Sxilderik

Landscapes are magnificient, breathtaking.

But that's the only notable thing about this movie.

Alas, the story in not believable - noone mauled and bitten by a grizzly bear like this could ever dream surviving it, even with the best cares modern ER could give.

But we do not care, because we do not care for any of the characters. No character developement, clichés right from the start, story very much predictable...

What's left after more than two hours? The landscapes, the picture, the sceneries...

If you want to spend two hours watching a story both predictable and unbelievable juste because the landscapes are gorgeous, well, this a movie for you ;)

I never write reviews, usually because I have nothing to add to what has already been said, because my first language is not english, or - and mostly - because I simply I do not care enough.

But this movie has an injust bad mark, 5.7 is way too low. Way way too low.

I hate injustice, I fight it in my everyday life.

I did not read the novel, so I can just write about the movie.

I'm not very fond of Matt Damon, but I'm a fan of Christoph Waltz. Him being in the credit - and the story - made me pass over the bad mark - I usually never consider watching a movie with a mark less than 6.5.

I never regretted it. I'm a hard core SciFi fan, and I was pleased with the care they took to make the story believable. Shave, yes (why exactly?), ok but everywhere. Remove artificial add-ons, like teeths. Etc.

When I was wondering who was doing the cleaning and the low-level chores in this eden-like society, then they came, the cleaning staff appeared, and the slum they lived in.

Valid economical questions were raised (should someone who participates so little to the economy have equal say in political matters?), some other points were left unanswered (or even not asked, such as what would is the social or economical validity of a mixed world, where some enjoy high level of living with much less money while other can not afford the transformation?)

This movie brings us a good story, which opens lots of valid questions, and gives ok answers to some of them.

The characters are enjoyable, especially the ones played by Christoph Waltz, and Hong Chau (let's admit it, she steals the show); the character played by Matt Damon fails in being likeable, and is not pathetic enough to be pity-liked. We don't care what happens to him - I guess we are supposed to identify with him, but that fails too.

So I give 9/10, to help balance the global mark, the kinda failed Matt Damon character prevents me from giving 10/10 in that mean raising purpose.

It started well, though. Mysterious last will and testament with missions to accomplish... Adorable french Canadian accent (I'm french, I love what our cousins have done with our common language ). A Quebec thriller, yeah !

Rapidly, first eyebrow raisers... What Arab place are they talking about like everyone should know about it ? Never heard of it...

Then you realize the Arab country they are going to is just an archetypal Arab country, non existent. A caricature of many seen-on-TV Arab countries... OK, why not, I suppose Americans (as people living on the American continent) have a lesser history burn with Arab countries than Frenchs, for example, do, and have no problem building a make-believe Arab country just for the sake of... what? At this point, I supposed the filmmakers wanted to make some point about Arab or religious wars... or terrorism... ? Since they are Canadians, not Unitedstatesians, I was hoping maybe for a not so obvious / good vs bad kind of story... But I was really wondering what was the purpose of all that.

The story goes on, civil war, religious war, slaughter, all fake, all archetypal, OK, but to what end? What's the point?

And then, you finally get the answer, at the end of the movie, with one unforeseen big plot twist.

And then you realize the Arab story is absolutely irrelevant. The same plot could have been set in any archetypal place with a credible history of violence and torture... South America? Former Yugoslavia? Caucase? Heck, actually, since the prison/torture part is altogether sufficient to hold the whole movie, the very same movie could have been set just about Guatanamo (and viewers would then believe for one hour they were watching a anti-US movie, only to realize at the end the total irrelevance of all that)

At the end of the movie, you get that astonishing plot twist, which makes you realize the vast vacuity and uselessness of all the side stories you have been watching for the past hour. But, OK, what next ? What to do with that extraordinary situation ?

Well, nothing. Movie ends here. Tadaaaa.

And loopholes appear : there's obviously a wrong choice of actors : one of them should really look like twenty years older that what he looks like. The lawyer, since he wrote all three letters, should have understood much earlier the whole thing: it never shows that he knows more than the others participants to the quest. Weird.

Good acting. I loved the actresses. The boy is deliberately annoying, and he does annoy me, so I guess he is a success too.

On the whole, a waste of time, the feeling of having been cheated, using a deceitful setup for a story that could hold in three lines.

I do suggest, instead of watching this movie, reading the Robert Heinlein 1953 short story "All you zombies". On the same kind of twisted plot, that gem makes this movie looks... petty.

I love this movie, Jouvet, Arletty, Blier, Carné... almost everything has already been said about the movie, but there is one detail I'd like to shed some light onto: no footage of the real, still standing, Hôtel du Nord (is it still? I heard it was to be demolished...) has been used for the movie - the whole scene has been rebuilt on set, the main reason being that they could not stop the traffic on the St Martin canal for several weeks.