Reviews by johanlefourbe

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. 

Since I kept hearing some pretty good things about this flick, I was quite eager to check it out. Eventually, I wasn’t disappointed, in fact, I was really blown away by the whole thing. Indeed, what a suspense ! I think it is quite shame that this flick seems to be pretty much forgotten nowadays since it is actually, in my opinion, easily one of the best movies I have seen in this genre. Indeed, this movie was just so raw, so realistic, I really enjoyed how the whole thing almost looked like a documentary and it was seriously spellbinding to behold. What I most dislike in modern thrillers, is that they are always so over-the-top, even a great classic like ‘The Silence of the Lambs’. But this one stay grounded until the very end, it is really focused and just completely captivating from the beginning until the very end. When you look at the damned thing, it is pretty obvious that it would provide some great material for a modern remake and they did indeed try to remake it. The end-result would be ‘The Jackal’, a rather abysmal action starring Richard Gere and Bruce Willis. Seriously, when you watch this remake, you wonder how they managed to turn something so brilliant into something so tedious. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, I thought it was a great flick and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are tired of all those lame modern thrillers like me.

Can you believe that I have seen every single movie starring Eddie Murphy?!? Fortunately, I didn’t pay to watch any of them, I just saw them on TV for free but, even so, it felt like a huge waste of time after all. So, from all his movies, this one probably had one of the worst concepts and it was indeed a box office and critical failure when it was released. To be honest, even though it might sound surprising, I actually thought it was in fact not bad at all and, in my case, it was one of the very few movies starring Eddie Murphy which I found at least a little bit entertaining. I mean, even though Murphy was playing the lead, I didn’t care much for his character who was in fact rather lame and completely unbelievable. In fact,  it was Jeff Goldblum who really saved his movie for me. Indeed, even though the material was rather lame, I thought he was actually really good and very often quite hilarious. Anyway, to conclude, there is a fair chance that my rating might be way too high for this movie, it is indeed a rather average flick but I still think it is worth a look though, if only for Jeff Goldum.

To be honest, I’m not sure how I actually ended up watching this flick. I guess it was because there were a couple of interesting actors involved but it was definitely an obscure feature. Since I had never heard of this flick before, I didn't really know what to expect from the damned thing but, eventually, I thought it was actually pretty decent. I mean, obviously, it was nothing original and, usually, I don’t care for such thrillers as they always use the same old gimmicks. However, here, somehow, I thought that the story was fairly entertaining and the characters were interesting enough. Basically, it is a rather subtle movie and most of it worked very well. Above all, it was nice to see Edward Burns finally working in a nice movie for once. Indeed, I always had a weak spot for this actor but, to be honest, most of his recent movies have been some major garbage (‘27 dresses’, ‘A sound of thunder’, ‘One Missed Call, ‘Echelon Conspiracy’, ...). To conclude, maybe I was a little bit generous with my rating here but I thought it was a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you want to see something watchable starring Edward Burns.

To be honest, I wasn’t really expecting much from this flick but since it was starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, I thought I might as well check it out. In fact, I remember it quite well, for some reasons, at the end of the 90’s, with the end of the millennium coming up, the studio were trying to exploit the idea that , in 2000, it could be the end of the world with movies such as ‘Armageddon’, ‘Deep Impact’ and this one. Well, from the whole bunch, this movie was definitely the weakest one, I’m afraid. Honestly, I wasn't really impressed by Schwarzenegger in this flick but, at least, I though that Gabriel Byrne and Kevin Pollak had some good moments but it was certainly not enough to make this really entertaining. I still think that the whole thing had some potential but eventually, it was just a very lame movie. The main issue with this kind of features, in my opinion, is that they try to make you believe that they are all really dark and edgy but, at the end of the day, it is a just an average action movie with fewer lights on. To conclude, I didn’t care at all for this movie and I don’t think it is really worth a look.

To be honest, when I first heard about this movie, the whole concept didn’t appeal to me at all but since it was actually quite successful at the box-office, I thought I should check it out after all. Eventually, even though I wasn’t exactly a huge fan of the whole thing, I have to admit that it was pretty entertaining and I definitely had a good time watching this. Above all, I thought that Heath Ledger was very charismatic and Paul Bettany was pretty funny and, together, they made a very nice duo. Concerning the modern music in the soundtrack, it didn’t bother me but I didn’t really care for it either. In my opinion, it was a rather pointless attempt to give some edge to such a medieval story. Concerning the actors involved, it is rather sad that it didn’t turn out very well after all for any of them. Obviously, while Heath Ledger was supposed to become one of the greatest actors of his generation, he eventually tragically died 7 years later. The always charming Shannyn Sossamon, in her first part here, was hailed at the time as the next-hit girl but she disappeared very quickly and she shows up nowadays only in some really obscure movies. Finally, concerning Paul Bettany, he was another really talented actor who never really managed to fulfill the great expectations I had in him (he still managed to get married with Jennifer Connelly, arguably one of the most gorgeous women in the world). Anyway, coming back to our main feature, at the end of the day, I don’t believe it was something exceptional but it was a well done and harmless action flick and I think it is definitely worth a look.