Reviews

It's a very personal drama telling the director's own story about feeling abandoned by her mother, the famous French singer Marie Laforet.

Most reviewers didn't "get" the film because they viewed it as a romantic comedy about the American dating culture; they were misled by Amazon Prime Video's terrible promotion material that announces the film as such. It seems that many American/British film distributors insist on doing this to European films: promoting them as comedies, thinking that American and British audiences will not watch a film that is a labelled as drama. So they lie to the public.

Looking back, we could not remember a single scene that we might label as "funny..." Because the film is not meant to be funny!

Sixty seconds into the film my wife and I said to each other: "this is no comedy!" And we continued watching and enjoyed it for what it really is: the story of a woman trying to cope with the fact that she was abandoned by her famous mother at an early age. It's actually tragic.

Sophie Marceau delivers a great performance as the main character, and the child actors whom play her as a child are also very natural (the sign of a great director who can bring out the best in children in front of a camera).

The film is not brilliant because the gay friend character is presented a bit too superficially and the whole ending is a bit too stereotypically "Hollywood Happy End."

Still, an enjoyable drama that raises several topics for discussion: how do you feel about a mature woman hooking up with a man that is half her age? How are the cultures of America and France different when it comes to romantic relationships and sex? How do you handle the fact that your mother chose her career over you?

Enjoy the film and discuss!

Nice core story and cool recreation of the 80's environment. Too bad that this includes ripping off many elements from popular films of that time: the series is a combination of "E.T.", "Alien," "Signs" and "Close Encounters..." Doesn't anybody have an original idea for a series anymore?

And the dialogues are sooo laaame!! As if they were written by the three children who are the main characters. That's a pity, because they really get in the way of enjoying the show. There are so many clichés that this also becomes irritating... How many times can you get away with characters keeping stupid secrets from each other, when there is no need to do that? How many times can characters just say "trust me on this..." instead of explaining why they want people to do something?

And how come in the parallel universe you have the same buildings, except with weed growing all over them? Why is it always night there? Why are there no people (except a poorly-dressed monster), yet there are lampposts on the streets, but no lights inside buildings?

Well, if you're 8 years old, I guess you're not bothered by any of this.

A great cast wasted on a terrible script and bad directing. Makes super-hero movies seem plausible and profound by comparison.

The first film (Now You See Me) was entertaining, creative, intelligent. NYSM2 is nothing of the sort: it is filled with clichés, totally predictable, from the first to the last scene.

Yes, this kind of film requires you to suspend your disbelief, but there needs to be some plausibility within a make-believe universe proposed by the story. In this story, things do not make any sense at all. Yes, they are magicians and they can make card tricks... But the whole sequence in which they flip around a card among themselves while they are being searched by twelve different guards, and none of the guards see them throwing that card around the room... That's just ridiculous! They could have filmed that better, they could've come up with something just a little bit smarter...

And that is just an example of how much dumber this film is, compared to the first one. I hope this flop discourages producers from making NYSM3, but you never know... Some Hollywood producers seem to enjoy burning money as if they were doing magic tricks.

This is awful, one of the worst films ever made. A cast of fine actors totally wasted on a terrible script, so superficial and full of clichés that it makes Disney's classic animation films seem profound and full of nuances by comparison.

Joy is such an unbelievably clichéd character that it hurts... The writer/director took every feminist stereotype he could find and threw them in the film. It is such a caricature that it is painful, even the most feminists of feminists would cringe at the blunt way characters are displayed: everybody in the film is incredibly stupid, except Joy, who suddenly in the last five minutes turns everything that has gone wrong with her for two hours into a miracle of righteousness. She is the absolute heroine who suddenly makes everything right, just because she has the guts to face up to the evil men in her life (just about all of them), and that is all it takes.

Really, this picture is not recommended for anyone with a mental age above eight years old. I am disappointed to see that it got any nominations for awards.

I enjoyed all five Bourne flicks, but this is the worst of the lot. A waste of talent, because it's a great cast and they turn out good performance; and Greengrass directs the story at a tight pace, keeping your interest throughout. BUT (and it's a big but)...

The whole script reads like a repetition of what we've seen before: car chases and power plays within the CIA; only this time, it's not as creatively written as it was on the first three films of the franchise.

There are too many car chases and they are too long. You should leave the audience wanting more, rather than wanting less. And, as noted by other reviewers, the chases ask too much suspension of disbelief. (1) a small car keeping up with a motorbike in the streets of Athens? Come on!... Motorbikes have much more acceleration... In real life, you turn three corners and the car is more than a block away. (2) the Vegas chase looks like a video game with two indestructible cars cutting through a hundred others that melt like cheap plastic.

Too many gratuitous killings. In Bourne #1, a CIA assassin kills the landlady in Paris and that is shocking, since she was an innocent bystander who did not need to be killed. This time, the assassin kills half a dozen innocent bystanders throughout the film. Anybody who crosses his path gets it between the eyes... This actually has less dramatic value and detracts from reality.

The final showdown between Bourne and Dewey is such a cliché... Was creativity also shot by the CIA assassin between Athens and Vegas?

Similarly, the final fight between Bourne and the assassin has zero creativity in its choreography. Usually, you expect that the good guy kills the bad guy in an unusual way, that the confrontation is resolved creatively. Not in this case. Disappointing.

Of course, the story ends in a way that sets up the coming of Bourne # 6... And there are some unanswered questions that will most likely be addressed in the next flick. I just hope they put more effort into writing a creative story.

This is Agatha Christie for the first two thirds, then a gore fest that tries to compensate for the lack of action in the first part, and goes overboard.

Overall, not a good result. Yes, this is typical Quarantine style: slowly building tension with long drawn-out dialogues until the violence explodes. The problem with TH8 is that it loses its balance and falls flat on its face (with lots of blood spilling all over).

The building up is too long, too boring, too pretentious, not original enough. It is a poor attempt at imitating Christie's style, but with low quality. The dialogues are stereotyped, not creative: it's like a second-rate high-school play.

The last third is more interesting, but tries too hard to deliver violence in a way that is totally gratuitous and adds nothing to the story. It's gore for gore's sake; it gets repetitious and boring, in a different way. Too much of the same is never a recipe for success.

The best thing in TH8 is the musical score, by Ennio Morriconne; however, some of that incidental music seems out of touch with the images... suggesting that Moriconne-Tarantino is a combination that does not work quite as well as Sergio Leone-Morriconne.

Tarantino is a narcissist needing a kick in the ass to get back in form. He should try something different, get out of his own comfort zone, be creative. Of course, creativity was never his forte, since he made his name by imitating great directors.

A nice idea gone awfully wrong. The first 20 minutes are actually quite good: the art design is worthy of all the prizes you could award it, and the director builds a growing tension that keeps you interested, although you already know, from the first five minutes, that the likely outcome is that everything will fall apart, since "the building" is clearly a metaphor for "modern" society.

However, even predictable plots can be interesting, and initially this seems to be the case.

Then, the film loses its grip and very quickly becomes an endless repetition of chaos. By the 30min mark the director has made his point: society sucks and if things continue as they are, we will all descend into primitive behaviour and act like barbarians. Nothing wrong with that message per se, but the film gets stuck on it like a broken record and treats the audience to an endless stream of pointless violence, mindless sex orgies, rapes, more violence, looting, social chaos, still more violence. It's like beating a dead horse and then continuing to beat it until you are beating the skeleton of a dead horse (and you continue beating it).

It seems that the writer and director were so in love with the core message that they could not quite get around to developing it and finishing it properly.

I saw this at a cinema in London; some people left half-way into it (most seats were empty anyway). I managed to sit through the whole thing, hoping that the movie would redeem itself towards the end; it only got worse. This might be at the top of my "worst films of all time" list.

The acting is not bad, the cast is good, and the art design is still deserving awards; but the overall result is just appalling. It would have made a great short film, if they stopped it at 30 minutes. The way it was released, at 119 minutes, it is 90 minutes too long.

Totally predictable, from start to finish, this film (?) is a pre-teen geek's fantasy: a billionaire who owns/runs the company that beat Google to a pulp, but lives in a secret hideout more than two hours away from civilization by helicopter, where he single-handedly builds androids. Even for a comic book story that's far-fetched.

Then this bearded Steven Jobs type, who is a technical genius and a CEO, calls in a geek with a brain the size of a peanut and the emotional maturity of an eight-year-old to test the AI of his latest android? Give me a break...

The plot has more holes than a swiss cheese; the setting is totally inconsistent. In a house with state-of-the-art technology, and top security protocols, the doors open with a standard plastic card? No fingerprint identification? No iris ID? Come on...

And the genius CEO gets totally drunk every evening, as if he was some college freshman?

Towards the end, when Ava unscrews her left arm to replace it, the arm was fitting under her sleeve; when she screws a new one in, it fits over her sleeve... pay attention, guys!

When she puts skin over her metal body, the final result changes the actual shape of her body: with the skin on top of the metal, she has smaller breasts, skinnier buttocks, narrower hips... This makes absolutely no sense.

Yes, the visual effects are great. That's why it deserves three stars out of ten; otherwise, it should be rated "1".

The brilliant direction and good acting save this film from being a disaster. The plot has major flaws, and that is a pity. However, the direction keeps the right blend between suspense, action, and a tense atmosphere.

To enjoy the film, you need to suspend your disbelief from the very beginning; then this might work. Otherwise, the plot gets in the way.

I mean, why would the CIA use SUV convoy to transport a prisoner across a crowded bridge, instead of a helicopter? And once on that bridge, why not keep a fire lane open for the convoy, instead of getting everybody stuck in a stupid traffic jam? This makes no sense.

The feisty female FBI agent punching her superior officer right in the middle of a covert operation, that was really asking too much from the audience... realism went out the window. Too bad, because if plot flaws like these had been avoided, this might have turned out to be a classic The director has proved that he deserves to be given a better script.

Comedy? This is about as funny as a double feature of Macbeth and Hamlet, but with more drama... The film chronicles the very British and very neurotic marital relationship of the two main characters. Both Broadbent and Duncan deliver good performances, but it's the script that spoils it all.I confess to not being British enough, nor neurotic enough, to identify with the characters... perhaps some people might find their situation interesting; I found it irritating. The characters are irritated with each other, constantly criticizing and complaining about everything; theirs is a textbook neurotic relationship, in which they get their kicks out of the sado-masochistic interactions they have with each other. All in all, a wonderful theme for a marriage counselors convention, but hardly a comedy, not even a "dramatic comedy"... There is nothing to smile about.

And it's all so boringly predictable... They arrive at the same hotel in which they had their honeymoon 30 years earlier. Naturally, it doesn't look the same (like their marriage...), the rooms have been painted in a different color, and Meg hates it. Off she runs, with pathetic Nick trailing after her and, throwing money repeatedly at a cab driver (what symbolism: money is no object, we're just throwing it away!...) directly to the Plaza Athenée, the most expensive hotel in Paris, where she gives them their passports and credit card, saying literally: "money is no object". When the hotel receptionist tells them that the hotel is fully booked, they moan about taking the Eurostar back to London... As if there would be no other hotel room available in Paris: it's either their honeymoon two-star place of 30 years ago, or the Plaza Athenée... Nothing else will do.

That's when my irritation went over my threshold and I found it difficult to engage with the characters.

Even more predictably, on they go to visit... the Pére Lachaise cemetery, symbolizing their own failed marriage and their lives coming to an end. And the trip was supposed to be an attempt to revive their relationship?...

It gets worse: at a dinner in an ex-pupil's home, when the host makes a beautiful speech thanking Nick for being an inspiring mentor, Nick retorts with a speech of his own stating that actually his life is over, he's been sacked by the university and his wife does not love him, he is a complete failure. Meg later tells him that his speech was brilliant... It seems to fit into the overall self commiseration that characterizes their lifestyle.

I can understand all of it as an accurate description of a neurotic relationship... Just forgive me for not being excited about it. And please, please... do not bill this as a comedy!

Talk about bad... This one is so bad that even as a popcorn movie it's not worth a penny!

The CGI is worse than in a reasonable video game; the sets are so awfully done that it's laughable... to say the least. The plot? When I played cops and robbers with my friends at age seven we had better ones.

Really, to see this kind of crap is only justified in order to appreciate good movies by contrast. A lot of films these days are geared for teen agers and not adults; but this one is an insult to teen-agers, it's impressive for a six year-old at best. If you all you want is to be entertained, that's fine... but this is so badly done that it is only entertaining as a joke; it makes Lord of the Rings seem like an art film.

Cage has done a lot of awful pics (and just a couple of good ones); this has got to be one of his worst. Bad acting, production values lower than a tram rail, a script so bad that it makes you ashamed to watch (let alone the guys who wrote it)... This is what gives Hollywood productions a bad name. A waste of time.

I cannot recommend this series highly enough... I found it excellent in every aspect: the writing, directing, photography, acting, the music score. It is deeply moving and brought me to tears in several moments.

As a period piece it has no rival; it is head and shoulders above any other historical series in TV. It is certainly of much better artistic quality than The Tudors, Rome, and The Vikings series, for instance. It is actually difficult to compare with anything else ever made for TV.

It is a series for adults, treating serious themes seriously, and with powerful messages about the stupidity and horrors of war, and the delusions and vanity of politicians; though it is set in Denmark, Germany and the UK in the 1850's and 1860's, most of it applies to situations in the US and Europe in the beginning of the 21st Century: it is a real masterpiece.

I really find it hard to understand why some people gave it a low rating... Perhaps it was too profound, too serious, too disturbing? It's certainly not a popcorn & soda production to help you escape reality: it is more a wake-up call to escape escapism. The war scenes were indeed realistic and horrible as real war is; no adolescent glorification of combat. Indeed, the series denounces the naivety of young people joyfully marching off into war as if it were a picnic, and then being scarred by it forever.

As for the alternation between past and present, I did not find it confusing; I found it gave the audience time for reflection and for making the very important connections between past and present, between history and present-day disenchantment, between millennials and a much older generation. I could easily see long debates going on about the messages the series conveys, addressing issues of personal and national identity, the roles of religious and political leaders, the meaning of heroism. You could easily have a whole graduate course organized around these 8 chapters.

In the end, I was sad to see it finish; yet it was correctly proportioned from beginning till end. The last chapter was not rushed (which is often the case with made for TV productions) and it left me wishing all series were as good as this one.