Reviews

Very dispappointed by this movie (hesitated for a 5 but kept 6 for the unsusual theme, pretty filming and certainly neat acting from Blanchett). Super slow which is not an issue in itself but leads to 'compressing' the unfolding of the story in what seems to be left available (out of 2h40 !). No point trying to develop and unfold the personnality of the main character (which we can guess pretty fast anyway) if it is to rush her "redemption" moments with a ridiculously short sequence back in her home house, the sudden realization of her ugliness when selecting a massage lady and her redemption in conducting a 'no-frill' orchestra in what we guess is Bangkok....

Attracted by the cast and inetrested to see how the theme of casual relationships was addressed 50 years back. But I just found the whole thing rather boring, with the 2 male characters being caricatures. The triangle relationship with Susan was a good idea but not well exploited in my opinion. Stopped watching an hour or so into it.

A nice idea placed apparently well in history as it seems the first restaurants indeed date back from before the French Revolution, and rather well filmed with beautiful scenes of the countryside and the auberge. The acting is also quite good although de Tronquedec diction reminds of some of his traits in the TV series Fais pas ci fais pas ca. Regrettably the story line is rather thick and the movie is unfortunately full of cliches and predictable situations (Even the evening pouring rain replaces the sunny weather on the day when the duke is first expected to eat at the restaurant ), including the unavoivable love story slowly developing, and of course with a happy end. What a pity.

I am, almost by principle, wary of movies over 2 hours. However, a film by Spielberg, over a rather unusual and sensitive theme seemed attractive enough. It was rather long but fell short of my expectations...

I found the storyline rather shallow and had the impression that Spielberg tried to compensate this by visual atmospheres : a few nice and rather moving scenes of the English countryside and the battlefields as well as many lighting effects (horse running through the no man's land at night, Albert returning home over a sunset more reminiscent of Hawaii than of Dorset...). This was far, far away from the poetry and effects of E.T...

I also found totally ridiculous to have the German and french characters speaking (rather grammatically good) English, albeit with a unique and quite strange accent. Spielberg himself seems to have to justify himself and have a German soldier explaining that he speaks good English...

This is truly wonderful filming and lighting, alongside with a nice soundtrack. It was a technical and human challenge to make this movie, shot in various locations around the globe and with equipment that was sometimes made up just for this purpose. Jacques Perrin was a precursor in such documentaries with "Microcosmos" about insect life in the mid-1990s and once again, this time with "Oceans", acts as a true eye-opener of the diversity of marine life. I find however a pity that controversial topics (over fishing, pollution, global warming impact) are just briefly touched upon, when there are some sequences that may be a bit lengthy (such as the storm in Brittany, despite the very impressive impact it leaves).

I am a fan of good cartoons and my 7-year old son and I saw this together. Unfortunately, there's nothing really original in this movie where the plot is the usual one, with a bad guy who wants to rule the world and a happy ending where the frustrated and controlling party -the mole- is brought to reason without inflicting too much damage. It barely seems to be riding on the originality of previous movies such as the good fellas being unusual (guinea pigs instead of the "Ratatouille" rats) and at least 2 scenes resembling Toy Story (the pigs escaping from their children owners and the car chase where the skate board is replaced by a futuristic 3-ball vehicle). The only interesting (not new but "refreshed") idea is that of machines attempting to control the world, but the "coffee-machine" is really used in one scene only. So OK, the visual effects are sometimes impressive, but technology does not do all in a movie !