Dark Phoenix (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Director: Simon Kinberg
	Actors: James McAvoy (Filth), Michael Fassbender (Inglorious Basterds), Jennifer Lawrence (Passengers, The Hunger Games)
	Country: USA, CDN
	Genre: Action, SF
	Conditions of visioning: 21.09.2019, in-flight entertainment 10" screen.
Synopsis: During a rescue mission in Space, the X-men are successful but Jean Grey (Turner) absorbs a cosmic force which will free her potential.
Review: I stand by my opinion that the X-men franchise should have stopped with Days of Future Past and that Logan brought the Wolverine spin-off trilogy to a satisfying end. Even if everybody agrees that the Dark Phoenix apparently excellent comics saga was badly adapted into X-men 3: The Last Stand, I was not sure another attempt was a good idea and when I see the result, it was definitely not worth it. I can't watch any more X-men movies with the same old ingredients: Xavier always on the good side but questioned by his team, Magneto turning bad for even a short length of time, Mystique, Beast, Cyclops and Jean Gray... At least Sophie Turner plays better in this one. Even the addition of new mutants doesn't help anymore (Quicksilver the only highlight in Apocalypse is quasi-absent in this movie). They would need a seriously new approach to keep me interested, like they did with Logan. It is said that some re-shoots were done, supposedly to distance the movie from Captain Marvel that came out around the same time: female lead, glowing powers, shape-shifting aliens... But that's not too apparent and I didn't find it an issue. It is just that there is nothing new in those movies apart from a few moments like the opening scene in which Mutants and finally heroes fully integrated to society and helping it.
Rating: 4 /10

Pokémon: Detective Pikachu (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Director: Rob Letterman (Monsters vs. Aliens)
	Actors: Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool 1-2), Justice Smith (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom), Kathryn Newton, Bill Nighy (Shaun of the Dead), Ken Watanabe (Godzilla)
	Country: USA, J, GB, CDN
	Genre: Animation, Polar, Adventure
	Conditions of visioning: 16.09.2019, in-flight entertainment, 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: After his dad, a detective he barely knew, dies in a car accident, Tim (Smith) travels to the big city to wrap some things up. There, Humans and Pokemons live in harmony. He will soon meet his dad's Pokemon which he can speak to, and discover an evil plot.
Review: I missed the Pokemon video-game craze by a few years, I was just a little too old to ride it (and a Sega guy rather than Nintendo). But I remember it very well, my brother played it and I know the basics: the tournaments, trainers, underdog Pikachu, even the big bad Mewtwo. I think the movie talks to this audience, the one that played the game when it went out and is now in its thirties, but also to different generations that may have played different versions of it during the years, including the addictive Augmented-reality Pokemon Go. In fact the movie is also an adaptation of a 2016 video game. The movie nicely treats the whole tournament story into the past, giving just enough backstory for the newbies, and then moves on to a different thing, a sort of Adventure-Polar-Comedy-Superhero movie. The talking pet plot reminded me of Ted, probably thanks to the voice of Ryan Reynolds and the few dirty, definitely not children-suited jokes he managed to place. The World-building is fine, probably better if you are nostalgic of when you played the game in your youth and recognize the variety of Pokemons shown on screen. The story is not too bad, except for a few major loopholes that pulled me out of the movie, most importantly (spoiler, highlight to read): how did the kid not recognize the voice of Pikachu?!? In the end not as bad as one could have feared for another adaptation of video game that seems to come too late and drowned in many other (The Angry Birds Movie to quote just one).
Rating: 5 /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

1941 (1979)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1979
	Director: Steven Spielberg (E.T., Jaws, Ready Player One)
	Actors: John Belushi (Blues Brothers), Dan Aykroyd (Ghostbusters), Treat Williams. Christopher Lee (The Wicker Man, The Lord of the Rings), Nancy Allen (Robocop)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy, War
	Conditions of visioning: 13.09.2019, VOD, 40" TV screen
Synopsis: A few days after the Pearl Harbor attack by Japan on the USA, panic strikes the west coast. Conscripts as well as civilians struggle to keep a normal life while all around madness grows.
Review: That's really a good description for this movie: mad. None of the characters (and there are tons of them) behave like a normal person would, everything is exaggerated down to the latest details in the background. It's a happy mess. Happy and very noisy. In fact a vast majority of the dialogs is delivered by the actors shouting over other actors, background noise or the soundtrack. The end credits summarize that well: we see the name of many known actors next to a scene where they scream. Shouting jokes doesn't make them more funny. I can't tell if this is deliberate from Spielberg, maybe as an homage to the previous generation of comedies that were a bit like that. This is one of his less successful movies. I do like the story a lot, an exaggeration of the craziness of those times of war. The characters are well-written and played by many great actors. It is just that the constant visual and acoustic noise is quickly tiresome. Some breaks would have been welcome, especially in a 2-hour long movie. The movie contains iconic moments: the girl excited by planes, the scenes with the Japanese sub-marine especially with Sir Christopher Lee, the canon shooting through the house at the end, the quid-pro-quos when the whole city of Los Angeles believes that a single Japanese plane is above them, and any scene with John Belushi. I wouldn't say that it is a bad movie, again it just is tiresome to watch in spite of many good moments.
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

The Fast and the Furious (2001)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2001
	Director: Rob Cohen (Daylight, Stealth, xXx, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor)
	Actors: Vin Diesel (Pitch Black, Riddick, xXx), Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez (Avatar)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 10.09.2019, Blu-ray, 40" TV screen
Synopsis: Los Angeles police officer Brian O'Conner (Walker) infiltrates the world of illegal street car racing to try and find a gang of thieves.
Review: I have a lot to say around this movie, maybe not so much about the movie itself. For a while now I have been thinking about watching the whole Fast and Furious saga (8 movies and a spin-off to date). The final push is when I saw a review of the saga by a YouTuber Marcus that had the same idea as me. At the same time, I wanted to start watching less series and more movies, and by movies I mean Blu-Rays and not VOD. So I bought the box-set of eight movies and started from the beginning, slid the disk in my old Blu-ray player that I hadn't used in three years and Waw!, even though I use a medium-quality TV and not my old projector, there is no comparison of image quality between a Blu-Ray and VOD (Netflix) that I am now too used to. Those online services may promise HD (or 4k), it is obvious that the compression has a strong effect on resolution, colors, contrast and depth of the darks. Now about the movie: it is the only one of the saga I had seen before and still is as I remembered it, except that I noticed many more sad details. If you have seen Point Break, you know from the first minute what will happen in this movie so forget about being surprised. Car chases? Yeah but almost only in straight lines as the contenders have to pass first the 1/4 mile line and they do it in less than 10 seconds (but more like a minute in movie time, go figure). I don't see the fun in that, the winner ends up being the one with the most powerful car, and the one that doesn't uses his Nitrogen Oxyde booster too early. But for me that's the extend of the talent one has to have to win... What you do get in this movie are crazy Star Wars-like light-speed effect when they start the booster, that's quite funny. The camera moves are also crazy, making you forget the cheapness of the background effects. And you get to see a lot of colorful tuned cars surrounded by shortly-dressed groupies. The soundtrack is fun (+1 for using a song by the Mexican band Molotov) but totally incoherent: Hip Hop, Electro, Techno, Rock, anything goes. It is nice to see Vin Diesel playing the usual tough guy, Michele Rodriguez overdoing the tough girl, but Paul Walker is quite bad. The story doesn't help, putting him for too long in situations with apparently no acting direction. The one thing that barely saves the movie is how extreme is Brian's decision when it comes to take a side. There for a moment we see some magic between actors, but that's fleeting. And then the movie ends. It was fun to watch for historical reasons, knowing that it will lead to such huge better-done blockbusters, but it is otherwise quite bad. I may revise the rating when I have seen more from the saga.
Rating: 4 /10

The 15:17 to Paris (2018)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2018
	Director: Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino, Space Cowboys, Play Misty for me, J. Edgar)
	Actors: Alek Skarlatos, Anthony Sadler, Spencer Stone
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 05.09.2019, in-flight entertainment 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: Alez, Anthony and Spencer (themselves) are friends since they are kids. Children of divorced parents, changing school, discovering life... they were always together. Young adults they turn to the military. One day they decide to spend holidays in Europe. Fate will follow them.
Review: One of Clint Eastwood's recent but lesser known movies, The 15:17 to Paris relates the events of the terrorist attack onboard the Amsterdam-Paris Thalys train of August 21 2015. When the movie starts I was wondering how Eastwood would manage to stretch over 90 minutes an event that, from memory, was over before it started. Cleverly, and inspired by the autobiography The 15:17 to Paris: The True Story of a Terrorist, he starts by following the main characters from the youngest age. I didn't like that first third of the movie, feeling like exposition after exposition, showing us with regular timing the events that shaped those boys. Also I am not sure about Eastwood's message about guns and religion. Once the characters are adult the movie then feels more like a Documentary but that makes it getting better. You feel that it is inspired by true stories because nobody would have the idea to write such backstories for the main character, in particular Spencer that fails in different branches of the military and is definitely not a super-warrior. I pieced together as the movie went that the three main characters were played by themselves! That explains why the film feels like that and was shot like that. This is in fact the tour de force by Eastwood in that movie: directing non-professional actors in a way that gives realism to the movie and doesn't feel weird like P'tit Quiquin did for example. The third act is a recreation of the attack and its resolution, until an inclusion of the footage of the soldiers received the Legion d'Honneur from the French President. The final touch that makes the movie less flat than it could have been is the emphasis on the hesitation of the group of friends to take that particular train, and the reflections of Spencer on how he feels that life pushes him to a greater purpose. Indeed what are the odds that all the described events happen and lead to the three friends preventing the attack? Any other combination of events would have led to a totally different story, possibly with tens of victims... I can't be too harsh with a movie that leave me reflecting on such topics.
Rating: 6 /10

Cobra (1986)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1986
	Director: George P. Cosmatos (Rambo II, Tombstone)
	Actors: Sylvester Stallone (Demolition Man, The Expendables 1-3, Rocky, Rambo), Brigitte Nielsen (Red Sonja), Reni Santoni
	Country: USA, IL
	Genre: Action, Polar
	Conditions of visioning: 30.08.2019, VOD, 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: Marion Cobretti a.k.a. Cobra (Stallone) is the cop called for dirty jobs that nobody wants. When Ingrid (Nielsen) is witness to the crime of a band of serial killers, Cobra gets to protect her.
Review: Cobra looks like a comic book version of Dirty Harry with this cartoonesque hero using extreme force to neutralize hordes of criminals, never removing his sunglasses, driving an original car and using customized weapons. I also got some vibes of Death Wish with Charles Bronson, of The Warriors and of John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13, because of the hordes of faceless attackers. I liked the 80's way of shooting the movie, the music, clothes and all this nostalgia. Beyond that, the movie and in particular its story are a lot of nonsense. I recommend to watch it only if you like Action movies from that period and/or Stallone.
Rating: 4 /10

Shazam! (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Director: David F. Sandberg (Annabelle: Creation)
	Actors: Zachary Levi, Mark Strong (Kingsman: The Secret Service), Asher Angel
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy, Action
	Conditions of visioning: 28.08.2019, in-flight entertainment 10" screen.
Synopsis: While looking for his origins, Billy Batson (Angel), a 14-year old street-smart foster kid is called on by a wizard who gives him superpowers. To use them, he turns to an adult body when he shouts the name: Shazam!
Review: Aren't you tired of super-hero movies? In a market dominated by Marvel and its MCU, DC Comics is struggling. After the poor results of Justice League I was not sure they would go on. In fact they will after the moderate successes of Wonder Woman, Aquaman and this Shazam! It follows a different style, a bit like Deadpool for Marvel but while that fourth-wall-breaker is not part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Shazam! is part of the DCEU. Many references are made to the events of past movies in that Universe. The fresh location in Philadelphia also makes the movie prone to mention the Rocky franchise. It is quite original to follow the story of that kid with great powers, powers that he uses to make a few bucks or impress people until the bad guy comes along. Superpowers aside, the story reminds a lot of Big with Tom Hanks that I have recently seen, there is even a nod to it with the piano scene in a toy store. There are some funny moments, often brought by the dynamic between Billy/Shazam and his foster brother Freddy. The phase of superpowers tests and youtube uploads (with crazy name attempts for the hero) is pretty good. The Villain is not extremely original and the confrontations predictable, but what makes this movie special and different is that it revolves around family. All the action happening around is just entertainment, but the heart of the movie, it message is about family. I liked the humor in the movie, not too dumb or pushed, and in the end all elements mix well together. A sequel is in the plans. Note that the name Shazam is in fact an acronym, mix of the name of the Gods to which the hero borrows powers. See the snapshot at the end of this post. Don't be confused by the mention to Captain Marvel, DC Comics named this character like that at first but changed it when it made more sense for Marvel's version to keep the name.
Rating: 6 /10

Triple Frontier (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Director: J.C. Chandor (A Most Violent Year)
	Actors: Ben Affleck (Batman V Superman, The Town, Paycheck), Oscar Isaac (Star Wars 7-9), Charlie Hunnam (Pacific Rim), Pedro Pascal (Narcos TV-series)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 23.08.2019, VOD, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: Loyalties are tested when five friends and former special forces operatives reunite to take down a South American drug lord, unleashing a chain of unintended consequences.
Review: Netflix has put a nice cast together for this movie. Something like The Expendables but with current trendy and beloved actors instead of 80's Action former legends. You can really appreciate the talent of those five guys and in fact nobody else appears for a noticeable amount of time. Their talent saved a movie with an otherwise weak screenplay. Their acting makes you forget about the gaps in the story and weird timing. Except for the scene where those men we have been presented and shown as ultra-professionals neglect basic rules. They are also shown to keep their cool in the whole rest of the movie. At the same time, the unusual story is quite welcome in the modern predictable cinematographic landscape. You brace yourself for the Drama bound to happen in the second act, but it doesn't go the way you would think. That is the kind of risk Netflix takes and it sometimes pays of (not like with Bright). Another great thing about this movie are the landscapes, on both sides and over the South American Andes. They are naturally beautiful and are adequately shot. The journey of those friends through Nature reminds me of Deliverance (also for the way death is depicted), while the mountain crossing could be a nod to Fitzcarraldo (although I have not seen it yet). So I liked it in spite of the weird pace.
Rating: 6 /10