kodekon Reviews

99 Francs (2007)

Pretentious and full of clichés

[9 August 2011]

I pretty much hated the movie right from the start. You just know quite fast when you start watching a film, any film, whether the film rings true or whether it's full of sh*t. 99 francs was the latter.

The film was full of clichés and bad jokes. Probably some of the "funny" stuff was France-centric and don't mean that much to others, but that can't really explain the staggering dumbness I had to witness. I felt like I was treated like a 10 year old who has never seen a film or read a book, or really knows nothing about the realities of the world. Actually it felt like the makers were 15 year old teens who felt like they wanted to set the record straight of what the advertising world reaaalllyyy is like. But the problem is that there was absolutely nothing new here. We've seen this stuff million times before.

Like other reviewers have pointed out here this was apparently a successful book transformed to film. That explains a lot, because usually it's really hard to achieve the atmosphere successfully. And this film tried really just too much. In a way I appreciate the franticness of the film, and of course I do appreciate the obviously high production values, but to me it was all just a waste. The knowledge of those can't erase the disappointing feeling the film gave me, and that's why I only give it 3 stars.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)

Plastic

[3/10 · 19 May 2007]

Stupid, unsexy and boring. The actors are unbelievable and basically just pose through the whole film. Vince Vaugh is unbelievably irritating, Pitt and Jolie are their usual bland selves; it's like watching mannequin robots for two hours. I guess my problem is that I have never found either Jolie or Pitt particularly sexy or interesting.

One word to describe the script: childish. Apparently the old myth that all the Hollywood films are made for 12 year old girl really are true. Although this time the target audience seems to be a bit more precise: domesticated wives and husbands with the emotional capacity of a 12 year old girl who think it's titillating to equate marriage with competing hit men.

And yeah, it seems the guy who wrote the script is the same one who managed to destroy X- Men III (along with Zak Penn and Rattner). So no wonder. From now on I really have to remember to avoid anything done by them.

The stars I give are for the technical quality of the film which is pretty good. But that's given for a production of this magnitude.

I can't believe I lost two hours of my life watching this bland plastic fest.

My Name Is Modesty: A Modesty Blaise Adventure (2004)

A disgrace

[3/10 · 5 January 2006]

I have grown up reading Modesty Blaise, both the comics and the books, and she truly is a heroine to me. Although not being a great fan of Quentin Tarantino I anyway was interested to hear a few years back that he was considering making a film of her: could he finally give Modesty a nice big screen treatment she's worthy of? I heard of 'My Name Is Modesty' a few months ago and checked the stars it had been given here, and wasn't too surprised to find out the score was not too high, since beloved characters often have hard time melting the fans' heart if not done exactly right. So I decided not to read any reviews and see the film instead, and well, I just finished watching it, and I'm stunned, and sad, and yeah, pretty furious, too. Sad and furious of giving over an hour of my time seeing something so fabulous as Modesty Blaise-character being turned into a film that has nothing to give to a viewer or a fan.

It seems that almost everything about this film is sub-par and unprofessional, although I must admit seeing some actors in other films earlier where they were fine so I can't blame them. But the screenplay and the directing... my god, why even make this kind of crap with production values slightly bigger than your average TV-film but done much worse? I don't know the background of this film and actually I really don't want to know, but I just can't help wondering that how on earth could Tarantino with a straight face tell that he loves Modesty and then put his name on this? He just lost a huge amount of respect in my eyes. The director was not the right man for this job and I can honestly thank him for ruining my night.

I give this film 3 stars and those stars go to the actors and the technical quality which could've been worse. The other seven stars missing are what this film was not good at. Oh well, hopefully at some point there will be a serious production of The Modesty Blaise Movie that has some other goals than to steal money from the Modesty fans. Although if people like Tarantino are the ones making the decisions I'm not holding my breath.