zilief Reviews

10,000 BC (2008)

Is that a joke ???

[1/10 · 27 March 2008]

I thought First Knight or 300 were the dumbest movies ever made, I may be wrong ! This one is just another joke, which makes you think Apocalypto is a documentary... A messianic hero, a narrator, prophecies, and the love story...c'm'oooon guys you could have used a scenarist on this one !!! Just everything in the joke flattens out quickly, even the dull CGIs or the lame costumes. I do not speak about the joke language they use sometimes between the perfect English lines to make it "feel real"...

If you want to watch a movie, watch "la guerre du feu" or at least "the 13th warrior", which is finally enjoyable, and avoid that crap !

What's that ? Revisionism-tainment ??? And what happened to Hollywood ? Has everybody left the boat while sinking to work for television ???

First Knight (1995)

one of my favorite joke ever !

[1/10 · 27 March 2008]

Don't watch that unless you really wanna laugh ! Seeing those jerks running and saying lame lines while wearing Star-trek outfits in what seems to be as wild as Central Park can cause injuries to your nerves. Be prepared to laugh each time you see Richard Gere and his perfect hair and teeth, be prepared to cry each time poor Sir Connery gets in and seems lost... And of course, you have this smelly love-story, which ranks down from universal and everlasting to that awful comedy they call love in college movies. Don't waste your time unless you really wanna laugh with friends (don't watch it alone, as the guys who made it really thought this was a serious movie...) and go get a copy of Excalibur by John Boorman.

Definitely one of the cheapest film ever !!!

Secret Agents (2004)

everything's under control ...

[8/10 · 22 October 2006]

1-It's a spy movie. 2-It's not a James Bond.

Follow a team of cold-blooded, adrenaline-addicted of french secret agents on what seems to be a "simple" fire and forget mission.

Forget about sub cars, laser pens and kinky secret bases, this one is more about living a spy life, stuck in what smells like a "rainbow warrior" secret op. Frederic Schoendorffer and his crew made an impressive work on showing the pressure upon the characters, their loneliness and the void of their lives. A really clever choice is made whenever it comes to action : what they show us is not another dragon-ballish ballet, but short scenes that just tell that these people know what they're doing. There are lots of details, not the usual visible evidences that lead to colonel Mustard, and the real name of the game is planning. Get all that wrapped in a strong technical treatment (filming, editing and the sound work!) and you've got a movie that's not your usual popcorn spy flick but a real reflexion about what drools in the shadow of politics.

V for Vendetta (2005)

everything is relatiVe...it's just a moVie!

[8/10 · 23 May 2006]

I've just seen the movie and read a few of the "I hated it!" comments...Sorry to say to you all haters (some of you really scare me sometimes...), but I had a good time watching it, and therefore urges anyone wanting to get something with the popcorn to go and see it. And here's the point : seriously, what did you expect from the W. brothers? A popcorn-movie, no more no less, with some good lines, spectacular actions, nice photography and so on...Don't you tell me you went to see matrix to get your life changed, or I'm sorry to have to tell you you're a nerd! You just have to see the number of copies to realize it won't be nor revolutionary nor risky, as this is big money, and big money's granted by bankers if you're polite and able to get it back....This is NOT politics but entertainment! That's all folks! (for those who actually think it's dangerous for the sake of society to entertain with such subjects, well, too bad for you URSS and South Africa are no more...). Well you can argue that it's a bit like a real-time revolution on MTV (yeah revolt is cool yeah dude,yeah, is there some coke in the fridge?), but I see it more like entertainment has to deal with what frightens people ; and as you see what happens in the world nowadays, you can easily understand that people do want to be entertained with a happy-ending revolution. And yes, the movie isn't as good as the comics is, as the comics IS a jewel, but this is the name of the game : read it again or read it, but you can enjoy the movie just by remembering what's around : it's way better than any I'm or blockbuster yet playing. I'm just saying you cannot compare a movie involving so much people and money with an author's work on any book.(even if being published also is like swimming with sharks, but the sharks are a bit less hungry...) Face reality : cinema may have been a 7th art, but now its bowels are stuck in the bankers' hands... So, as far as entertainment is concerned, V is a good popcorn-movie, worth the ticket...As for the rest, well once you're out, you still have plenty of time to read books. Oh, and Natalie Portman...oh my...She's great!(Looks like the Ripley capillary syndrome's back...Nothing like shaving to start again and forget star wars) Special mention to Hugo Weaving, as he does a great job being emotional with a mask on! This guy is really good at making simple characters quite unique.

Special mention (2) to all the casting, as many of the background characters really fit.The bad ones really look like they've to, and Stephen Rea's perfect as the not-so-sure-to-be-bad inspector. Thus, plus the fact that FX are cool, soundtrack is OK, and it has everything you want to spend two hours. So if you don't feel like watching another Takashi Miike tonight and if you just want a good popcorn-movie so you can sleep well after, then go for V! You won't regret!

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (2006)

heeeeey but...but it' really funny!

[9/10 · 20 May 2006]

Seems like M.Hazanavicius is back!The man behind "la classe américaine" comes back with a really fun and clever sequel to those old-fashioned OSS-117...Whereas directors tend to "over-actualize" sequels of old classics (remember the avengers,urk), Hazanavicius chose to work on a really cheap hero, OSS-117, a kind of low-budget french 007, and decides to do it in a old-school way...The photography, the body attitudes, the fights choreography and the FX, everything is like an homage to the way films were made back in the 50s.And it works, as the tone and jokes of the movie are really good! Jean Dujardin embodies perfectly this stupid-arrogant-macho-selfish french spy, lost in a country he understands only in terms of folklore and inferiority.Yes, that's it, just the way the occident uses to consider its colonies back then (and, oh no, I won't say it has anything to do with what happens nowadays in the very same area...ah ah)...He just looks like an unfrozen Lino Ventura, with something like 40 pounds less, which is perfect for the role.The other members of the cast fit perfectly as well, with all you can dream of Russian spies, Egyptian independantists and former Nazis.And of course, the women, as there has to be "femmes fatales" in any good spy-movies... The plot is good (maybe not brilliant but really good enough...), taking place between actual historical facts, and remembering us in a funny way how France (and the others) treated its colonies back in those days. It all starts in 1955 with a British spy disappearing while tracking a Russian cargo full of weapons in Suez.Then France sends his best friend, agent OSS-117, to discover what happened to both the shipment and the agent... The fact is that this agent is really as dumb as can be, and he slips through the story without even understanding it, solving it in a very clouseau-esquire way. I have to say I had a bad feeling about the movie, as the publicity made around it was quite frightening, and as french humor tends to be quite populist and flat (forget about les bronzés 3 or camping...) but I was really surprised, and in the good way! I highly recommend it, whether you want a good parody of Bond-esquire movies (much more fun than in D.E.B.S. for example, but less skirts) or you're a fan of that genuine and candid way of filming they had back in the 5Os. Yes, that's it clever and (really!) funny, you've got the point once again Mr Hazanavicius!

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

The best Z-word--movie ever, closer to you than it ever was!

[10/10 · 20 May 2006]

Some movies just perfectly fit one genre, so that they finally overwhelm it...This is here the case, just as "the good, the bad and the ugly" is more than just the best western-movie ever... "Shaun of the dead" uses the symbolics of the zombie invasion as it was used in the first Romero's : we're all already dead folks, as far as modern life is concerned(OK, I promise I won't talk about symbolism anymore...)...Thus, plus the fact that all of this is done in a really funny and genre-respectful way! Shaun is something like an impossible crossover between the Z-movie and the 30like sitcom, with a 30like yo hero stuck in a store selling TV sets alongside with dull acneic teens thinking (and telling) he's a loser...By the time he realizes the world is being invaded by man-eating zombies, his girlfriend drops him out, which seems to be far more uneasy for him to accept than the rest... If you add the fact that it's always flipping between the rawest comedy and the harshest drama, things are beginning to get really good for you viewer, as the more you laugh, the more the characters get sympathetic, and the more you get really touched by what happens to them (as opposed, for example, to the fact that we don't give a f*ck about whatever happens to Neo in Matrix...).This is a brilliantly efficient way to keep you concerned and surprised from the beginning to the end. Another trick used to get you wondering what you might do might it happen to you (and yes you wonder, even if you rationally know that this won't happen...) is what I call the proximity-FX, having a hero so ordinary, his best friend selling weed and playing VG all day long, and a goal twisting between avoiding to be eaten alive and getting the girlfriend back...In this category enters something you in the US probably won't feel as much as we do in Europe: you're used to see your streets filled with Dodge and Chrysler exploding while being chased by crazy-machine-gunslinging choppers (this is America, I saw it on TV!), but we're not! And I admit that seeing anyone trying to flee away from a zombie-horde in a red renault Megane definitely gives me the creeps, as this is one car I may actually use if I ever have to do it myself! Go and run to your video-store if you had'n't seen it yet as anything in this movie is perfect: the whole cast (the dead-in-his-heart employee-of-the-month, the Bigbie-like best friend and his invasive weed business and laziness, the very touching mother and father-in-law, all of the team following Shaun and the mirror-team following his ex-girlfriend,the girlfriends' friends looking like a grown-up and boring Harry Potter and a living Barbie doll...)as they all fit perfectly written characters, the filming (watch for the double and mirrored sequence shot in the beginning or the plans to get the girlfriend back!), the twisted yet classic scenario illuminated with instant-cult-scenes (you don't know yet but a vinyl of Sade may actually save your life!)... All of these make this movie an absolute must-see!go and get it,buy it, rent it or steal it, buy popcorn, sit well and enjoy alone,with your friends,girl/boy-friend or dog or grandma or anyone you want to have with you when you have a real good time!Shaun rocks!!!

La classe américaine (1993 TV Movie)

Clever+stoopid=fun!

[10/10 · 20 May 2006]

I'm still wondering how Canal + may have produced such a bombshell...Producing a movie sampling so much 70s classics surely was a producer's nightmare but, hey, it was worth the pain! George Abitbol, aka John Wayne, aka the hippest man on earth, disappears leaving only a few words..."Shitty world". Reminds you of Citizen Kane? Well, that's it and this is not the only movie you'll be thinking of, as the whole movie is sampled from all-time classics, with Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford or Steve Mc Queen on his trail...You'll also have cameos of Ernest Borgnine, Jean-Michael Vincent and so on...In fact, if you happened to watch TV during the last 2 decades, you have already seen that movie, just not in that order! The work on the editing of the whole is simply brilliant, and should be studied in any audiovisual school... If you love stupid humor, irreverence and smart dumb-a$$ jokes, this one is for you!If there was a reason to learn french, this is it, as I really don't know how this can be translated... This is definitely a must-see for anyone willing whether to pee his pants, or learn french or editing.Run for it!