I wont babble too much on this review. The movie is visually stunning, but with almost 40 years of experience in special effects and a massive budget, could it be otherwise ? The score is way way less inspiring than the original ones which is a score you can listen to without watching the movies as it is one of the best movie scores ever written. The rest is totally unappealing... A was intrigued for a half hour, annoyed for another 30 minutes and then found myself waiting for the end to come as soon as possible as everything got really bad and tiring. I remember my reaction when seeing the prequels : we were all swept of our feet in contempt because seeing Star Wars come back to the screen was was we had waited for for about 2 decades. But as time passed and we saw these movies again we started to see everything that was wrong with them an now the consensus admits they are quite bad movies and they surely cannot come to grips with the original ones. I'm quite sure it will be the same with these ones, once the emotional effect gives way and people regain their senses. 3 out of ten for the visuals and the star wars universe, the rest is rubbish.
Reviews
10 Reviews
Barry Lyndon
(1975)
Mesmerizing, cinematography at its best
30 August 2015
I will not get into reviewing the history of the movie, as there are plenty of analysis on IMDb which are great in doing so.
I personally think this is Kubrick's best movie by far, having seen them all, and seen again ( again recently, 2001, the Shining, A Clockwork Orange and Full Metal Jacket ).
As another reviewer perfectly said, Barry Lyndon is like a moving 3 hour long Caravaggio display, with a haunting soundtrack and every shot is just perfect.
I often enrage at seeing any movie on IMDb rated 10/10 over any pretext and I imagine most of these rating are made by teenagers without enough experience or maturity to make a decent critic about a movie.
As a moviegoer myself and son of a real movie frantic, being 43 now, I must have seen about 5 000 to 10 000 movies in my lifetime, of all genres and all countries. For 20 years now I have sticked to having only four 10/10 movies that immediately come to my mind : Barry Lyndon, Amadeus, Lawrence of Arabia and Elephant Man. They are perfect and more importantly, timeless.
Thank you Mr Kubrick for this magnificent oeuvre d'art !
I personally think this is Kubrick's best movie by far, having seen them all, and seen again ( again recently, 2001, the Shining, A Clockwork Orange and Full Metal Jacket ).
As another reviewer perfectly said, Barry Lyndon is like a moving 3 hour long Caravaggio display, with a haunting soundtrack and every shot is just perfect.
I often enrage at seeing any movie on IMDb rated 10/10 over any pretext and I imagine most of these rating are made by teenagers without enough experience or maturity to make a decent critic about a movie.
As a moviegoer myself and son of a real movie frantic, being 43 now, I must have seen about 5 000 to 10 000 movies in my lifetime, of all genres and all countries. For 20 years now I have sticked to having only four 10/10 movies that immediately come to my mind : Barry Lyndon, Amadeus, Lawrence of Arabia and Elephant Man. They are perfect and more importantly, timeless.
Thank you Mr Kubrick for this magnificent oeuvre d'art !
Mad Max: Fury Road
(2015)
Don't get addicted to gasoline because it will ruin your movie
23 June 2015
Warning: Spoilers
As per usual when a big blockbuster comes out, some hype part of its viewers scream this is the new ultimate masterpiece that is so good they don't understand why a new religion based on it shouldn't be started immediately.
Do not get fooled : George Miller has only done what was needed to make his movie ultra popular and in this, he has succeeded. But as a movie in whole, he fails and delivers a quite lame production.
I'm not a big fan of the original Mad Max series. The 1st had its moments, the Thunderdome was a failure, but The Road Warrior was an excellent movie. I watched it again some months ago to show it to my 18 year old daughter and was still amazed by the quality of its production, its story, its multi-dimensional characters and its outrageous violence in relation to the era it was released. Foremost, it had a feel of reality that made its post-apocalyptic world totally believable ( the canned dog food scene, the fight for gasoline, the bad guys, the vehicles, etc... ).
Fury Road tries hard to revive this atmosphere... and fails.
Where Mel Gibson ( and others ) delivered a complex character, chaotic and selfish, Tom Hardy delivers nothing at all, as for the other characters that have only a few lines in stock. Thus, as it has been much said by other reviewers, it's hard to connect with them and in the end, we don't care if they live or die.
Where The Road Warrior provided a sense of reality in its everyday world, in Fury Road, the Gothic designs bring only stupidity and make things laughable ( in a world where everything is scarce, who would build a car with 2 decks one on top of the other, or who would be idiot enough to build a vehicle whose only purpose is to convey a mad metal guitarist and drummers ? ).
In ANY world, who would be stupid enough to warn anybody that being addicted to water is dangerous ? Must we remind Fury Road's villain that without water, even the baddest guy would die in a matter of 36 hours max ? What is left of Fury Road is the usual blockbuster parade : action, explosions, more action and more explosions. In that, the movies achieves what it was aimed for : mindless violence for the masses.
As for me, I got bored after the first 30 minutes and while I kept going, and despite a honorable realization and editing, I couldn't get back into the movie and waited for it to end as soon as possible.
Conclusion : watch to be able to say you've seen it ( and then have enough matter at hand to criticize it ), but when it's time to watch it again, stick to the Road Warrior.
Do not get fooled : George Miller has only done what was needed to make his movie ultra popular and in this, he has succeeded. But as a movie in whole, he fails and delivers a quite lame production.
I'm not a big fan of the original Mad Max series. The 1st had its moments, the Thunderdome was a failure, but The Road Warrior was an excellent movie. I watched it again some months ago to show it to my 18 year old daughter and was still amazed by the quality of its production, its story, its multi-dimensional characters and its outrageous violence in relation to the era it was released. Foremost, it had a feel of reality that made its post-apocalyptic world totally believable ( the canned dog food scene, the fight for gasoline, the bad guys, the vehicles, etc... ).
Fury Road tries hard to revive this atmosphere... and fails.
Where Mel Gibson ( and others ) delivered a complex character, chaotic and selfish, Tom Hardy delivers nothing at all, as for the other characters that have only a few lines in stock. Thus, as it has been much said by other reviewers, it's hard to connect with them and in the end, we don't care if they live or die.
Where The Road Warrior provided a sense of reality in its everyday world, in Fury Road, the Gothic designs bring only stupidity and make things laughable ( in a world where everything is scarce, who would build a car with 2 decks one on top of the other, or who would be idiot enough to build a vehicle whose only purpose is to convey a mad metal guitarist and drummers ? ).
In ANY world, who would be stupid enough to warn anybody that being addicted to water is dangerous ? Must we remind Fury Road's villain that without water, even the baddest guy would die in a matter of 36 hours max ? What is left of Fury Road is the usual blockbuster parade : action, explosions, more action and more explosions. In that, the movies achieves what it was aimed for : mindless violence for the masses.
As for me, I got bored after the first 30 minutes and while I kept going, and despite a honorable realization and editing, I couldn't get back into the movie and waited for it to end as soon as possible.
Conclusion : watch to be able to say you've seen it ( and then have enough matter at hand to criticize it ), but when it's time to watch it again, stick to the Road Warrior.
Insidious: Chapter 2
(2013)
Dreadful
9 December 2013
The only thing really scary about this movie is that people seem to have loved it. Compared to screen gems as The Exorcist, The Entity( with B. Hershey too ), The Omen, Scanners, The Thing, Rec, The Haunting, Dawn of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, it has absolutely nothing to offer : no characters, no atmosphere at all ( fumes ARE NOT atmosphere ), very bad storytelling, mediocre acting, a very messy story, and terrible wanna be fun moments that have nothing to do in a movie supposed to scare you. The Conjuring was far better imho, avoid this one at all costs ! I wonder how much people have been paid to review this mess as "the movie that would stop the earth from spinning were it a bit scarier". By the way, stop putting à 10/10 from a movie that is "scary but not a great movie" ! Movies that deserve a 10/10 should be a handful at most and not some rubbish made to make money on behalf of no brainers under 18 who have seen at most a 100 film in their lives( "the best horror movie I have ever seen" ). Pathetic !
The Wolverine
(2013)
Another total waste of Marvel universe
8 November 2013
Warning: Spoilers
Terrible movie, quite as bad as the latest 3 or 4 in the X-Men series. Seems that Superheroes movies have nothing to say anymore. Apart from the train scene which is quite decent, everything is lame in this movie.
I read a review saying that the F. word was used only once to avoid the R rating. It's a shame that writers are trying to avoid that kind of mistake but are encouraged to make horrible scenes recalling WW2 in a very non historic manner which is unbearable to me Just to make things clear : there was certainly no POW camp in Nagasaki. Logan could't have known about Fat Boy just because he heard and saw a B52. Anyways, he couldn't event have seen the B52 ( there was only 1 to drop the bomb ) because if the plane launched the bomb from only a few thousand feet as in the movie, it would have been blown away immediately. Instead the B52 cruised above 30 thousand feet. The bomb did not explode when reaching the soil but about 3000 feet above ground. Furthermore, I doubt there were many Japanese soldiers that freed their American prisoners upon getting beaten so all of this is plain pointless.
I know this is only to make a movie but to me this is very bad movie-making, and I'm not speaking about the rest of the movie which is even worse.
I was a huge fan of Wolverine in the series debut in 2000 but now it seems that Mr Jackman is screened only to be seen growling around and looking bad-ass without a purpose.
Stick to Bryan Singer's original X-Men which was an intelligent movie ( as well as bad-ass ), and X-Men 2 which was quite decent. The rest is rubbish !
I read a review saying that the F. word was used only once to avoid the R rating. It's a shame that writers are trying to avoid that kind of mistake but are encouraged to make horrible scenes recalling WW2 in a very non historic manner which is unbearable to me Just to make things clear : there was certainly no POW camp in Nagasaki. Logan could't have known about Fat Boy just because he heard and saw a B52. Anyways, he couldn't event have seen the B52 ( there was only 1 to drop the bomb ) because if the plane launched the bomb from only a few thousand feet as in the movie, it would have been blown away immediately. Instead the B52 cruised above 30 thousand feet. The bomb did not explode when reaching the soil but about 3000 feet above ground. Furthermore, I doubt there were many Japanese soldiers that freed their American prisoners upon getting beaten so all of this is plain pointless.
I know this is only to make a movie but to me this is very bad movie-making, and I'm not speaking about the rest of the movie which is even worse.
I was a huge fan of Wolverine in the series debut in 2000 but now it seems that Mr Jackman is screened only to be seen growling around and looking bad-ass without a purpose.
Stick to Bryan Singer's original X-Men which was an intelligent movie ( as well as bad-ass ), and X-Men 2 which was quite decent. The rest is rubbish !
Queen Margot
(1994)
Terrible
25 September 2013
Warning: Spoilers
For those wanting to know the original story, please make the effort to read the book by Alexandre Dumas.
This being said, this movie has everything I hate in french cinema ( I myself am french ! ) : it is pretentious, badly interpreted, the original story was largely rewritten and furthermore, I found the movie to be incoherent and incomprehensible. Dumas must be dancing in his grave ! When I see IMDb critics saying that this is a great artistic movie, I wonder if people saw the same movie I did...
Topmost, I find it inadmissible that Chereau permits himself to rewrite such a masterpiece written by one of France's most beloved writers, as if what Dumas wrote wasn't good enough to make a decent movie. It is a common flaw in movie making to change the story pretexting that the original material isn't suited for screen play.
A few examples : the St Barthelemy night which we have to endure for a long 15 or more minutes in the movie merely takes one page on the 600 of the book...
As for the friendship between La Mole and Coconnas ( who are amongst the most interesting characters of the book ) which is at the center of the original material, it is largely omitted in the movie and furthermore is totally incoherent : after fighting to the death and being quite unknown to each other, the fall in each other's arms in one ridiculous scene that had me laugh because it was so bad.
Anyways, all this is bad french cinema making, the kind which we would like to stop seeing. Do not bother to waste your time on that piece of trash and rather watch real french cinema d'auteur like Coup de Torchon or Rene Clair's movies which are the real heritage of french movie making that knew about the art, but are from another age which is sadly over.
Pityful ! PS : sorry my English isn't good enough to say everything I despise in this movie with the language it would require.
This being said, this movie has everything I hate in french cinema ( I myself am french ! ) : it is pretentious, badly interpreted, the original story was largely rewritten and furthermore, I found the movie to be incoherent and incomprehensible. Dumas must be dancing in his grave ! When I see IMDb critics saying that this is a great artistic movie, I wonder if people saw the same movie I did...
Topmost, I find it inadmissible that Chereau permits himself to rewrite such a masterpiece written by one of France's most beloved writers, as if what Dumas wrote wasn't good enough to make a decent movie. It is a common flaw in movie making to change the story pretexting that the original material isn't suited for screen play.
A few examples : the St Barthelemy night which we have to endure for a long 15 or more minutes in the movie merely takes one page on the 600 of the book...
As for the friendship between La Mole and Coconnas ( who are amongst the most interesting characters of the book ) which is at the center of the original material, it is largely omitted in the movie and furthermore is totally incoherent : after fighting to the death and being quite unknown to each other, the fall in each other's arms in one ridiculous scene that had me laugh because it was so bad.
Anyways, all this is bad french cinema making, the kind which we would like to stop seeing. Do not bother to waste your time on that piece of trash and rather watch real french cinema d'auteur like Coup de Torchon or Rene Clair's movies which are the real heritage of french movie making that knew about the art, but are from another age which is sadly over.
Pityful ! PS : sorry my English isn't good enough to say everything I despise in this movie with the language it would require.
Conan the Barbarian
(2011)
Another poop from Hollywood
20 June 2012
Hollywood does it again !
Reading reviews, I see people saying they loved it because :
It's action packed and Momoa kicks ass... Should you want ass kicking, just watch the Ultimate Fighting Championship, at least they're real fights where the biggest man can get KO by a single punch, not a godlike kid slaying 15+ fighters without even getting a scratch. Crap !
Momoa really stands as Conan (?) I though Momoa was really excellent in Game of Thrones, which is actually another proof that a very good actor can be really very bad if directed by a guy with absolutely no talent and no vision. Crap again !
The movie respects R.E.Howard's writing (?). I've not read Conan, but if it does then simply Howard's not Tolkien, and his writing is... crap again !
But again some didn't't like it because... it has no 3D. Come on guys, would you grow up a bit ? Movies aren't disneys rollercoasters !
So, in summary, crap, crap, crap and crap again !
I too didn't like the original... when I was 10. Since then, I evolved and understood that even it has a curious cast ( Arnold being one of the worst actors ever, Sandhal Bergman being a dancer and not an actor ), they were such brilliantly directed by Milius that they gave birth to a really poetic vision of sword & sorcery, summarized in the first scene ( Conan's father being a simple prop of the set, again brilliantly directed ) : "for no one in this world can you trust, not beast, not men... this you can trust" and served by probably the best picture soundtrack ever written ( by Mr Poledouris ).
I'll go watch it again to wash myself of this ridiculous nonsense of modern movie making which makes me sicker and sicker !
Reading reviews, I see people saying they loved it because :
It's action packed and Momoa kicks ass... Should you want ass kicking, just watch the Ultimate Fighting Championship, at least they're real fights where the biggest man can get KO by a single punch, not a godlike kid slaying 15+ fighters without even getting a scratch. Crap !
Momoa really stands as Conan (?) I though Momoa was really excellent in Game of Thrones, which is actually another proof that a very good actor can be really very bad if directed by a guy with absolutely no talent and no vision. Crap again !
The movie respects R.E.Howard's writing (?). I've not read Conan, but if it does then simply Howard's not Tolkien, and his writing is... crap again !
But again some didn't't like it because... it has no 3D. Come on guys, would you grow up a bit ? Movies aren't disneys rollercoasters !
So, in summary, crap, crap, crap and crap again !
I too didn't like the original... when I was 10. Since then, I evolved and understood that even it has a curious cast ( Arnold being one of the worst actors ever, Sandhal Bergman being a dancer and not an actor ), they were such brilliantly directed by Milius that they gave birth to a really poetic vision of sword & sorcery, summarized in the first scene ( Conan's father being a simple prop of the set, again brilliantly directed ) : "for no one in this world can you trust, not beast, not men... this you can trust" and served by probably the best picture soundtrack ever written ( by Mr Poledouris ).
I'll go watch it again to wash myself of this ridiculous nonsense of modern movie making which makes me sicker and sicker !
Wrath of the Titans
(2012)
Awful : 150M gone to ashes
10 June 2012
No spoilers ahead : this movie has everything I hate about Hollywood blockbusters, that is characters as thin as the paper I use make my cigarettes, dumb plot, horrendous CGI in almost every sequence, good actors turned bad ( Neeson going from Shindler's List to this garbage is quite a deception ), other actors that cashed 10+M whilst having no previous acting experience, terribly stupid dialog at times ( you look 10 thousand years younger )... Avoid at all costs and go for Jason and the Argonauts to see what making movies is about.
At least the first one had the Kraken that was nice... This one has nothing ! Shame on anyone involved in this.
Thinking that 150M were put in this dumb sh... whilst people are starving makes me ashamed to live in the same world as the guys who committed themselves in this project.
Only thing that makes me even more horrified is the people giving it a note between 8 and 10 and pledging for Oscars for such a piece of crap.
Wake up guys !!! Cant you see you're made to swallow crap ? Boycott any further Hollywood blockbuster crap for Christ's sake !
At least the first one had the Kraken that was nice... This one has nothing ! Shame on anyone involved in this.
Thinking that 150M were put in this dumb sh... whilst people are starving makes me ashamed to live in the same world as the guys who committed themselves in this project.
Only thing that makes me even more horrified is the people giving it a note between 8 and 10 and pledging for Oscars for such a piece of crap.
Wake up guys !!! Cant you see you're made to swallow crap ? Boycott any further Hollywood blockbuster crap for Christ's sake !
John Carter
(2012)
Another lame US blockbuster for brainless viewers
19 May 2012
With John Carter, the blockbuster industry comes up with yet another lame sci-fi flick where raw meaningless action teams with totally uninteresting theme / protagonists to give some of the worst movies ever produced...
Apparently, making high end CGI 3D movies is a winner since there is no use anymore for charismatic characters with a PSYCHOLOGY, neither for a plot ( apart from having the world being saved again and again by... an all American hero ) but only for dull action moments and ubber-cheesy talk ( me lovely good princess don't want to marry the bad guy who's sooo mean to everyone ).
No spoilers ahead, this movie is once again a 90% copy of all the late failures which have rotten my screen lately : from Avatar to the Avengers, it's always the same : more action, more CGI, more blow your eyes with explosions, and less of everything else that has made good movies for over 100 years.
Few very good actors ( from the Rome series actually, my favorite all timer ) share the green CGI background with voices of good actors badly used and with one of the dullest actors living ( come on, the guy from Wolverine with his cards and his wand ? ) cannot do anything to raise the level of this piece of crap, but I imagine even good actors need a very bad blockbuster role sometime in order to pay the rent.
All these guys look like morons in their capes and robes, speaking martian gibberish ! Maybe I'll watch 2001 - A space odyssey in order to wash myself.
Tasteless and senseless - avoid !
Apparently, making high end CGI 3D movies is a winner since there is no use anymore for charismatic characters with a PSYCHOLOGY, neither for a plot ( apart from having the world being saved again and again by... an all American hero ) but only for dull action moments and ubber-cheesy talk ( me lovely good princess don't want to marry the bad guy who's sooo mean to everyone ).
No spoilers ahead, this movie is once again a 90% copy of all the late failures which have rotten my screen lately : from Avatar to the Avengers, it's always the same : more action, more CGI, more blow your eyes with explosions, and less of everything else that has made good movies for over 100 years.
Few very good actors ( from the Rome series actually, my favorite all timer ) share the green CGI background with voices of good actors badly used and with one of the dullest actors living ( come on, the guy from Wolverine with his cards and his wand ? ) cannot do anything to raise the level of this piece of crap, but I imagine even good actors need a very bad blockbuster role sometime in order to pay the rent.
All these guys look like morons in their capes and robes, speaking martian gibberish ! Maybe I'll watch 2001 - A space odyssey in order to wash myself.
Tasteless and senseless - avoid !
Avatar
(2009)
Déçu de la "révolution" Avatar
26 December 2009
Je ne suis pas un fou de Cameron dans l'absolu mais j'ai vu tous ses films et j'en ai aimé beaucoup ( Terminator et Abyss surtout ). C'est un cinéaste solide qui, si on peut le classer dans la catégorie des Emmerich et autres réalisateurs aimant faire toujours plus gros, plus fort et plus cher, parvient en revanche à faire plus que de simples blockbusters sans âme.
Ayant entendu ledit Cameron se vanter de produire ici un film qui est sur le point de "révolutionner et redéfinir le cinéma", il me fallait voir par moi-même si révolution était le terme approprié.
Après 2h30 d'un ennui intense, je dois dire que pour moi la réponse est clairement non ! Si on définit le cinéma en termes de budget, effets spéciaux et recettes alors oui Avatar a certainement sa place dans les 10 premier du top iMDB : 400 millions de dollars, pas un plan réel non travaillé par informatique sur 2h30 de film et il gagne déjà de l'argent dix jours après sa sortie mondiale. Un indéniable succès financier.
En revanche, si on définit le cinéma en termes d'art alors malheureusement le résultat est beaucoup plus mitigé. Certes les images sont superbes, la musique solide et en bonne adéquation avec l'image. Mais le principal est pour moi absent : le scénario est épais comme une feuille de papier à cigarette, la psychologie des personnages ne vaut pas beaucoup mieux, et tout est totalement manichéen : les méchants humains qui veulent faire du mal aux gentils extraterrestres. Ca sent le produit marketting de masse à plein nez, et on s'ennuie ferme pour peu qu'on ait un peu d'exigence dans ces domaines.
Le film se résume pour moi à une entrée en matière rapide et sans goût, suivie par plus d'une heure de comtemplatisme béat sur les beaux paysages numériques sortis de l'imagination des équipes de Cameron et enfin une guéguerre insipide servant de paroxysme à cette débauche de CGI. A aucun moment je n'ai pu entrer dans le film ou m'intéresser à ses personnages.
Pour résumer, le cinéma en tant que produit a peut-être gagné quelque chose avec cette superproduction, le cinéma en tant qu'art certainement pas.
Note globale : 4 à cause de la déception engendrée par tout ce gâchis.
Ayant entendu ledit Cameron se vanter de produire ici un film qui est sur le point de "révolutionner et redéfinir le cinéma", il me fallait voir par moi-même si révolution était le terme approprié.
Après 2h30 d'un ennui intense, je dois dire que pour moi la réponse est clairement non ! Si on définit le cinéma en termes de budget, effets spéciaux et recettes alors oui Avatar a certainement sa place dans les 10 premier du top iMDB : 400 millions de dollars, pas un plan réel non travaillé par informatique sur 2h30 de film et il gagne déjà de l'argent dix jours après sa sortie mondiale. Un indéniable succès financier.
En revanche, si on définit le cinéma en termes d'art alors malheureusement le résultat est beaucoup plus mitigé. Certes les images sont superbes, la musique solide et en bonne adéquation avec l'image. Mais le principal est pour moi absent : le scénario est épais comme une feuille de papier à cigarette, la psychologie des personnages ne vaut pas beaucoup mieux, et tout est totalement manichéen : les méchants humains qui veulent faire du mal aux gentils extraterrestres. Ca sent le produit marketting de masse à plein nez, et on s'ennuie ferme pour peu qu'on ait un peu d'exigence dans ces domaines.
Le film se résume pour moi à une entrée en matière rapide et sans goût, suivie par plus d'une heure de comtemplatisme béat sur les beaux paysages numériques sortis de l'imagination des équipes de Cameron et enfin une guéguerre insipide servant de paroxysme à cette débauche de CGI. A aucun moment je n'ai pu entrer dans le film ou m'intéresser à ses personnages.
Pour résumer, le cinéma en tant que produit a peut-être gagné quelque chose avec cette superproduction, le cinéma en tant qu'art certainement pas.
Note globale : 4 à cause de la déception engendrée par tout ce gâchis.
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