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The Walk (2015)
Vertigo
Let's start by saying that this film, which really gives vertigo, is not up to the quality of the documentary "Man on Wire" which tells, without exaggeration, the same story in a more impressive and captivating way, and with an astonishing perfection (which earned him an Oscar for best documentary in 2008).
That said, The Walk is more a visual stunt than a prowess of actors, make-up, scenario or even faithfulness to actual events. The film has nonetheless a captivating rhythm and dynamic, and is satisfactory as a whole. The visual effects are quite good and those who see it in 3D will have the chance to get a good time in the shoes of the main character, in moments that will play with the nerves of those of us who suffer from the fear of heights! Some of my friends did not feel anything, but I'm still recovering from the discomfort felt from the vertiginous heights of this insane funambule. I never had that much vertigo watching a movie! ... It was almost unpleasant ... and that's clearly what I'll remember more than anything else.
Petals: Vagina Dialogues (2010)
Captivating and important, despite an amateur feel.
First, the visual and audio quality of the documentary (on Netflix at least) makes you think it has been taken from an old VHS tape from the 80s. The edit isn't good, and some of the camera shots aren't much professional. ... but really, it doesn't matters.
The subject of the documentary is quite captivating, and the reflections it brings on how women are at ease with their body really is eye opening. The reactions women have when they get to see the pictures of the book are totally pertinent and important, and it makes us think that we are not that much in an open society as we think we are.
Recommended for open-minded people, of for anybody curious to learn more about themselves or women.
Lucy (2014)
When a director only use 10% of its potential ...
From the start, the concept around which the story of the movie goes is a wacky myth from the 19th century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_percent_of_brain_myth
I had the impression of watching the childish fantasy of a guy who really wants to believe that the brain can contain an infinite potential, and justifies his theory in the film by making allusions to Darwin to get credibility. I must say, the story is ridiculous. The scenes keep coming without logic, and all we see are ideas without content that lack strong justifications.
How boring that was.
At least the actors do their work without ever excelling. The special effects are quite successful, except in a few places where we feel far from the Planet of the Apes ... It is quite a chance for us that the movie does not last longer than its short 1 hour and 25 minutes. This is a sometime satisfactory visual trip, with some interesting reflections about our human origins, but in general the film is just bad.
Luc Besson has failed the last movies he did, and this one is one of his worst. Maybe that's him who only use 10% of its ... potential.
I recommend watching something else.
Jacky au royaume des filles (2014)
Unique & crazy!
I saw this movie at the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal last night. The first thing that comes to my mind is that this movie is totally unique and a bit disturbing. It is not disturbing in an uncomfortable way, but more in the sens that it get to our world perceptions, and plays with it. This is what, in my opinion, makes the movie unique and worth seeing.
The story is simple, maybe too simple, and that is what I would criticize the most about the movie. What is great is the universe in which the characters evolve, and the choice to flip accepted and widely known real world concept upside down, which at the end makes them much more visible, and gives us the opportunity to see them in another angle. Men wear the burka and are totally dominated by women, which is an absurd situation which makes us laugh, but also makes us stop and think that in the end, it's the (sometime difficult and unwanted) reality of a lot of women in the real world. Humour in this movie always come with an realistic double sense that makes us feel weird, but also makes us think.
References to a lot of different totalitarian regimes in the real world are also interesting about the movie's universe, as are the references to different real world religions (Christianity is unfortunately not so much present).
The actors are good and the characters are credible. The images are well shot, and some strange places shot in the movie makes us wonder if they were incredibly real or fake.
I recommend watching the movie because it is special and unique, but I would probably not watch it again.
Vive les chevalins! :D
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)
What a crap!
I should first mention I didn't like the first movie either. So maybe I wasn't meant to like the second one.
Let's start with what is working well; Emma Stone is good in her role. She is a good actress, and shine in contrast with the other actors. Then some special effects are interesting to see (when he goes around in the city), and overall the vfx quality is quite successful.
But then, everything else is not working quite good. The worst of it all is; there is no storytelling, and no story to tell. The story is bad and stupid (the planes part at the end is ridiculous, and is there to fill a big lack in the story in itself to captivate us - it was meant to put an urgency factor in the fight against electro and spiderman because in itself it was too boring to watch), but the scenes are put together in a way it skips big chunk of story to tell, leaving some explanation to our imagination (why did Electro ended up in the hands of Oscorp and not the police after his first fight!?). The love scenes are so bad and filled with emotive confusion that they will probably relate way more the people aged between 13yo and 16yo than mature people. Both bad guys seems to be totally crazy people put in some powerful situation (we don't need a story to tell when our bad guy are bad only because they are crazy), they really lack any basic credibility. There is no subtlety in the way the story introduce its rules (we see the exploding battery rule implication from the very moment it is mentioned, like the place the new energy complex introduced at the very beginning of the movie will take). This felt soooo cheap! Then there is Andrew Garfield who is only credible in his role when he tells one of his bad jokes. When he cries or is supposed to be serious, he doesn't look sincere at all... I'm not quite sure he is really better than Tobey McGuire... anyway, better or worst, he isn't a good actor in this movie (what happened since the Social Network?).
Even if the effects are well done, some full CG fighting scenes at the end are just plainly boring to watch. It is so exaggerated that there is always something that looks fake, and overall we don't get the point of paying over 200 millions to make expensive scene feel so boring.
This movie feels like an addition of different small story or ideas not very well connected together, full of cliché, in a very boring context with boring characters (Electro is deceiving, as was the Green Goblin for the 5 minutes we see him). Speaking of the Green Goblin, he is so inferior to the previous franchise one, that we wonder why they needed to reboot the franchise so rapidly...
I'll stop here.
I don't know how to emphasis how much I disliked this movie. It was simply terrible.
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
Not so amazing Spider-Man...
I just came out of the movie theatre tonight. I feel very disappointed about the reboot of the Spider-Man movies. I don't understand why they did it if they can't do better than the Sam Raimi's movies.
Andrew Garfield's acting was just horrible. I always felt he wasn't really there, I felt his was out of touch with the character he was incarnating. Sometimes he had no emotions on his face, or he was overacting or simply had the wrong reaction to the events. It felt like he just didn't know what to do so he did anything he liked on the spot. It completely destroyed everything for me. He never looked like a convincing nerd, or never looked like a convincing boy who is supposed to be torn apart between loving a girl and fighting justice. He had too much attitude and not enough character defining acting. They never should have choose him.
Then the story of this movie was not so good. It felt like the director cut corners at some point to go straight to the point, which at the end made the story unreal and a bit boring. After all, we are looking at the exact same story we looked only 10 years ago but with a couple of not so interesting differences here and there. I just don't get the point to start again the same story if it is not as good or better as the first trilogy. At least we have a new bad guy, but why didn't they just continued the trilogy with this bad guy? The action isn't so good. The bad guy is very good looking except the fact he look to much CG for me. There are nice shots here and there in the movie, but a lot of scenes are very difficult to swallow because of the reaction of the characters or the way the story evolves. The hold up scene was awful...
I felt like I lost my time watching a bad copy of 2002's Spider-Man.
Fainaru fantajî XIII (2009)
Incomplete Final Fantasy,.. The worst of them all... but it is still OK.
!!SPOILERS!! Take Final Fantasy, and simplify it, automate it, make it linear. The linear part of the game would not be as bad if you actually could play the fights completely. But you control only one character, and you can let him decide his action by himself, leaving you with only choice to choose the enemies he will attack. There is no world map on which to move, no way to go back on the previous environment, no town and people to talk to... Everything is linear as hell. The story isn't so good, it is a bit too kitsch for me, but at least some concept and design are very interesting. It started so well, and was so promising, but it just seems that when everything is about to really start and go forward to its full potential, it is time to end the game. At the beginning you just want to go forward to reach this part of the game where you gain the full game potential, like in every other FF. But it never comes
At the end you reach a part where you can fight some very strong monster. This is the semi non-linear part. But you need to play another 50 hours only to kill monsters to be strong enough only to have a chance to kill them
which is enough time to go through 2 or 3 different better games than FF13.
This is the most deceiving Final Fantasy I ever played. I don't understand how people can tell it is the best one(game reviews after only 6 hours of playing the game are a bit early and not really useful
). Yes at least the visual is better than the other FF, but it is the only one on the PS3... we all expect the visual to be better... And the game-play complexity is like 25% of what FF12 was
But still
it is Final Fantasy. Those are always "good" games. Fans will like it. But still the 13th was a big deception to me
I think people should stop and realize how much this game is incomplete. That is the best description for it
incomplete.
Le dernier tunnel (2004)
Outstanding!! The best heist movie since a long time!
One of the best heist movies I've ever see in my whole life!
Michel Cote and the other actors are really intense. The thrill, the presentation and story are really captivating and get your hair straight on your head! Even the special effects are great!
This movie as been inspired from a real heist that happened in Montreal in the 90's, a story really incredible. This movie have something different from the other heist movie, it is more realistic, and then more captivating! A movie everybody must see!!
Quebec movie are beginning to kick a**!! This movie is almost as powerful as the Barbarian Invasions!!
Dans l'oeil du chat (2004)
A boring story, with a deceving ending.
Firts of all, at this movies first day on the big screen, critics were saying it was a great movie and star were saying it was really intense. We don't have the same description of intensity. If intensity is a lot of sex without reason, maybe they are right. But the movie is to me, more boring and empty of intensity than really pleasant.
The story is maybe the best thing of all the movie. But it's still not a real success. I suggest you to see something else...