Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, I really had no idea what to expect from this flick but since I always had a weak spot for Christina Ricci, I thought I might as well check it out. By the way, what the hell happened to her?!? Indeed, after a very promising breakthrough performance in ‘The Addams Family’, in the rest of the 90’s, she kept focusing on some usually really interesting indie feaftures. However, from the beginning of the 2000’s, her indie work became more and more obscure and less and less interesting and this movie was just a perfect example.  Indeed, seriously, except for Ricci who was just charming as usual, nothing really worked in this movie. First of all, John Simm must have been one of the most boring and underwhelming leading men I have seen. In fact, even the makers were not convinced by the guy as he was not even displayed on the promotional material. Above all, the biggest problem was the story was rather far-fetched but above all rather unconvincing and boring. Indeed, they tried to create a cloud of mystery around the plot and the characters involved but they just failed miserably in my opinion. To make things worse, the dialogues were most of the time quite terrible and, eventually, I was bored to death during the whole thing. To conclude, without the mesmerizing Ricci, the whole thing would have been completely worthless but, even with her, it was still really weak anyway and I don’t think it is worth a look at all. 

Not to be confused with the great classic directed by Alfred Hichtcock, it is actually a rather straightforward but still pretty decent biopic about one of most promising Hip-Hop artists, Notorious B.I.G. To be honest, I didn’t know much about this singer before watching this movie and I always had the feeling that he was above all remembered because of the way he died than because of his actual talent. On top of that, even though I'm not a expert, I always thought that Hip-Hop is a very interesting music genre but I have to admit that I have never been interested in gangstarap, even if it has been commercially successful already for more than 15 years. However, I was still curious to see this biopic dealing with one of the pionneer of the East coast ganstarap. Well, thanks to this movie, I came to learn this artist, his life story was actually quite interesting and I have to admit that the guy seemed to be really good at this. On top of that, you have to give some credit to Jamal Woolard who gave a very good and convincing performance. However, during the second half, I was starting to lose interest in the whole story. Indeed, it kept bothering me that Puff Daddy tells Biggie Smalls to be more commercial and Biggie Smalls himself tells Lill Kim that she should sing about sex and basically get naked on stage. The fact that it may be true didn't interest me whatsoever and, from that point, I started to think that I would actually rather watch a biopic about a more underground and conscious thinking hip-hop artist. Anyway, to conclude, even though it was nothing really original, it was still a well made biopic and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Hip-Hop.

After making 3 huge super-hero blockbusters, Sam Raimi came back here to a more familiar genre, the horror flick with some dark humor. Obviously, most of his fans were glad he came back with something like this and it was fairly well received when it was released. And, indeed, what a horror feast! I mean, I have seen many horror flicks but this one kept surprising me, I was sometimes shocked, scared, laughing and amazed by the scenes they built up. Concerning the story, it was rather generic but still entertaining enough and Alison Lohman was convincing enough. On the other hand, Justin Long was not, in my opinion, very suitable for this part as he belongs more in comedies with his goofy face. Coming back to Alison Lohman, even though she seemed to have a bright future, this movie would surprisingly be her last leading part. Indeed, after this movie, she completely disappeared from the business. Apparently, she got married with Mark Neveldine (yeah, the guy behind the ‘Crash’ franchise) and she pretty much retired at only 30 years old. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, even though, it was nothing revolutionary, I thought it was quite entertaining and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you enjoyed the older movies directed by Sam Raimi.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this movie but since there was a decent cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, eventually, it turned out to be a decent thriller and I actually really liked the material, even if actually half of the movie didn’t really work. As a result, some scenes were pretty good but some others were rather awkward with some ridiculous dialogues. Furthermore, I don't think that Milla Jovovich and Steve Zahn made such a believable couple and, in my opinion, they should have either dropped him or her. Than, there was also this very predictable twist which really annoyed me and, after that, I was really wondering if the whole thing actually made any sense. The interesting thing was that, completely against my expectations, the movie actually got some momentum after this twist and the damned thing became actually quite entertaining. To conclude, even though half of it was pretty much some rather preposterous garbage, I still think it was actually a rather well made and entertaining thriller and if you don't pay too much attention to the story, you may end up having a good time, especially if you like the genre. 

Even though this movie seemed to be a rather obscure feature, if you would believe the impressive IMDb rating (7.5), it was in fact some kind of cult-classic so I was quite eager to check the damned thing. Well, to be honest, even if I did like this movie, it still took me a while before getting into it. Basically, the main problem I had was that, from the start, I pretty much already knew where the whole thing was going. Indeed, this tale was actually heavily inspired by 'Oliver Twist' so, if you are familiar with this tale like I was, it felt slightly redundant. As a a result, I wasn't really captivated by the whole thing and I had actually had a hard time to really care about what was going on. Still, at some point, it finally started to really grab me with the scene when Freddie Highmore grabbed a guitar and started to literally slam it. Indeed, I thought it was really awesome and, from this point, I finally got hooked by the story and the actors who, by the way, all provided good performances. Eventually, even though it was not really original, it was rather well made and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

Since I have always been interested in politics, especially left-wing politics, this flick was pretty much a must see for me. First of all, I thought it was dealing with a really fascinating story, on top of that, the directing was decent enough and all the actors involved gave some solid performances. Unfortunately, even though it seemed that all the ingredients were present to deliver a masterpiece, the end-result was pretty good but not really mind-blowing, I’m afraid. Basically, the main issue, in my opinion, was that there were just too many characters and too many sub-plots involved and most of them were not propely developed. For example, Baader seemed to be a jealous guy and I was expecting that the makers would show more about this subject but, after 5 minutes, they just dropped this. It was the same thing with Meinhof who seemed to be worried a lot about her kids but, then, her children suddenly disappeared and you didn’t hear from them anymore afterwards. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was dealing with a really interesting subject, I thought it was a solid political thriller and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

This movie seemed to be really lame and, to be honest, I wonder how I actually ended up watching the damned thing. Anyway, when I was a kid, there was this show called ‘Le manège enchanté’ on TV but even though I have to admit that it was a pretty cute and harmless puppet show, it was aimed obviously towards the very small children. For this movie, they tried to modernize the whole thing with some computer animation but the end-result was just terrible. Seriously, it is not very often that I came across such an ugly animated feature. To make things worse, they also changed its traditional whimsical tone but the whole thing was eventually just way too sophisticated and scary for young kids and still too boring and childish for grown-ups. Basically, nothing worked with this movie. If you check online, you will see that they are 2 different versions around, this one voiced by the UK voice-cast and another called ‘Doogal’ with a US voice-cast and, to be honest, I’m not even sure which version I saw but I don’t really care at all.  Anyway, to conclude, the whole thing was just a huge failure and it is not worth a look at all.