought that the actors provided some decent and believable performances and it was a good thing that they were not some famous actors since it helped to identify more with the characters. I also liked the way the movie was directed in the sense that they were no heroes and you could really feel their despair. I guess, the main issue was probably the lack of originality. Eventually, when you think about it, they just gave a new look to some very old story that we have all seen 100 times before. Still, I think it is a very well made and entertaining flick and it is definitely worth a look, except if you really cannot stand the shaky cams.

I know that those last years Tom Cruise has been more famous for his public shenanigans than for his movies but I still think he is an interesting actor. As a matter of fact, I have about the same feelings concerning Bryan Singer. Indeed, ever since his 'Superman' was a terrible flop, it seems that his career really has a hard time to recover and since ‘Jack the Giant Slayer’ didn’t score either, it won’t change anytime soon, I’m afraid. Anyway, this time, they both worked together on this historical thriller and, in my opinion, the end result was actually pretty good. Indeed, the whole story was rather fascinating and thrilling, the movie was very well directed and the whole cast, even Tom Cruise, delivered some decent and believable performances. Still, it wasn’t really amazing though and the main issue with this flick, in my opinion, is that it was just too pedestrian and didn’t really take you by surprise at any moment. Eventually, it made the whole thing sometimes a little bit dull to watch. Still, in spite of its flaws, I thought it was a very well made historical flick, I enjoyed it and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

After hearing here and there some rather good things about this flick, I was really curious about it. Furthermore, a movie directed by Richard Donner and starring Bill Murray should be pretty decent. Eventually, to my surprise, I thought the whole thing was actually pretty bad. I know, it is considered a cult classic, for many people, it is a real Christmas classic and they really cherish it but I definitely cannot see what so good about it (I'm not the only one by the way, Roger Ebert also thought it was utter rubbish). In my opinion, Bill Murray was completely obnoxious and this was once again another unnecessary new version of an old and overused tale. I don’t know, I never really cared about ‘A Christmas Carol’ but this alternative version was by far the worst one I have seen so far. Above all, the whole thing was not funny whatsoever and even though it supposed to be moralistic like the original tale, it failed rather miserably, in my opinion, showing some bad jokes and some truly unpleasant characters. To conclude, I thought it was a real failure, a pretty bad dark comedy and you should definitely avoid it, or maybe I missed the point and you should check it out to make up your mind on your own.

If I recall it correctly, I saw this movie when I was living in England. There, I took a movie course which I found just great. Every week we would watch a movie starting with 'Cabiria' released in 1914 (even though it is considered a classic, it was an awful 3 hours long silent epic, I think only 3 of us stayed until the end). So, we started from the very beginning of motion picture history and moved slowly towards more recent work. Anyway, I think this flick was the 2nd one we watched during this course. Honestly, except for the funny masterpieces by/with Charles Chaplin, I always found it difficult to get really interested in silent movies. But don't misinterpret my words though! I do enjoy other silent movies but they never really blow me away and this movie is a good example. Basically, it is one of the famous movies representing the German expressionism and it was indeed quite gorgeous to look at. However, even though the story was intriguing, I got restless due to the lack of dialogs and I had a hard time investing myself in the story and the characters. To conclude, it remains a beautiful and fascinating movie and since it is such a classic, it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s work but, back in the 80's-90's, he was definitely one of the most dependable action stars and, from time to time, I can always appreciate a good old action flick. Honestly, with such a title, such a poster, I wasn't expecting a masterpiece but I was however expecting something really badass. Eventually, I must admit it, I was rather disappointed by the whole thing. Indeed, the story was pretty pedestrian which should not have been a problem but I thought that Schwarzenegger was just going through the motion and the action scenes were routine and didn't really blow me away (pun intended). To give the whole thing some gravitas, they even added James Caan and James Coburn to the cast but even them couldn’t make the whole thing more entertaining. Apparently, Chuck Russell didn’t go along with the producer Arnold Kopelson during the whole production which could explain the disappointing end-result. To conclude, it is basically a rather average and forgettable action flick and it is not really worth a look, except if you are really a diehard action fan which I'm not.