U.S. Marshals (1998)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1998
	Director: Stuart Baird (Star Trek: Nemesis)
	Actors: Tommy Lee Jones (Men in Black 1-3, The Fugitive), Wesley Snipes (Demolition Man, Blade 1-3), Robert Downey Jr. (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Iron Man 1-3)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller, Polar
	Conditions of visioning: 14.04.2019, VOD, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard (Jones) and his team of Marshals are assigned to track down Sheridan (Snipes), who has been accused of a double-murder.
Review: After enjoying The Fugitive, I waited just a few weeks before watching this sequel which I guessed was not as good. In order to give the audience more of what it liked in the first movie, in this one another innocent prisoner escapes in incredible circumstances and is tracked by U. S. Marshall Samuel Gerard and his team. Exit Harrison Ford replaced by Wesley Snipes who was quite popular at that time, just before leading in the Blade Trilogy which were his last big roles. In fact, although I find him usually overplaying, in U. S. Marshals I find him rather reserved which is a good thing and may be because he is not the lead in this movie (Jones is). In the end it is a well-thought sequel: we get more of what we liked in The Fugitive but of course scaled up: plane crash instead of train, Gerard shows off more than ever, a race across the country with many unpredictable encounters with the fugitive to keep the tension high, an extra-complexity in the story (via the character play by Robert Downey Jr.), a less omnipotent Marshal, and that fugitive being more than meets the eyes. However, I didn't like that last addition which detached the fugitive from the audience, where in the first movie we were really feeling for this innocent victim (the surgeon) that could have been any of us. I find that this build-up of more action was not always justified nor necessary. I think they nailed it in The Fugitive and it was hard to do anything different enough and better at the same time. A pleasant attempt anyway.
Rating: 6 /10

Lost in Space (1998)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1998
	Director: Stephen Hopkins (Predator 2, Blown Away)
	Actors: Gary Oldman (The Dark Knight, Darkest Hour), William Hurt (Dark City, A History of Violence), Matt LeBlanc (Friends TV-series)
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF
	Conditions of visioning: 06.03.2019, VOD, 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: Looking for a place where to escape from a dying Earth, the Robinson family embarks on a 10-year trip in cryo-sleep. But from the start it will not go as expected.
Review: This is the cinema adaptation of a beloved 1960's TV-show, well at least in the US, I never heard of it being shown in Europe (only much later). A series that was recently remade under the Netflix banner, which shows that its story has something, and I think it is the family-concept. Aptly named the Robinson, they are accompanied by a robot and a cold soldier, but remain a family and in the 60's series at least, this meant that the audience could connect to them as they would face similar trials, but in an exotic setting. This was true at that time when the television was the weekly rallying point for the whole family, this is not the same for a one-off movie, or for a web series to watch alone on your mobile device. So the movie has that disadvantage. Also, it is obvious that it was too ambitious for its time (only five years after Jurassic Park), especially regarding special effects which go from acceptable for the opening space battle to poor for most of the movie to awful (the monkey, oh my god!). Shove that aside (if you can) and I was left with the same impression as when I first saw it: a moderately nice little Space conquest SF movie which were too rare at that time with a few nice elements to it: Matt Leblanc trying to distance himself from his Friends character, a relatively complex time-travel story,  a sense of dream and exploration, William Hurt does his best, and a really cool design for the final monster (it probably haunted my dreams at the time of release) at least until it removes its clothes and shows its hideous CGIs. OK I am grasping at straws, the movie is difficult to defend, the latex costumes are so 90's, the family members are ultra-caricatural, the physics and reactions of the characters often don't make any sense, and the special effects are really, really difficult to watch.
Rating: 4 /10

Mercury Rising (1998)

	Also Known As: Code Mercury
	Year of first release: 1998
	Director: Harold Becker
	Actors: Bruce Willis (The 6th Sense, Die Hard 1-5), Miko Hughes, Alec Baldwin (The Hunt for Red October, Pearl Harbor)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama, Thriller, Polar
	Conditions of visioning: 12.11.2017, VOD, 40" TV screen
Synopsis: When a 9-year old autistic kid (Hughes) deciphers the latest military encryption code, an FBI agent (Willis) will have to protect him against the NSA agents that see him only as a threat.
Review: Teaming up Bruce Willis in a movie with any kid in the 90's would unavoidably have resulted in a buddy comedy, but if the kid is troubled, for example sees dead people like in The 6th Sense, then you get a hit. It is even more true when Willis plays an cop or FBI agent, a role in which we are used to see him tough, and that the kid is autistic, i.e. communication is nearly impossible and Willis has to reveal his soft side to get the trust of the kid. This encounter between the hard shell / soft core cop and the vulnerable kid is what works to perfection in Mercury Rising, maybe partly because we weren't expecting that from Bruce Willis who was still at the peak of his career at the end of the 90's. And he managed well to play both sides of the character like we rarely saw him doing: bad-ass action hero of course, but also sensitive and protective towards the kid, himself very touching and well played by Miko Hughes. We get even ore attached to their relationship that the "bad guys" (led by Baldwin) are particularly merciless as they are ready to kill a child. For a similar story but with an even more troubled guardian, I remember that there wss Man on Fire with Denzel Washington in 2004. Mercury Rising is yet another example that the 90's were not totally void of good movies, especially in the Thriller genre.
Rating: 7 /10

The Negotiator (1998)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1998
	Director: F. Gary Gray (The Italian Job)
	Actors: Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction, The Hateful 8), Kevin Spacey (American Beauty, The Usual Suspects, House of Cards TV-series), David Morse (Contact, 12 Monkeys), Paul Giamatti (Sideways)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 17.03.2017, VOD, 32" TV screen.
Synopsis: Danny Roman (Jackson), a gifted negotiator of hostage crises, has to face accusations of murder and ends up in an unexpected situation.
Review: As much as we have seen Samuel L. Jackson in a vast number of movies in the past twenty years (almost 30 of which are reviewed on JoRafCinema!), it is in fact pretty rare to find a movie in which he is has the leading role. Only Shaft and Snakes on a Plane come to my mind. So it feels odd to see him so much: at his job, at home with his wife...! But given how good/natural he is, we understand pretty quickly his character and are thus immersed in the story and root for him. This kind of conspiracy / corruption / false accusation story is not new, and I was expecting car chases and games of cat and mouse, while surprisingly (but cleverly) the suspect locks himself in a situation he is familiar with, and that creates some other kind of games between him and his policemen colleagues. And then comes the character of Chris Sabian (Spacey) a bit out of nowhere after a good half hour of movie, which I found a great idea because it stays a Samuel L. Jackson movie but with now a more interesting "opponent". The kind of movie that makes me lie when I say that the 90's didn't produce much good in Cinema.
Rating: 7 /10

Armageddon (1998)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1998
	Director: Michael Bay (Transformers 1-4, The Island)
	Actors: Bruce Willis (Die Hard 1-5, Cop Out), Billy Bob Thornton (Fargo season 1), Ben Affleck (Paycheck, Daredevil), Liv Tyler (The Lord of the Rings 1-3), Steve Buscemi (Con Air, The Big Lebowski), Owen Wilson (Meet the parents, Zoolander)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, SF
	Conditions of visioning: 08.12.2016, VOD, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: When a huge meteor is about the strike the Earth, a reckless team of deep core drillers led by Harry Stamper (Willis) is called to the rescue.
Review: Released at about the same time as Deep Impact, Armageddon choose a diametrically opposed approach. And with my usual enthusiasm I chose to watch them back-to-back. A better sound and image quality was definitely lacking to watch this one, but fortunately I could draw on my memory of seeing it many times in the past and the feelings it brought me then. There is to me no doubt that after practicing on Bad Boys and The Rock, Michael Bay upped the ante and defined with Argameddon the vocabulary of what disaster and Action movies would be in the 20 years to come, nothing short of that. The scenes of destruction by meteors in New York, with all the explosions and original camera angles and doves taking off in slow motion will forever be engraved in my mind as nothing like that was even seen before at that time. I have been seldom as impressed by the special effects in a movie as I was by this one. Now beyond the outstanding visuals, the story and characters are as dumb as can be: only 18 days before the meteor strikes, a crew of core drillers to the rescue, the conflict between the cute talented young guy and the father of his fiancee, all the comedy scenes... That could just be more that one can take, but thanks to a magic mix (that has aged a little I have to concede) it was and still is just fun to watch. And if you want to enjoy it just stop at that: it is just entertainment. Sit back, relax, eat pop corn and alternatively let your jaw drop at the overwhelming destruction scenes and laugh at the non-stop show delivered by Steve Buscemi, Bruce Willis, Owen Wilson, Peter Stormare, Michael Clarke Duncan... The comparison wih Deep Impact is not even worth drawing as the two have totally different objectives, both valid on their own and both fulfilled.
Rating: 6 /10

Deep Impact (1998)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1998
	Director: Mimi Leder (Thick as Thieves)
	Actors:  Robert Duvall (True Grit, The Godfather 1-2), Téa Leoni (Jurassic Park 3), Elijah Wood (The Faculty, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Maniac)
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 08.12.2016, VOD, 32" TV
Synopsis: An astronomer discovers that a comet will crash on Earth. The government prepares for that event while reporter Jenny Lerner (Leoni) investigates the resignation of the minister of budget.
Review: Deep Impact and the similarly inspired Armageddon (a comparison is drawn in the review of that one) came at a time of renewed interest in the disaster movie genre, two years after Twister and one year after Volcano and Dante's Peak, when the studios were at their best in copying each other (remember in 2000 Mission to Mars, Red Planet and Ghosts of Mars?) I have a found memory of this one, and remember watching it countless time on VHS. Enjoying it again many years later I can remember why: for starters it does speak to the scientist and astronomer in me, although I now spotted many outrageous mistakes in the first 5 minutes of the movie. When I left those aside I could enjoy the rest of it. Then it shows a different take at the disaster movie, a bit like attempted in 2012 with Seeking a Friend for the End of the World directed by another woman Lorene Scafaria (more on that later). Indeed Deep Impact if profoundly focused on its human characters, not on the science of how to save to world or on the incumbent destruction scenes, although the few ones offered are remarkable in special effects and impact. My theory has always been that this quality was thanks to the female director Mimi Leder that did what no male could have done: bring sensitivity and focus on feelings in the middle of a world-class extinction event. It is done with talent, sometimes too much feeling, but always honesty. And I found that the editing as well was helping a lot progressing in the story thanks to many well-placed ellipses. I also remember thinking at that time that the movie was bold as being the first mainstream one (to my knowledge) casually showing an Afro-American president played wonderfully by Morgan Freeman at his best. Since then not only in the movies. An example of what disaster movies should show: how such events can bring the best in humans, not only how entertaining it can be to watch scene after scene of massive destruction.
Rating: 8 /10

The Truman Show (1998)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1998
	Director: Peter Weir (Dead Poets Society)
	Actors: Jim Carrey (The Mask, Dumb & Dumber), Ed Harris (Knightriders, A History of Violence), Laura Linney (Mystic River, Mr Holmes)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 11.09.2016, VOD, 32" TV
Synopsis: Truman Bubank (Carrey) is the unknowing star of a bigger-then-life reality-TV show that started with his birth.
Review: I hadn't watched this movie in ages and wanted to see how it had aged. Remember that back in 1998 it was the first movie dealing with reality-TV which was a pretty new phenomenon at the time, while now movies and TV-series are not only mentioning the topic but are even shot in its style. Also remember that it was shortly followed by Ed-TV with Matthew McConaughey which I also like but in a different style more purely comedic. The Truman Show is much more serious than that but not because of a larger scale, and featuring Jim Carrey in his first more serious role. Oh he does make faces and take exaggerated poses but in a serious frame, and he is even very convincing in some emotionally intense dramatic scenes. An excellent actor choice to support the story written by Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, Lord of War, In Time) and to be directed by Peter Weir (Dead Poets Society). The settings look just fake enough to make you doubt their reality, and I would say that almost all of the topics recurrent when talking about reality-TV are tackled here: intimacy, how far to go, how much of the story is driven by the TV-channel, who watches, how and why, and the underlying issue of trying to play God with mortal subjects (beautiful ending scene with Ed Harris' voice). In fact like other great movies, The Truman Show is a perfect combination of actor, story, director, and maybe most important of all timing of release. Watching it with great pleasure 18 years later also shows that it was not just taking benefit from current events only to be quickly forgotten, but that it is part of Cinema History.
Rating: 9 /10

The Big Lebowski (1998)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1998
	Director: Joel & Ethan Coen (Fargo, A serious Man)
	Actors: Jeff Bridges (Tron, Iron Man), John Goodman (Speed Racer), Julianne Moore (Jurassik Park: The Lost World), Steve Buscemi (Armageddon)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 01.09.2015, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: The Dude (Bridges), Jeffrey Lebowski of his real name, is mistaken by thugs for a millionaire whose wife owes money to their boss. Trying to get compensation for his ruined carpet will throw him in the middle of a family business that involves kidnapping, nihilists and a million dollars.
Review: "Sometimes there's a man... I won't say a hero, 'cause, what's a hero? But sometimes, there's a man. And I'm talkin' about the Dude here. Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there". I could probably say about this movie the same thing as this quote says about its main character. For me the best of the what the Coen brothers produced when they were at their top shape, it is hard to describe what happens in this movie (like in others of theirs). Is it a movie about bowling? Or a movie about ordinary folks (almost caricatures) facing events that take them far out of their comfort zone. The story is deliciously twisted (who came up with that one?!?) and I love the soundtrack, but what really makes this movie a masterpiece is its characters and of course the actors that embody them. The Dude, Walter and Donny are fantastic, and surrounded by colorful figures like the big Lebowski, Brandt, Maude, the Nihilists and of course Jesus the bowling god (Turturro). There is not much more to say about it. I love this movie that always puts me in a joyful mood after watching it. This was the first time in Blu-ray and the quality is actually not very good but that didn't spoil my viewing. If you have never seen it I strongly recommend that you watch it, and if you have already... well I guess sooner or later you will want to see it again!
Rating: 10 /10

Sliding Doors (1998)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1998
	Director: Peter Howitt (Johnny English)
	Actors: Gwyneth Paltrow (Iron Man 1-3, Contagion), John Hannah (The Mummy 1-2, Four Weddings and a Funeral), John Lynch (Black Death)
	Country: USA, GB
	Genre: Romance
	Conditions of visioning: 19.08.2015, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: After Helen (Paltrow) looses her job, we follow two possible life tracks for her: one in which she catches her train and gets home in time to find her boyfriend (Lynch) cheating on her, another in which she misses that and stays with him.
Review: I found the synopsis of this movie intriguing when I heard about it... already 17 years ago! But I watch it now for the first time. I don't think I ever saw Gwyneth Paltrow in a movie before the Iron Man series. In 1998 she was young and cute and perfectly fitting in this role. I liked in Sliding Doors the British Romance touch reminding of Four Wedding and A Funeral, Notting Hill or Love Actually. It is hard for me to rate as I am not watching many Romances, but I liked this one, especially because of its original concept. Otherwise the story is a bit predictable and the characters are OK. The ending increases the interest of this movie a notch as it is more risky than what I would have expected from this kind of feel-good Romance.
Rating: 7 /10

Babe: Pig in the City (1998)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1998
	Director: George Miller (Max Max 1-4)
	Actors: Magda Szubanski (Babe), Elizabeth Daily, Mickey Rooney (Breakfast at Tiffany's)
	Country: AUS
	Genre: Fantasy, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 22.06.2015, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: After he became a star, Babe the piglet (voice of Daily) is now on a mission to raise money in order to save his farm, accompanied by his bosses' wife (Szubanski). But they get stranded in the airport of a big City.
Review: Chris Noonan, director of Babe, said about this sequel that he had no interest in making Babe 2, arguing that he couldn't really see any place for a sequel to go. Well, as much as I like the first, I was not so shocked when watching Pig in the City that uses a similar recipe, although with much less originality and heart. George Miller continues to boast the advantages of the simple countryside life by propelling the lovable piglet into the big City. I tried to recognize which of our cities is was, but soon realized that it was actually an archetype of City that includes the most famous constructions from all over the world: Golden Gate bridge, Eiffel Tower, World Trade Center, Canals of Venise... In Pig in the City we discover a whole new menagerie of creatures lost/trapped in the city: monkeys of all sorts, cats, dogs, humans also... The digital special effects are improved with respect to the first movie (mouths of the animals in sync with the dialogs) while the mechanical ones are not as good (the flying duck and Pelicans). I found the story less touching than the one of the farmer and his pig in Babe, this time more focused on the (human) moral qualities of the pig, but the conclusion is still alright.
Rating: 6 /10

The Siege (1998)

	Also Known As: Couvre-Feu (French)
	Year of first release: 1998
	Director: Edward Zwick (Legends of the Fall, Blood Diamond)
	Actors: Denzel Washington (Crimson Tide), Bruce Willis (Die Hard 1-5), Annette Bening (American Beauty, Mars Attacks!), Tonny Shaloub (Men in Black, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Polar, Action
	Conditions of visioning: 18.11.2014, SD VOD, Home cinema
Synopsis: Terrorist attacks intensify in New York, while FBI agent Hubbard (Washington) investigates, hindered by the silence of CIA agent Kraft (Bening).
Review: At the end of the 90's, The Siege may have shown a different view on the classic 'terrorist' movie (Die Hard for example), a view that dramatically came true (and not too far from the movie events) on September 11th 2001. The parallel is easy to draw: indeed the movie depicts large scale terrorist attacks in New York City, targeted at official buildings (FBI offices vs. Pentagon on 9/11) but also at civilians (bus vs. planes on 9/11, and a demonstration vs. a marathon recently in Boston), by a group of individuals (organized in cells) that do not even present demands, but are ready to die for their cause. Only the scale of the real events was even larger than the screenplay writers could imagine (some years later The Sum of all Fears surpassed this scale). Other difference, the response of the government is (too) extreme in the movie: declaring Martial Law on the city. This extreme response occurring in the last half hour didn't please me so much. Otherwise the rest of the movie is a rather good, the story intricate enough and the actors solid. The moral of this story (we cannot let ourselves become worse than our enemies) is a bit too much, but this is what to expect from the director of Legends of the Fall.
Rating: 6 /10

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1998
	Director: Steven Spielberg (E.T., Jaws, Schindler's List)
	Actors: Tom Hanks (Forrest Gump), Matt Damon (Dogma), Tom Sizemore (Black Hawk Down), Barry Pepper (Enemy of the State), Vin Diesel (Pitch Black), Giovanni Ribisi (Avatar), Paul Giamatti (John Dies at the End)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama, War
	Conditions of visioning: 10.10.2014, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: Shortly after D-day, Captain Miller (Hanks) and a small team is sent on a mission to bring back Private Ryan (Damon) whose three brothers have already died in the war.
Review: I finally found the courage to watch this movie again after I did it only once at the cinema when it went out. I still remembered vividly the realistic (and thus horrible) war scenes that Spielberg managed to depict and that helped him won so many Academy Awards. The scenes that come to mind are of course the first half-hour (D-day) and the last one (I find the knife scene in particular very disturbing). But as I expected, those scenes occupy "only" one third of this three-hour movie, the rest being used to tell a wonderful story and to show us lovable and realistic characters to whom we get attached. After Schindler's List (1993) and this Saving Private Ryan, people started to say that Americans learn World History only when it is told in a Spielberg movie. My only criticism would be that there are too many incredibly good-natured characters (I mean not selfish ones), making the story a bit less believable. But this is well balanced by the display of dark sides of the human nature (the slaughter at the beginning, and the so very human character of Upham). Saving Private Ryan is a good complement to the other classic on the topic: The Longest Day, which was more told in a objective/documentary fashion and displaying a famous cast. Without the same headline, Saving Private Ryan still gathers a solid bunch: Sizemore, Pepper, Ribisi, Giamatti, Diesel (not yet an action hero then). Definitely a must-see.
Rating: 9 /10

Pi (1998)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1998
	Director: Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain)
	Actors: Sean Gullette, Mark Margolis (Scarface, Black Swan), Ben Shenkman
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 27.11.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: A paranoid mathematician searches for a key number that will unlock the universal patterns found in nature.
Review: This movie was an obvious topic of conversation for physics students like I was in 1998. I remember that I liked watching it but found it really strange and experimental. Having now grown, knowing more about movies and watching Pi in optimal conditions, I can appreciate better its qualities. The topic of a scientist looking for the hidden laws behind Nature still appeals to me and I still find the sci-talk in Pi interesting and accurate (probably a mathematician would disagree with me). Beyond that,  I could see the talent of Darren Aronofski as filmmaker and storyteller. In spite of limited means (the black and white film is very grainy) he manages to convey all the anxiety of the main character through the repetition of sentences ("When I was a kid my mom told me not to look into the Sun, so when I was six I did it") and actions (taking the pills, locking the door, adding milk to coffee). The electro/trip-hop music also fits the general atmosphere. The set is cheap (old computers, the main processor in a plastic container...) but chaotic and thus more believable. I feared that the movie would be too long and sometimes boring as I remembered, but it was not the case. The main character evolves, meets interesting people like the Rabbi, and the viewer is then compelled to wait for the climax.
Rating: 8 /10

Seul Contre Tous (1998)

	Also Known As: I Stand Alone
	Year of first release: 1998
	Director: Gaspar Noé (Irréversible, Enter the Void)
	Actors: Philippe Nahon (Haute Tension, Les rivières pourpres), Blandine Lenoir, Frankie Pain (Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain)
	Country: F
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 24.09.2013, DVD, Home cinema
Synopsis: The reflexions of an unemployed nameless butcher about life.
Review: The first feature-length film of Argentinian director Gaspar Noé before Irréversible (2002) is quite raw. Most of the time we hear the thoughts of the main character while we see him going about his miserable life. The way of telling the story made me think at first that the director wanted us to share this ultra-pessimistic view on life, and I didn't agree to it. But then it seems that this view is only the distorted one of the butcher who has never known love in his life, either from parents or family or wife, as he has never know professional success and he has then been limited to surviving in the past 50 years of his life. Surviving alone against everybody else. The direction of the movie is interesting/disturbing, with the voice-over as I said already, interrupted every five minutes by a gun shot, and sometimes by sentences written in white against black on the full screen. The image quality on the DVD I have seen is quite poor (faded colors, out of focus), I don't know if this is caused by the original material or the transfer.
Rating: 6 /10

Star Trek IX: Insurrection (1998)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1998
	Director: Jonathan Frakes (Star Trek VIII: First Contact)
	Actors: Patrick Stewart (X-men 1-3), Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, Donna Murphy (Spider-Man 2), Anthony Zerbe (The Matrix 2-3)
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF
	Conditions of visioning: 23.09.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: When Data (Spiner) is going berserk on a planet under study, Picard (Steward) and the crew of the Enterprise-E come to investigate.
Review: This movie reminded me a lot of the Stargate SG-1 TV-series, showing how much the baseline story has popular in the late 90's: a crew of Terrians exploring new worlds (via spaceships or Stargates) to study them, making alliances (The Federation) within which they have common enemies (The Borg or the Goa'uld). The explorers also sometimes fall in love with inhabitants of the foreign worlds. Insurrection reminds me in particular of the episode Brief Candle (season 1, episode 9, actually produced after the Star Trek movie), in which a small group of people on a foreign planet live happily but only for 100 days. Interestingly, in Insurrection the livespan is on the other extremity of the scale, but the way of life of the inhabitants looks the same.  Aside from this comparison, I would say that the movie follows the spirit of the previous ones and in particular the last one. A lot seems to have happen between the two movies (new enemies, new allies) because of the TV-series running in parallel. Steward is as good as always and the story is interesting, even if limited in ambition.
Rating: 6 /10

Enemy of the State (1998)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1998
	Director: Tony Scott (Top Gun, Crimson Tide, The taking of Pelham 123)
	Actors: Will Smith (Independance Day, Hancock), Gene Hackman (Crimson Tide, French Connection), Jon Voight (Mission Impossible, Anaconda)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 25.12.2012, French version, 42" TV
Synopsis: A group of hyper-equipped agents will use all possible technological means to get back a piece of evidence against their leader (Voight) from the unlucky lawyer (Smith) that became unknowingly involved in the story.
Review: Last time I saw this movie was on VHS. I remember thinking at the time that the satellite aerial views were inspired from the Grand Theft Auto video game. I find the movie still as good ten years later, meaning that it aged well. In particular it sells as very advanced some technologies (miniaturized cameras, GPS trackers...) that came to become part of our daily live. The topic of invasion of our private life by governments (or other groups) through information technology is still actual at the age of Facebook (that didn't exst when the film was made). A good fast-paced thriller. I regret not seeing it in better conditions.
Rating: 8 /10