Reviews by johanlefourbe

Since I have always been a big fan of Clint Eastwood’s good old Westerns, I thought I might as well check this one out. Well, even though I really wanted to like this movie, eventually, it turned out to be a decent watch but not much more than that, I’m afraid. I mean,  Clint Eastwood was awesome and I thought it was quite interesting that the 'bad guys', the Mexican farmers, were actually not so bad at all. Unfortunately, the story was still rather poorly written in my opinion. For example, at first, Joe Kidd didn’t want to to get involved but, within five minutes, they managed to find some bogus excuse for him to take part in the proceedings. This has become, by now, a rather old and tired gimmick and, in this case, it was even more poorly handled as, within the next 5 minutes, the guy was actually already regretting his decision to get involved after all! Furthermore, the ending was also rather weak. Anyway, to conclude, even though the whole thing had some potential, at the end of the day, it was still a rather average Western but I think it is still worth a look though, especially if you like the genre. 

In 2017, they would once again come up with a 5^th instalment for this franchise but, to be honest , I really wonder if it will be really successful, especially since all the recent movies starring Johnny Depp turned to be some massive flops. In fact, his last massive hit was actually this 4^th installment so, even though these sequels (even ‘Dead Man's Chest’ and ‘At World's End’) were all rather misguided and, it made sense that they would keep making those movies since they were all terribly successful at the box-office. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, to be honest, I thought it was actually rather weak. I mean, sure, the fountain of youth was actually a pretty cool idea but, unfortunately, the story was rather poorly written in my opinion. First of all, without including Jack Sparrow, there were also 3 different groups of people looking for this  fountain (the Spaniards, Barbossa and Blackbeard) which was just too much. Furthermore, many people complained that Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann were annoying and boring but their replacement (the priest and the mermaid) were actually even worse. Finally, I thought that even though she looked nice, Penelope Cruz didn't really convince me. Eventually, it was actually thanks to Johnny Depp that this movie didn't become really average. Indeed, as usual, he really shined and made the whole thing rather watchable but I wonder if it will work a 5^th time around. Anyway, to conclude, even though the whole thing felt like a really unnecessary sequel, I guess it is still worth a look but only if you really like the genre. 

To be honest, I didn’t expect much from the damned thing but since there was a decent cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out. In fact, a few weeks ago, I just saw a very similar flick called ‘Zoom’ which was released a year later after this movie. Apparently, ‘Sky High’ was the one with the better reputation (in fact, some fans argued that it really deserved a sequel) but even though I thought it was indeed slightly better, I thought it was still pretty weak though and I didn’t care much for the damned thing. At least, instead of the awfull Tim Allen, they gave the always awesome Kurt Russell. However, even with Kurt Russell, the whole thing still remained pretty average. First of all, for this movie, the lead was played by Michael Angarano who was just really not charismatic enough. Eventually, 10 years later, the guy would show up in ‘The Knick’, the amazing TV-show directed by Steven Soderbergh, and I thought he was really good this time around. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, to conclude, even though the whole thing had some potential, I was still rather bored during the whole thing and I don’t think it is really worth a look.