UK Shaun The Red Siren (2002)Some films hit all the right notes. They contain a cast that play their parts to perfection. The story being told, you never want it to end. Everything jells so well. The Red Siren is not one of those films.The Red Siren plods along. Other than a rather good shootout scene, most of the time, I felt my interest drifting. Others here on IMDb have covered the story, so I will skip doing that, and cut to some facts.The good: Jean-Marc Barr, who plays Hugo an ex soldier, does a good job. The audio, fitted the mood most of the time. Camera work looks professional, even if some shots are unoriginal, for example, the classic looking down the centre of a spiral staircase.The bad: The Red Siren looks more like something from the late 80's and not 2002. Apparently the book on which the film is based is supposed to be good. Blame it on the script, the story failed grab my interest. There's an English actor with an English accent, he sounds and acts in an amateur way. There are a bunch of foreign actors, speaking English, and they sound wrong. Asia Argento, is far from on form, and manages to keep her kit on.

Marc The main reason for seeing this film would the chance to see Jean-Marc Barr make good work of his strong role in an otherwise far fetched but entertaining film with a weak supporting cast and a poor script. What really struck me upon first viewing was how dark the story got as the storyline unfolded. Nice images and some good action shots hold it together when the majority of the actors can't.I have to state that the character of the mother (Eva) is the worst characterization that I've seen in quite some time. I readily will credit European cinema (incl UK) in more originality and risk taking, but this character seems to be derived directly from Cruela Deville in "101 Dalmations" crossed with Jude from "The Crying Game" in both appearance and manner and it doesn't work at all. She's more of a nuisance than a threat. It's her henchmen that are the real antagonists here instead.Jean-Marc delivers a solid performance and his good press for his acting is well credited in this film. The child "Alice" is okay, but I don't feel as though I connected as well as I could have with this character. What's strongest here is the cinematography and art direction, with some strength from the director in his action shots, believable or not. Overall, it's an interesting film and worth a try but definitely an acquired taste.

Mrswing Another train wreck of an action movie (sort of) from the Besson stable... A totally ridiculous storyline about a girl on the run from her superpowerful mother who is evil incarnate (and makes sure everyone knows it all the tile). The girl gets help from a nice mercenary, who takes her to find her missing presumed dead father in Portugal. Acting is generally dreadful (and given the international cast, it's obvious that many actors have been dubbed - badly). There's no rhythm to the story : the first major action sequence occurs more than halfway into the film. And the second and final major action sequence is a ridiculously choreographed fistfight (without Hong Kong influences, for once). Dialogue is dreadful, the psychology is beyond unbelievable, major coincidences are necessary to keep the plot going... It's amazing that 5 people (including the original author AND science fiction great Norman Spinrad) were involved in writing this turkey. The opening part of the film is visually striking but as things go on, style is forgotten. I guess director Olivier Megaton should change his (pen?)name to Olivier Megadud... He's probably quite good at making videoclips or commercials but shows absolutely no talent for storytelling or working with actors. Which means he's perfect for Joel Silver's upcoming projects! Quick, someone call Hollywood!!!

homme_a_la_cape_noire I went to see this film because I had read the novel by Dantec. The litterature is not a masterpiece but constitutes the basis for a wonderful film. Unfortunately, Mr Megaton(the director), seems to have misunderstood the strength of the novel. This story is a psychological one based on the relationship of a daughter with her murderer mother and the one of a little girl with an idealistic Bosnia Mercenary. The Director Olivier Megaton does a very poor job at expressing these complexities beeing to buisy showing long shooting and actions scenes, giant explosions etc... Except from Jean Marc Barr who is somehow convincing as Hugo, the actors interpret the complex characters whith very talent and little complexity. The mother murderer seems like a movie version of Cruela Devil from the 101 dalmatians. The plot beeing somehow far fetched, this film's characters needed to be given realism to make the experience fulfilling. Yes the shooting scenes are filmed with talent and the sound quality is astounding but pure technique and craftmanship are not enough to make a movie. The film lacks layers and depths. Few people in Europe needed to be convinced that a European director could make an action movie. The problem is that this movie is the synthesis between the worse in European and American films It is filled with useless actions scenes, flat acting and unfinished characters(like in usual action hollywood films) and it has the badly explored psychological, philosophical and social themes of an unsuccesful european film