The Berlin Bride (2020)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2020
	Director: Michael Bartlett
	Actors: Taylor Baldschun, Michael Bartlett, Brynmor Jones
	Country: USA, D
	Genre: Drama, Thriller, Fantasy
	Conditions of visioning: 02.07.2020, FANTASPOA2020, 14" computer screen.
Synopsis: Two oddball Berliners discover the abandoned appendages of a mannequin. Separately, and with grotesque consequence, they come to terms with their disjointed mate.
Review: From the synopsis and the poster of the movie, I was expecting more of a Giallo (or something like Anguish) and didn't get much of it apart from the strange mannequin fetishism and the setting in the 80's. Those are also the two best things in this movie. I am in particular amazed at how the director could recreate the Berlin of 1986 in its exterior scenes, in spite of a probable low budget. It is also remarkable to see this kind of production in Europe and I can only encourage it. Finally another characteristic of the movie is that it is almost without dialogs, apart from a few lines in German or English, which makes it easy to watch for anybody even without sub-titles. The rest of the movie feels sometimes like a psychedelic trip, as we see the mannequin taking a more and more important part in the life of our two protagonists, both weird in their own way. A movie unfortunately not as rich and memorable as I thought it would be.
Rating: 5 /10

Beuys (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Andres Veiel
	Actors: -
	Country: D
	Genre: Documentary
	Conditions of visioning: 07.10.2018, arte.tv, German/English version
Synopsis: Who is Joseph Beuys, seen via his art?
Review: Since yesterday and the viewing of the great Werk ohne Autor, I am longing to know more about this German artist who I pigeonholed in the early 2000s. I may have been too narrow-minded at that time. Therefore I want to give Beuys a second chance. The documentary reveals from Beuys unstructured information. First some of his experiences during WWII, then some of his major artistic pieces such as "I like America and America likes me" and his tendency for performance, and finally his political engagement. What I got from this is more curiosity for the artist as this documentary only gives few hints here and there about the artist and person without giving a clear picture of him. The movie is a mix of sources. From the cut and story-telling it seems rather a summary of the media life of Beuys than really a documentary on him. Some interview of key persons of his life would have been great. Therefore to be continued...
Rating: 6 /10

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2006
	Director: Justin Lin (Fast & Furious 4-5-6-9-10, Star Trek Beyond)
	Actors: Lucas Black, Zachery Ty Bryan, Shad Moss
	Country: USA, D, J
	Genre: Action
	Conditions of visioning: 12.09.2019, Blu-ray, 42" TV screen.
Synopsis: Being too dangerous as an addict to car races, Sean (Black) is sent to live with his father in Japan. At school and outside, he inevitably meets characters introducing him to the world of Drift races.
Review: After a first The Fast & the Furious that was only original at the time and a cheap sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious, this third movie may be the best in the series up to that point. Instead of trying to tell yet another undercover cop story with any of the original characters, it goes a whole different way and looks for a fresh atmosphere in Japan like other American movie, action or other, did before it: Rising Sun, Lost in Translation, Kill Bill, The Wolverine, a tiny bit of Avengers: Endgame... Having been there myself and familiar with Japanese cinema, I can tell that as those other movies I quote, Tokyo Drift does manage in depicting properly what it feels like to be in the country (or watch a movie from there), in a few aspects at least. No stereotypes like in other less well-informed westerner productions, but a feeling that the director Justin Lin knows about the culture he is showing us. Only negative points are the rare occasions when Japanese characters speak English between themselves even when alone. After dragster-style races and city circuits, the third movie cleverly introduces yet another type of auto-action: Drifting, performed with smaller cars in cramped parking lots or winding country roads, all well-adapted to the island-country. At first I though weird to have a Car chase movie in Japan (not known for muscle cars) but as the story and car-fandom style is adapted to the country, it all fits relatively well. Or course the chases, cars, bimbos, villains and main characters reaction are all over-the-top but what did you expect? At least the movie traded the light-speed effects and over-use of Nitrogen Oxyde for more readable races and decent special effects, even at night. The small role given to Sonny Chiba (The Bullet Train, Kill Bill) in the third act and the link to the other movies in the epilogue are nice bonuses. I am looking forward to watching the fourth movie which I heard is a turning point in the series.
Rating: 5 /10

2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2003
	Director: John Singleton (Boyz n the Hood, Poetic Justice, Shaft)
	Actors: Paul Walker, Tyrese Gibson (Death Race, Transformers: Dark of the Moon), Cole Hauser (Pitch Black, Olympus has Fallen), Eva Mendes (Once Upon a Time in Mexico)
	Country: USA, D
	Genre: Action
	Conditions of visioning: 11.09.2019, Blu-ray, 40" TV screen
Synopsis: Running from the law, Brian O'Conner (Walker) found his place in Miami. Police catches up with him and he is forced to infiltrate the team of a drug lord. He calls upon an old friend Roman (Gibson) for help.
Review: First, huge disappointment that Vin Diesel and his gang (from The Fast and the Furious) are not in this movie. In exchange we get introduced to two new characters that will stay in the franchise for a while: Roman and Tej. So this may compensate for that.  The car chases are a bit more fun because not in straight line, but it is still as ridiculous how the characters keep their cool when they crash or loose their precious rides. We still get some cool tuned cars, buddies, now more guns, groupies... The story is so obviously empty, that's a huge flaw. Even more that in the first movie you very often feel that the actors (already struggling with the script) are left free in front of the camera for extended periods of time. The director's background in video clips shows a lot. Even more laughable is the short movie The Turbo-Charged Prelude provided on the Blu-ray, supposed to bridge the first two movies and of extreme poor quality. For purists and historian like me only. Two days after watching the movie I already barely remember its details. It can only get better with the following ones... I hope.
Rating: 2 /10

Point Break (2015)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2015
	Director: Ericson Core
	Actors: Edgar Ramírez, Luke Bracey, Ray Winstone (The Departed, Beowulf)
	Country: CN, D, USA, CDN, I, A
	Genre: Action
	Conditions of visioning: 22.04.2019, in-flight entertainment system, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: Former Extreme Athlete now fresh FBI recruit, Johnny Utah (Bracey) has ideas on how to stop a gang of thieves that escape every heist in a spectacular manner.
Review: This is a remake of the 1991 classic Point Break with Keanu Reeves against Patrick Swayze, and what a useless remake. It is mostly centered on Action that has been upgraded to fit the modern audience who has seen it all on YouTube: instead of the movie climax, surfing giant waves is now just an "ordeal" the team of thieves go through to pursue their goal. To top that, we get to see extreme surfboarding, 1000-meter mountain free climbing, wing-suit, ... And our hero who was played by Keanu Reeves as a promising football player recognized by one guy in the movie (This is Johnny Utah!), is now known to everybody and can do all the stunts as well as the other guys. Even his love affair has been upgraded to modern standards. When I see all that I sometimes miss the simplicity of the 90's movies. I found the escalation in Action compared to the original not to bring anything. Same for the scale that goes from the L.A. area to all across the globe. It is by the way incredible how the world seems small to those guys who always manage to bump into each other. The view of the world is also very America-centric, like this entrance to the Paris train station that looks like an extremely dangerous no-go zone. The main actor may act a little like Keanu Reeves and some of the key scenes of the original are present as a wink to the fans of the classic (the quickly abandoned masks, the shooting in the air while going Ahhhhh! parodied in La Cité de la peur and Hot Fuzz, the ending), the story is so badly told and shown that none of the events on screen made any impression on me. So much that when the ending comes and was in the original movie the completion of the two character's arc, in this one it falls completely flat in spite of a tentatively extraordinary setting, a bit like "Hey OK do what you want I don't care". A mirror of what the movie makers thought of their audience and of the original movie?
Rating: 1 /10

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2008
	Director: Rob Cohen (Daylight, The Fast and the Furious, Stealth)
	Actors: Brendan Fraser (Encino Man, The Mummy 1-2), Jet Li (The One), Maria Bello (ER TV-series, A History of Violence),
	Country: USA, D, CDN, CN
	Genre: Adventure, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 19.03.2019, VOD, 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: The O'Connell couple (Fraser & Bello) has settled down since their last adventure, in a comfortable way of life brought by their rich discoveries. A discovery by their son (Luke Ford) in China may lead them back to a more adventurous life.
Review: After the original tone in The Mummy in 1999 and the escalation in The Mummy Returns in 2001, this sequel took a while to set in motion. And as I could have predicted, it arrived too late to satisfy an expecting audience, and when the trend for this kind of Adventure Comedy had passed. Also exit Rachel Weiz too busy shooting more intellectual movies with her new husband Darren Aronofsky (like The Fountain), she is replaced by Maria Bello, not the worst in this movie. Also fast forward, their young kid from the first movie is now adult and following his parent's footsteps without them knowing. This movie is maybe the best sequel they could have done from the ageing concept. Moving to Asia is a good idea because Egypt would have felt too redundant, and this opens the door to a new fighting style practiced by veteran Actors Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh. It is alo nice to see Anthony Infernal Affairs Wong. Don't worry there are still Mummies to be awaken and put back to sleep, this time more in the shape of a terracotta army. The generous special effects (including massive CGI armies like was trendy in the 2000's) are still a trait of the franchise, and humor is still present (or at least attempts at it) around the main couple and Evelyn's brother played by John Hannah (I did burst into laughter at his delivery of the line "The Yack yacked"). But in spite of all that the story is not very enthralling, the action often confused, the motivation and reactions of the characters often irrational, and 90% of the dialog scenes poorly executed. I am glad I finally saw that movie for completeness but it is not really a good one.
Rating: 3 /10

Air Force One (1997)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1997
	Director: Wolfgang Petersen (Das Boot, The NeverEnding Story)
	Actors: Harrison Ford (Star Wars 4-7), Gary Oldman (The Fifth Element, Darkest Hour), Glenn Close (Mars Attacks!)
	Country: USA, D
	Genre: Action, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 10.02.2018, VOD, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: On his way back from Moscow where he made a memorable anti-terrorism speech, US President James Marshall (Ford) sees his plane hijacked.
Review: Sixteen years before White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen, Air Force One is the prototype of those over-the-top action movies involving a POTUS taken hostage in his own house (the big plane is considered as such) and taking part of the action. The synopsis sound all too exaggerated and it is. In this movie you get everything you could wish for: Russian bad guys, the president's wife and daughter onboard the plane, a vice-president (played by Glenn Close) facing hard decisions on the ground, a traitor, plane fights, and a whole lot of heroism including from the main character. Still, I take a guilty pleasure watching it every time, except that this time and in spite of poor viewing conditions, I couldn't help but notice annoying things like the special effects (digital and composite) that have really aged, and the ease with which the president always manage to surprise or overpower his enemies in a confined space that is the plane. This is disturbing until the last two fights, when you think "waw, he really is cornered, how ingenuously is he going to get out of this?" and the answer is unfortunately that he kicks the enemy's gun and then fist-fights him until victory, or something like that. Almost as lazy writing as "Look behind you!". Just watch it for some nostalgia of the 90's generosity.
Rating: 5 /10

Happy end (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Michael Haneke
	Actors: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Isabelle Huppert, Mathieu Kassowitz, Franz Rogowski, Fantine Harduin
	Country: F, D, A
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 27.09.2017, Gondel, French version with German subtitle
Synopsis: George Laurent (Trintignant) is gradually succumbing to dementia. This octogenarian patriarch of upper-bourgeois family dislikes sharing his palatial manor in Calais, with his twice-married son, Thomas (Kassowitz), and Anne (Huppert), his divorced workaholic daughter who has taken over the family construction business. Anne has to handle the impact of a disastrous workplace accident caused by her disappointing son Pierre's (Rogowski) negligence, while at the same time, the urgent hospitalisation of Thomas' ex-wife from a mysterious poisoning, leads his sulky 13-year-old daughter, Ève (Harduin), to live with her father and his new wife.
Review: The basic thread is built up slowly. One could say too slow. But like in a Balzac's book, every character is painted so that you know what is his/her situation and what he/she aims at. And also you which reason he/she has to get rid of the old George Laurent or of somebody else in the family. Therefore the family dinners look so deadly in the atmosphere and in the goals of everyone.  As often Isabelle Huppert acts excellently the tormented introverted woman. Mathieu Kassowitz acts in a rare role for him and shows that he an excellent actor even when he is not really challenged nor in focus.  I had the impression that Haneke is directing for the sake of the story but limits the suspense to one scene and the final scene. The relatively boring parts that make most of the film are so in order to highlight these two scenes where the extreme drama appear without much noise but between the lines.
Rating: 5 /10

Gundermann (2018)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2018
	Director: Andreas Dresen
	Actors: Alexander Scheer, Anna Unterberger
	Country: D
	Genre: Drama, Romance
	Conditions of visioning: 06.09.2018, Schauburg, German version
Synopsis: The East German singer and writer Gerhard Gundermann (Scheer) struggles with his passion for music, his life engagement as a coal miner, his love for Conny (Unterberger) and his dealings with the secret police of the German Democratic Republic, the STASI.
Review: I found the plot interesting. The inner conflict between wish and expression of real socialism and handling with Sovietism. Living in Germany and often confronted to people mixing socialism and Sovietism, to people full of prejudices with regard to East Germans, I definitely wanted to watch this movie. I heard about this singer only shortly before the movie got released because some East German friends mentioned it. Following Gundermann and his protests against the Soviet regime established in GDR shows strikingly what really makes the difference between the socialism, full of solidarity and humanism and care for the weaker and the Sovietism, full of suspicion and greed for power and lacking humanity. Like in Walesa, the main protagonist signs an agreement with the authorities because these aimed to damp them, but their personality remained the same and this speaks for Walesa and for Gundermann. The story may be a bit slow, but I believe this served my understanding of the mindset and the profound thoughts of the characters. On top of it, the acting itself was matching perfectly the characters. Alexander Scheer as man protesting for his people. Anna Unterberger as muse and balancing element for the Gundermann. They look very authentic.  The photography of the industrial and deserted landscape of the surface coal mining (in German Tagebau) in the Lausitz region, East of Germany, are amazing. It is actually a massive destruction of the environment and every now and then the news report of a village or a forest that will be destroyed in favour of such a surface mining in Germany. This has nevertheless a visual beauty.
Rating: 8 /10

Werk ohne Autor (2018)

	Also Known As: Never look away, Opera senza autore
	Year of first release: 2018
	Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
	Actors: Sebastian Koch, Tom Schilling, Paula Beer, Saskia Rosendahl
	Country: D, I
	Genre: Drama, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 06.10.2018, Schauburg, German version
Synopsis: As a kid, Kurt Barnert (Schilling), witnessed the kidnapping of his aunt Elisabeth by a group of Nazi doctors. Doctor Carl Seeband (Koch) let her then disappear for sake of pure race. In East Germany he starts studying arts. When he meets the student Ellie (Beer), he is convinced that he has met the love of his life. Once in the West, both move to Düsseldorf. And Kurt begins to create paintings that touch his generation and are actually a mirror of his traumas.
Review: I have to tell that the movie is about 3 hours. And that I did not notice that during the movie. The story has several levels of understanding: the fate of two families within German History; the thought about art definition; the emancipation of an artist with regard to his major financial support; the emancipation of a woman with regard to her parents; the hidden Nazi confronted to his past. One of the major plus of the movie is that the plot looks at both sides of Germany after WWII.  Each story is dealt with a lot of thoughts and depth and still tense and suspenseful. This is so seldom in movies and this is exactly what I like and what I am looking for in movies. The acting is amazing. Sebastian Koch is always great when he is working with Henckel von Donnersmarck like in Das Leben der anderen. Tom Schilling as shy lonely artist, Paula Beer as submitted daughter, both as authentic lovers believing in each other. They are all excellent. And I believe it is not only that they are good but that the director is amazing with them.  The handling of the camera and the photography is clean and well thought. Just thinking about the obvious connotation of the blurred view of the child loosing his aunt and the paintings à la Gerhard Richter. But also the optical effects in the atelier in Düsseldorf and the common atelier for posing social realism students in Dresden.  For the fans of contemporary artists, this is full of allusions to Beuys and Richter. For the historians, this gives an overview on West and East Germany situations after WWII. For historian philosophers, this throws the ideas of collaboration, of redemption, of justice, of support to murders, of eugenism through emotions.
Rating: 9 /10

Halal daddy (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Conor McDermottroe
	Actors: Nikesh Patel, Colm Meaney, Sarah Bolger, Art Malik, Deirdre O'Kane
	Country: IRL, F, D
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 11.06.2018, Schauburg, OV Sneak Preview, English with German subtitle
Synopsis: Raghdan Aziz (Patel) flew from his rich father Amir Aziz (Malik) who already has plans for him, work and wife. After a family clash coupled with the reconversion of an Irish abatoir into a halal one, Raghdan tries to build up a project with all his personal community, with his girlfriend Maeve (Bolger), her enraged father Martin Logan (Meaney), stoned buddies and an ex-lover of his girlfriend.
Review: The story is rather a clash of classes (the rich traditionalist father Amir versus his son Raghdan) than the cliché clash of cultures (Moslim Pakis versus White Christian British). The interesting culture clash lays between the fathers. Amir is rather the despotic and merciless businessman making sure that his counterpart understand who has the money. Martin counts on trust and on people even if he lives on racist stereotypes.  The acting is quite burlesque in the sense of exaggerated and satyrical. The fathers and Raghdan. The only acting that looks authentic is Maeve. But I am not sure that an authentic acting would have made the movie better. The fathers were funny that way.
Rating: 5 /10

Isle of dogs (2018)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2018
	Director: Wes Anderson
	Actors: -
	Country: USA, D
	Genre: Adventure, Animation
	Conditions of visioning: 02.06.2018, Schauburg, Japanese/English version with German subtitle
Synopsis: An outbreak of dog flu has spread through the city of Megasaki, Japan, and Mayor Kobayashi has demanded all dogs to be sent to Trash Island. On the island, a young boy named Atari sets out to find his lost dog, Spots, with the help of five other dogs.
Review: Still in my Japanese month, I needed to see this American story in Japan by Wes Anderson.  The story is very Japanese with the importance of cats and dogs. Remind that one of the most visited monument in Japan is the statue of the Hashiko dog in Tokyo-Shibuya. Here instead of having the dog waiting for the disappeared master, the human looks for his disappeared dog. The human story is a quest in an island plagued by chemical, mechanical and biological pollution. The human story involves a family drama of the orphan Atari. The dog story includes a canine romance, a family story and a friendship adventure. Therefore many sources of tension, of conflict and of climax. The quest introduces some Japanese cultural features such as the fascination for robotics, the controverse on weapon production, .  Visually it reminds sometimes a kind of Super Mario (Nintendo) or Alex Kidd (Sega) from the 80's. When Atari lands his plane on Trash Island, it looks like the introduction of the level 1 of a video game. Each each flash back in the history of Megasaki is introduced by one ukiyo-e (painting Edo era) (again!). This is quite nice as well, especially because these are really beautifully painted. The human voices being in Japanese and the dog voices in English makes it even closer to a Japanese movie. The non-translation of the Japanese voices might be to let us focus on the dog stories. The movie sounds almost like a partial hommage to Japanese culture excluding the Kaiju, the animes and the mangas. The story is interesting because imbricating several stories and several usual common themes in Japanese movies. Good movie for Japan fans and for the visual design.
Rating: 6 /10

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2009
	Director: Guy Ritchie (Snatch, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.)
	Actors: Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man 1-3, Avengers 1-4), Jude Law (A.I., eXistenZ), Rachel McAdams (The Time Traveler's Wife, Midnight in Paris), Mark Strong (Kingsman 1-2)
	Country: USA, D
	Genre: Action, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 17.05.2018, VOD, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: Sherlock Holmes (Downey) is bored to death when not challenged by apparently unsolvable cases. In the waiting time he torments his former partner soon-to-be-wed Watson (Law), until an old case with mysterious implications re-opens.
Review: I complained about the 2011 sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, and now that Netflix proposes this first movie as well, I could watch it again and remember that it is even worse. I dislike in particular the fact that Holmes uses his deductive genius to be better at ... street fighting, a choice obviously necessary to orient the franchise towards fast-paced action rather than mysterious crime-solving polar. I really didn't like this direction, and also found the editing too hacked (well, Guy Ritchie...) and the music too present. Moreover as the intend was not to show an origins story (for example the meeting between Holmes and Watson), we dive directly into their live at the point when they split, and no time is really given to get to know them, no more than to know Irene Adler for example. All of this made me come to miss the good old Hammer Sherlock Holmes like The Hound of the Baskervilles, and I dream that this poor American version awoke some proud British story-tellers that decided to take back their own national hero and show it in the much better TV version Sherlock the following year. Everything is so much better done in the series: actors, adaptation, stories, characters, villains, ... and to the comment I read that the movie is good in that it shows Sherlock in its original timeline (inlike the one of the series), I would invite to watch the episode 0 of the season 4: The Abominable Bride. A conclusion to the trilogy is sadly announced for 2020.
Rating: 2 /10

The bookshop (2017)

	Also Known As: -Der Buchladen der Florence Green
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Isabelle Coixet
	Actors: Emily Mortimer, Bill Nighy, Patricia Clarkson, James Lance
	Country: E, GB, D
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 07.05.2018, Schauburg, OV Sneak Preview,
Synopsis: Florence Green (Mortimer) is a free spirited widow and opens a bookshop - the first such shop in the sleepy seaside town of Hardborough, England in 1959. Resisting to plans of the local establishment embodied by Mrs Gamart (Clarkson) and the considerable local apathy of the town she struggles to establish herself. She proposes the modern literature including Nabokov's scandalizing "Lolita" and Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" to the narrow minded local townsfolk. And it works. She finds her first customer and soon best ally in the figure of Mr Brundish (Nighy) who is himself sick of the town's stale atmosphere.
Review: The plot has potential to enhance conflicts and to stage duel on words between the three main characters. The only duels we see are with James Lance. The rythm is very slow and basically the two characters in favour of the bookshop, Florence Green and Mr Brundish do not undertake any action to defend it against Mrs Gamart, which motivation is never explained.  I have no clue about the objective of Isabelle Coixet with this movie.
Rating: 2 /10

Grain (2017)

	Also Known As: La particule humaine
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Semih Kaplanoglu
	Actors: Jean-Marc Barr, Ermin Bravo
	Country: TR, D, F, S, Q
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 16.04.2018, Schauburg, OV Sneak Preview, English version with German subtitle
Synopsis: In an undefined near future, Professor Erol Erin (Barr), a seed geneticist, lives in a city protected from multi-ethnic immigrants by magnetic walls. For unknown reasons, the city’s agricultural plantations have been hit by a genetic crisis. In a meeting at the headquarters of Novus Vita, the corporation which employs him, Erol hears about Cemil Akman (Bravo), a fellow geneticist who wrote a thesis about the recurrent crises affecting genetically modified seeds. Erol sets out on a journey to find him.
Review: On the paper the story makes sense and sounds interesting (imdb or allocine). By watching just the movie, I would not say it deals with migration, even if some images at the beginning show a border like in Ceuta or Mexico/USA. I would not say it deals with corporation, even if we see people working in Novus Vita who have a controlling view on the biology, like we all suspect about Monsanto, Bayer and Syngenta. I do not really know how to describe the story apart from a guy following another one without much talking and with a kind of untold admiration. A kind of initiation in a spartan and rather ecological way of life. There is no much emotion in the movie apart from what the sceneries gives. Therefore the acting is difficult to appreciate. Having a black&white picture helps a lot in having beautiful sceneries, portraits and picture in general. A poetic movie could have been the result, but it is not by lack of lyrism and of dialogues. Jean-Marc Barr fans may get a poetic impression of the movie because this guy looks peaceful and poetic by himself. The movie may attract many people due to the critics it got, but disappoint them because of the lack of story and of poesie.
Rating: 4 /10

Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2003
	Director: Jan de Bont (Speed 1-2, Twister, The Haunting)
	Actors: Angelina Jolie (Wanted, Beowulf), Gerard Butler (Gamer, 300), Ciarán Hinds (The Woman in Black, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance)
	Country: USA, D, J, GB
	Genre: Fantasy, Adventure
	Conditions of visioning: 03.02.2018, VOD, 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: Looking for Alexander the Great's Luna Temple, Adventurer and Lady Lara Croft (Jolie) is put on the trail to a much greater and dangerous treasure, also pursued by weapon manufacturer Jonathan Reiss (Hinds).
Review: After a decent Lara Croft: Tomb Raider that I rather enjoyed when simply taken as a video game adaptation, I find this sequel very embarrassing on many aspects. You just have to look at that ugly poster of Lara in her less-than-flattering grey outfit. I have the feeling that we see her too much in that one, from close up, and maybe she speaks too much and also has some romantic entanglements (haha Gerald Butler) while for me she should just be that unattainable goddess. Although at first I thought that she was more acrobatic in this movie, jumping off ledges and so on, being closer to the game and showing more of what was a bit missing in the first, but quickly I saw that she is spending more time shooting people and using Panasonic gadgets (good product placement shown in full-frame and slow motion) that solving puzzles. I found the action confused (the helicopter scene) and the stakes unclear (what the hell is this story of current at the beginning?). I also realized something that I could overlook in the first movie, in this one Lara Croft fully embraces her title of Tomb RAIDER by massacring corral, destroying temples, driving through flocks of flamingos and dumping her parachute in the middle of the savanna. And of course she cannot help herself but helping the enemy for the sake of her own curiosity. Well I cannot complain too much about that because the original character is written so, and even the model of the genre Indiana Jones does it (in at least Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade). Still, why going through all this to just say in the end "Nah, I'm leaving it here" and kill your lover with that decision. In contrast to Speed and Twister, not the best from cinematographer-turned-director Jan de Bont. He was not seen much more afterward.
Rating: 2 /10