POMO

A remake of Besson’s cult movie La Femme Nikita by Hollywood craftsman John Badham. If I hadn’t known the original, Point of No Return would have come across as a standard Hollywood action flick with an interesting subject. But since I do know it, this version instead seems like a poor imitation of the great original with no sign of its creative touch. My three-star rating is only a compromise for those who haven’t seen Besson’s classic.

Compared to his Hollywood debut, The Replacement Killers, Chow Yun-fat’s second American film is an enjoyable step in the right direction, but it’s still not the real deal. Whereas The Replacement Killers was spectacularly filmed fluff, The Corruptor has a real screenplay and the story of the complicated friendship between an honest rookie cop (Mark Wahlberg) and a ruthless dirty cop (Yun-fat) is compelling. Though the plot is full of holes, the bleak atmosphere of the dirty big-city streets and the dramatic potential successfully pull it together. Training Day, a later thriller paradoxically made by the director of The Replacement Killers, has an essentially identical subject, but polished to perfection.

Solid craftsmanship, but the content is so feeble and predictable that you will die of boredom. There have been hundreds of such films and this one does not stand out among them in any way. It’s good entertainment only for viewers who go to the cinema once in ten years. And for small children who are satisfied with the sight of a cute dog and a series of naïve jokes.

I like romantic comedies with Meg Ryan. Most of them (e.g. Addicted to Love) are standard fare that you can relax with and then forget about before you even leave the cinema. But the better ones are among the best of the genre. And French Kiss is one of them for at least two reasons: 1) it’s set in Paris, 2) Meg’s love interest is Kevin Kline.

This sequel to Cronenberg’s The Fly, directed by the creator of its special effects, has nothing in common with the original’s intimate psychological vision. It has a banal, empty subject, no atmosphere, a few high-quality make-up effects and a more action-packed ending so you have the feeling that at least something happened in those 105 minutes.

Antonio Banderas is cut out for the role of a medieval hero, Jerry Goldsmith’s music is fantastically monumental and the individual (mainly action) scenes are also very nicely filmed and sometimes chilling with their dynamics and dark atmosphere. The scene in the caverns is flawless. But all of those nicely filmed moments are oddly patched together into a sprawling and inconsistent whole that is disconcerting. Supposedly, this is the fault of Michael Crichton, whose contract allowed him to interfere with the final form of the film. An angry John McTiernan therefore dropped out of the project before it was finished. The result is thus not McTiernan’s, but Crichton’s. And frankly, it’s not worth much. And that’s a shame, because this could have been a first-rate adventure.

A BEAUTIFUL adaptation of Bronte’s novel. Its atmosphere and the poetics of the black-and-white imagery have no equal today. Wuthering Heights is one of those cinematic classics that are a heart-warming celebration of moving pictures.

Until it gets to the overly drawn-out last half-hour, Wyatt Earp is a very decent western with everything the genre should have. Kevin Costner is a good fit for the role of Earp, and the melodramatic level of Earp’s emotional life is subtly balanced with the dramatic stories of his career as a sheriff. So, why was this film a commercial failure? Because it’s not a popcorn movie like Tombstone?

Robert Zemeckis’s directing is decent, but the screenwriting is so hackneyed and riddled with thriller clichés that it’s mind-numbing! And Silvestri’s rip-off of Herrmann’s music from Psycho is like a fist to the face! Though Silvestri and Zemeckis intended What Lies Beneath to be an homage to the beloved Hitchcock, they forgot the difference between paying tribute and cheap imitation. Shame on them.

Impotent filmmaking. Because of the naturalism of the sexual violence, Jill Rips is a disgusting and repulsive B-movie that tries to look like Seven and fails.