Reviews by johanlefourbe

The title says it all... This movie has been directed by Uwe Boll, the Master of Crap himself. In fact, I think I’m pretty lucky that I have seen so far only 2 movies directed by this guy, this movie was probably his most ambitious project so far and I can’t imagine how bad the rest of his work must be. Anyway, where should I start ? First of all, I was amazed how it completely ripped off ‘The Lord of the Rings’ franchise. I'm not going to name all the similarities because it would take forever but if you see this movie, you'll see what I mean. The biggest surprise was eventually to see a rather decent cast involved in this crap (Jason Statham, Leelee Sobieski, John Rhys-Davies, Ron Perlman, Claire Forlani, Kristanna Loken, Matthew Lillard, Ray Liotta, Burt Reynolds...). What were they thinking?!? They had never heard of him before ?!? Why would you jeopardize your career by working with this guy? I hope at least that the money was good. Eventually, to conclude, the biggest problem was that the whole thing was so damn boring, I thought it would never end, and, as usual with this director, you should definitely avoid this. 

Since this movie had a decent reputation and since I always had a weak spot for Paul Newman, I was quite eager to check it out. Eventually, even though it was nothing really amazing, it was still a nice little movie. Indeed, in my opinion, it was nothing really spectacular but I have to admit it it was still pretty entertaining. I have noticed something rather funny with this movie is that it is apparently really popular among hockey players and fans of this sport which was rather odd in my opinion. Indeed, I don't really get it because, if you think about it for maybe a minute, there was in fact not one single proper hockey action in the whole movie, if I recall it correctly. Basically, the whole movie was about cheating and hustling (not to my dislike, in the contrary). They even won the damned cup without actually scoring or even playing !!! To put it simply, it is the most anti-sport movie I have ever seen and it is revered by sport fans all over the world... Go figure... Anyway, in spite of all this, it is definitely an original sport feature, I liked it and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this movie but since I always had a weak spot for Neil Jordan’s work, I was quite eager to check it out. Eventually, even though it was not bad at all, I still ended up with some mixed feelings about the damned thing. Indeed, even though the main character was quite fascinating thanks to an impressive Cillian Murphy, pretty much everything else in the movie didn’t work very well, I’m afraid. The main issue, in my opinion, is that there were just too many story lines that ended up being rather under-developed but I still liked the damned thing. What impressed me the most eventually was the great performance provided by Cillian Murphy. Seriously, back in those days, he was definitely one of the most talented actors at work. It’s a shame than he never really managed to confirm his tremendous potential during the following years. Anyway, in this movie, he was completely believable here and he carried the whole thing on his shoulders. To conclude, even though it was maybe a not masterpiece, I thought it was a decent drama and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Neil Jordan’s work. 

Basically, there was a time when I would go to a video game shop (which is now closed) and I would buy there on a regular basis 5 DVDs for 5 euros and, sometimes, since I would be missing 1 DVD, I would pick up pretty much anything at random just to reach 5 movies. Anyway, following this amazing process, I ended up watching some rather obscure movies and this one was definitely one of them. To be honest, it really seemed to be a  really cheap-ass serial killer and I thought it will be really awful but, eventually, I have to admit it, it was actually not that bad at all. Indeed, above all, I really liked the concept of this cop working so hard on a case, that she first gets obsessed and then mentally really f*cked up. Even if Eliza Dushku has never been a really strong actress, I really liked how her character evolved through this movie. Unfortunately, like any average thriller, they had to end up with a twist ending, I won't spoil it but those last 10 minutes were just really bad. To conclude, the whole thing was still pretty damned average but I think it's too bad because it actually had some potential.

Since this movie is rather obscure, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from the damned thing but since I'm a huge fan of Thomas Vinterberg, I was really curious to check it out. Following ‘Festen’, his great masterpiece, Vinterberg spent afterwards 5 long years and no less than $10 millions on ‘It’s All About Love’, a movie which turned out to be a huge flop and was completely destroyed by the critics. Well, this time, it took him only a year to come up with something new and even though this follow-up was not as good as 'Festen' and even though it once again received some mixed reviews, I thought it was still pretty interesting. Indeed, not only was it directed by Thomas Vinterberg, it was also written by Lars von Trier and, together, they made a rather weird movie about weapons in the USA. Unfortunately,  the movie didn't really give any conclusion or clear view on the subject and, as a a result, it was a little bit too cryptic for me and it made the whole thing rather frustrating to behold. Still, even though it didn’t really win me over, there was still something quite mesmerizing about this movie and I think it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Thomas Vinterberg’s work.  

Even though this movie is pretty obscure (I was only the 4^th listal member who has rated the damned thing), for some reason, I thought it seemed pretty neat so I was quite eager to check it out. Eventually, the whole thing turned out to be really underwhelming, I’m afraid. It’s too bad because the concept of the story was actually quite interesting and it definitely had some potential. Indeed, you started in our world and, somehow, ended up in this fantasy world which was pretty neat but this whole idea was really poorly developed. On top of that, the animation was really mixed as the whole thing was some times decent to look at but, for some other scenes, it just looked really average, especially when the characters were in motion. Eventually, the biggest problem with this movie was the fact that I was just really bored during the whole duration. To conclude, it was another interesting attempt to make a CGI animated in Europe (this movie was the first German CGI animated feature) but the end-result was just terribly disappointing and I don’t think it is really worth a look, even if you have a weak spot for the genre.