Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, I wonder how I actually ended up watching this flick but, I guess, since I have weak spot for this director and since there was a interesting good cast involved, I thought I might as well give it a try. First of all, I really like those Ripley movies, in fact, I have seen all of them except for ‘Plein Soleil’ which is too bad because it seems to be the best of the bunch. Anyway, this time, the story was rather preposterous and over-the-top but I thought it was still quite entertaining. Indeed, the directing was decent enough and all the actors involved (especially Barry Piper) gave some good performances. I especially liked the tone of the movie which was some kind of a comical dark satire and I also enjoyed the nice chemistry between Barry Piper and  the lovely Jacinda Barrett (by the way, what the hell happened to her?!? By now, I have seen pretty much all her movies but it has been a while since she has done anything really interesting). Anyway, to conclude, even though it was nothing really ground-breaking, it turned out to be an entertaining thriller and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

I wasn't expecting much from this flick but since there was a nice cast, I thought I should check it out anyway. Eventually, I must admit that I was actually positively surprised by the damned thing. Indeed, even though I'm a sucker for romantic comedies, most of them are just really disappointing but this one turned out to be a nice surprise. I mean, there was definitely enough annoying/lame/weird stuff in this movie but, somehow,  I still liked it anyway. First of all, the  cast involved (Jennifer Garner, Timothy Olyphant, Kevin Smith, Juliette Lewis) delivered some solid performances, especially Kevin Smith who just blew me away. Indeed, I thought he was just great in this flick. By now, I have watched all his movies and even though not everything he did was great, I'm still a fan. Anyway, in this movie, every time he was on the screen, I was just laughing my ass off. Concerning Jennifer Garner, this would be the last interesting lead part she would have and, during the next 10 years, she would be mostly known for first being married to Ben Affleck and then for divorcing him. Anyway, to conclude, even though it was nothing mind-blowing whatsoever, I thought it was a decent and entertaining romantic comedy (something rare nowadays...) and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

I wasn’t expecting much from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Sam Worthington and Radha Mitchell,  I thought I might as well check it out. Obviously, you shouldn’t expect a masterpiece from a movie dealing with a giant crocodile but, to be honest, I thought it was actually not bad at all and actually rather well done. I mean, sure, the ending was really over the top but it belongs to the genre and it didn’t really bother me so much. I thought it was above all pretty neat  to see Sam Worthington before he became famous with ‘Terminator Salvation’, ‘Clash of the Titans’ and, of course ‘Avatar’. The guy really had some charisma, even in such a generic movie and I thought he might become pretty big but, nowadays, he is mostly focusing one some rather obscure features. Concerning Greg Mclean, since he impressed me by making such a solid feature from a rather lame concept, I watched as well ‘Wolf Creek’, his directing debut, but I thought it was rather disappointing after all. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, even though it was nothing mind-blowing whatsoever, I thought it was a well made and entertaining horror-thriller and it is definitely worth a look especially if you like this genre.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from this flick but since it was the last movie starring Gene Hackman, I thought I might as well check it out. Oh my God...  Eventually, it turned out to be even more underwhelming than I expected. For a while, I was hoping that Hackman would  at least make another movie because it would be otherwise a terrible way to finish such a brilliant career but, in 2008, he announced his retirement from acting. I mean, basically, it is one of these comedies with a really lame concept, so, right from the beginning, it was rather hopeless. In this case, it was even worse since this concept was also poorly developed. Finally, the last draw was to have Ray Romano to play the lead. Romano is basically one of these supposedly funny guys but I never understood what was so appealing about his gimmick. As usual, it shows that Hollywood still doesn’t know how to properly handle a political satire as the whole thing should have been much darker to become slightly more interesting. Anyway, to conclude, I think I have been actually rather generous with my rating here, it was a very weak comedy and I don’t think it is worth a look whatsoever.

I already saw this movie (In fact, I even saw it in the movie theater when it was released) but, since it was a while back, I thought I might as well check it out again. In fact, I remember very well when this movie was coming out and there was a huge buzz about the damned thing which was quite understandable. Indeed, it was starring Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie who were, back in those days, the 2 biggest movie stars in the world and it was directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck whose previous movie, ‘Das Leben der Anderen’, was heralded as one of the best movies released during the last 10 years. However, eventually, it was rather poorly received, the critics were not really positive and, indeed, I’m afraid I would have to agree with them. At least, even though it was nothing amazing, I thought it was a decent watch above all thanks to Johnny Depp who was still able to provide an enjoyable performance back in those days. However, I was still amazed by how sleep inducing the whole thing was, especially when you rewatch it. Indeed, it was nothing original whatsoever and, honestly, I thought that the story was actually rather boring. On top of that, none of the characters was developed whatsoever but, even worse, none of them was really entertaining and/or interesting. Since then, both Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie made more headlines about their respective divorces then for their acting work. Jolie doesn’t act much these days and she had actually the ambition to become a director but it didn’t exactly really work out after all. For Depp, the situation is even worse, his behavior has been increasingly erratic, he got involved in many misguided lawsuits and some say that this acting career might be now finished which would be a shame. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, to conclude, I guess the damned thing was mildly entertaining but this movie was still probably one of the most disappointing released in 2010.

'Gegen die wand' must have been one of the most fascinating movies I have seen during the last 10 years and when I heard that Fatih Akin was coming back with a new directing effort and that it was another critical success, I was really eager to check it out. So, I was expecting a lot from this movie but, to be honest, I was a little bit disappointed by the whole thing. I mean, it was still a good movie, not doubt about it, with a very nice mood, some really interesting characters thanks to some solid performances and the directing was fine but I think the problem was that I never felt really dazzled by this story. I mean, most of it was actually fine but it was above all this combination of story-lines that I didn’t really work for me. Indeed, it all felt rather far-fetched. I mean, with 'Gegen die wand', the story was pretty far-out already but the big difference was that it was focusing on 2 characters while, in this case, it was much ambitious with more characters involved, more sub-plots, but, at the end of the day, I thought it was actually less efficient. To conclude, even though I was expecting more from this flick, it was still a decent watch and I think it is still definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Fatih Akin’s work. 

Even though this movie had a rather lame reputation, since I  have a weak spot for Mark Wahlberg, I thought I might as well check it out. To be honest, I'm not really familiar with the video game it was based on but, with these modern video games, they should definitely be able to deliver something pretty cool but, unfortunately, most of the time, they messed it up pretty bad and this movie was not an exception, I’m afraid. I mean, I did like the mood, it was visually not bad at all and the Valkyr concept was interesting but there were basically 2 issues with this movie. First of all,  I thought it was seriously poorly written and, even though it was in fact a rather simple story, it was actually rather difficult to follow. Furthermore, I always thought that Mark Wahlberg had some potential, he has delivered at least 4 decent performances (‘Boogie night’, ‘Three kings’, ‘I heart Huckabees’, ‘The Departed’) but I think he actually gave here his worst performance so far. The craziest thing about this, is that, according to IMDB, Wahlberg said that his performance in this movie was his favorite one…  Anyway, to conclude, the whole thing had some potential but it turned out to seriously underwhelming and I don’t think it is worth a look.