Reviews by johanlefourbe

Even though this movie was certainly not a priority, for some reasons, I still ended up watching the damned thing in the movie theater with my step-son. I guess there wasn't much else to see at the movie-theater at the time. Anyway, before watching this, I wasn't expecting much but, eventually, I thought it was not bad at all after all. To be honest, I didn't really follow the whole story (in my opinion, it wasn't exactly really thrilling) but the best quality of this flick was in fact its animation. Indeed, the whole thing was seriously gorgeous to look at and, only for this, I think it is worth checking this flick. To be honest, I think it will have some difficulty to find an audience since the owls may look too childish for the adults but the tone might be too dark for the young children (the really convoluted title probably probably won’t help either). It's too bad because it is a very original animated feature compared to the usual productions delivered by Pixar and Dreamworks. To conclude, I thought it was not bad at all and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in animated features.

Before watching this flick, I had some rather mixed feelings about this feature. Indeed, on hand, there was a fair chance the whole thing would be terribly lame and I always thought that Brendan Fraser was one of the most underwhelming actors ever. On the other hand, I thought that the concept definitely had some potential and, above all, Elizabeth Hurley was completely born to play this part. So, I thought could be funny and/or sexy but, unfortunately, it was neither of them. Indeed, as usual, Brendan Fraser was really pathetic but I don’t think he was even the biggest problem here. Indeed, I thought the whole thing was just plain average and simply rather boring to behold. I mean, with a concept like this one, they could have delivered something edgy and slightly dangerous but, instead, they went for a safe and completely tedious tale with a PG-13 rating (always the kiss of death for a supposedly sexy comedy like this one). For Harold Ramis, it was another disappointing directing effort and we were far from the greatness displayed by ‘Groundhog Day’ with this movie. To conclude, even though it could have been a fun movie, it was really weak and I don’t think it is really worth a look.

Since I kept hearing so many great things about this flick, I was really eager to watch it and I had some really high expectations. Well, to be honest, I’m afraid the whole thing turned out to be slightly underwhelming. First of all, I must say that this movie is completely absurd and preposterous. Obviously, I'm not completely stupid and I'm completely aware that it was supposed to be absurd and preposterous and I must admit that there were indeed some really hilarious moments but, still, I can't say I really enjoyed it. Indeed, most of the time, I saw the jokes happening and I was just not laughing or even smiling. I guess it isn’t my kind of humor. It is like the acting, I think you find it either hilarious or completely obnoxious. Personally, I think this way of acting is funny for 5 minutes but during a whole movie, it becomes just plain tiresome at some point. Eventually, even though this movie became instantly a huge cult-classic, during the following 10 years, Stephen Chow didn’t direct anything really amazing. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, it is an acquired taste (not mine apparently) but I still think it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

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. Like anyone else, I really loved ‘La vita e bella’ so even though I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick, I was rather curious to watch this new flick directed by Roberto Begnini. Eventually, even though it never reached the level of ‘La vita e bella’, the whole concept definitely had some potential but, unfortunately, this tale really took forever to finally take off. It was still worth the wait though  since then there were a few good moments and a few laughs afterwards. Surprisingly, it would be the last movie directed by Begnini as he hasn’t released anything new during the last 15 years. Anyway, to conclude, even though it didn’t really blow me away, it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Begnini’s work. 

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from this flick but, somehow, I still ended up watching the damned thing. Basically, I always had a weak spot for Josh Hartnett and Leelee Sobieski but, to be honest, they both eventually had some rather underwhelming careers which is too bad since they both they really had some potential. Anyway, in this movie, they did what they could but I’m afraid it was just terribly lame. Seriously, this concept was just rather pathetic so the whole thing was pretty hopeless right from the start, I’m afraid. Eventually, I was just bored to death by the whole thing which wasn't entertaining or original at all. Concerning Chris Klein, he made this flick just after ‘American Pie’ and, following the success of ‘American Pie’, pretty much like anyone else in this cast (Jason Biggs, Shannon Elizabeth, Tara Reid, Mena Suvari), the guy became quite popular overnight. However, just like his other colleagues from ‘American Pie’, after several misguided choices (this movie is a fine example), his career is nowadays pretty much going nowhere. To conclude, even though I have seen worse, I think I’m being quite generous with my rating here, it was just really weak and you should pretty much just avoid it.

I don’t know if you have noticed but I tend to be really random with my movie watching. As a result, I have watched some really obscure movies and this movie definitely belonged to this group. In fact, I think I even missed something with this movie. I mean, by now, I have seen more than 5000 movies and I have watched pretty much everything from your average blockbusters to the artistic, poetic or philosophical movies but, for some reasons, I really didn’t get this movie at all. I mean, the directing was pretty good, Anne Bancroft was great but, seriously, what the hell was this all about??? Honestly, in spite of Bancroft’s impressive performance, I never really understood what was the deal with the main character so I can't say I really enjoyed it. On the other hand, I did watch the damned thing on the BBC without subtitles, so maybe, I really missed something but I doubt it and, in my opinion, it is easily one of the most opaque movies I have ever seen. To conclude, even though I didn’t really connect with this movie, I still think it is watch an interesting watch and it is actually worth a look, especially if you like the genre.