Reviews by johanlefourbe

Since this movie has a strong reputation (it is included in the ‘1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die’ list among other things), I thought I might as well check it out. First of all, I have been rediscovering Sergei Eisenstein’s recently. I did watch ‘Bronenosets Potyomkin’ but, to be honest, it was years ago and I should probably re-watch it at some point. Well, among Eisenstein’s prestigious track-record, this movie and its follow-up are considered as some of the best movies ever made and I could see right away why. Indeed, even if this movie was backed by Stalin himself, it clearly stood out from the propaganda movies made by Eisenstein during the 20’s. Above all, the damned thing was visually so impressive (it did help that the copy I saw on YouTube was pristine). On top of that, the performances were pretty good, especially by Nikolay Cherkasov who was just so strong here. Seriously, it is hard to believe that it was the same actor who played the Czar Ivan IV at the beginning and at the end of this movie. However, even if the scale was epic thanks to its visuals and the strong performances, to be honest, in my opinion, nothing much really happened after all. Basically, most of the duration was about the boyars either complaining or plotting against the Czar but, right from the start, Ivan was well aware of the fact that the boyars were against him but I don’t get why he didn’t do anything to get rid of them or, at least, diminish their influence since they were clearly his biggest enemies. Still, this movie did provide a very interesting balance showing at the same time that Ivan was a charismatic leader and visionary who set the foundations for modern Russia but also a paranoid delusional megalomaniac. Anyway, to conclude, even if it didn’t completely blow me away, it is still a major classic and it is pretty much a must-see for any decent movie buff. 

It seemed to be a really obscure flick but since it was directed by Lasse Hallström and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. To be honest, following the intro with some really lame cabaret, I was actually quite worried. Fortunately, it turned out to be a decent watch after all. Indeed, after this awful intro, it became some kind of Swedish version of ‘Jules et Jim’. Sure, the whole thing was much lighter than François Truffaut’s classic but I really enjoyed this awesome trio. The fact that Pica Green was really lovely definitely didn’t hurt but Brasse Brännström and Magnus Härenstam were also really charismatic. Eventually, not only these characters were quite entertaining, above all, they were really convincing and relatable. Regarding the directing, I really enjoyed what they did with these characters but not everything worked so well, I’m afraid. For example, the back-and-forth between the past (around ’66), the present (around ’83) and the future (around 2003) was just so awkward and inefficient. The fact that they didn’t make any effort to make  the characters look any younger in the flashback scenes probably didn’t help. Fortunately, they didn’t spend so much time om their past. However, and that was definitely the biggest issue with this movie, instead of developing them as individual or as a group, the characters kept struggling with some writer’s block for some new cabaret show. Seriously, they pretty much wasted half of the running time on this and it seemed that, after managing to create some intriguing characters, they apparently had no clue what to do with them which was just too bad. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I still think it was not bad at all and it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in discovering Lasse Hallström’s earlier work. 

Since I have always been a big of fan of Alejandro González Iñárritu, of course, I was really eager to check his last directing effort. On top of that, it was the first time he was making another movie in Mexico in more than 20 years. Well, even though the guy had pretty much a flawless track-record so far, I’m afraid this movie turned out to be his first misfire. It’s not that it was bad, basically, it was some kind of supercharged Felliniesque jigsaw puzzle and, if you are into this kind of movies, you might end up really enjoying it. On top of that, it’s not surprising that Iñárritu has won 2 Academy Award for the Best Director as the directing was here really strong and the damned thing was visually pretty neat. However, as far as I was concerned, it turned out to be a long indulgent and rather pretentious ego trip. I mean, there were some bits and scenes which did work fine. For example, it has been a while since I have seen such a sweet and convincing middle-aged couple and some scenes seemed to have been plucked right out of my own dreams. Unfortunately, there were also many scenes for which I didn't care much for or even at all. For example, all the scenes involving this CGI baby were just rather cringe-inducing but, above all, this movie never really worked as a whole. It didn’t help that, in spite of the rather extensive running time, you learn really nothing about the characters, even the main character. Basically, the guy was a rather pretentious film director (I wonder why he kept saying that he was a ‘journalist’) going through a middle-life crisis and feeling a lot of self-pity. With such a gorgeous wife, some really bright kids and a seemingly really cool job, you might wonder why the guy kept whining all the time. Anyway, to conclude, even though this movie never really worked, at least, not for me, I still think it is worth a look though, especially if you are interested in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s work. 

To be honest, I have never been a huge fan of ‘Top Gun’ but since this sequel had been a massive commercial and critical success, I was quite eager to check it out before the end of this year. Well, I have to admit that I actually ended up with some mixed feelings about the damned thing. Maybe it was due to the fact that my expectations were too high after hearing so many great things about this movie or it was because I saw it at home and maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I had managed to see it in the movie theater. Still, there is no denying that it was a really satisfying sequel and even an improvement on its predecessor. Indeed, the damned thing was just so spectacular, you have to appreciate all the efforts they took to avoid green screens and to make it look as real as possible. As a result, the action scenes were just visceral and quite thrilling to behold. It was also pretty neat how they tried to emulate Tony Scott’s directing style, especially with the intro. However, what made this movie really stand out from its predecessor was the emotional baggage involved. Indeed, Maverick did grow older, by the time this 2^nd movie was taking place, the guy should have retired or at least been promoted but he basically spent his whole career burning bridges which was maybe cute when he was younger but not so much nowadays. On top of that, he was still struggling with what happened to Goose so many years ago and the scene with Val Kilmer, himself a cancer survivor, was quite heartbreaking. Basically, Maverick was this time much more vulnerable which made him a much more interesting character. And, yet, in my opinion, the whole thing was still too much over-the-top for my taste and half of the plot was still rather preposterous. Anyway, to conclude, even if it didn’t really blow me away, I have to admit that it was still seriously entertaining and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

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.