Emmanuelle

Too scary for Emmanuelle. Rating is overrated, I give it a 2*. 36-year-old actress. Kristel was 21-22 at the time of the first movie. I won't talk about attractiveness, it's a matter of taste, but at least you could have picked someone closer in type for the plot. "It used to be better"? I guess so.

The casting is as lame as possible. All attempts to shoot "by the book" after that are useless about completely. Absolutely. The image of Emmanuelle is not formed in any way. Of course, a new movie production of a beautiful novel has long been relevant. But something like this is better not to be filmed at all. Better nothing than this bad.

Aesthetically gorgeous. Apart from that, the script is almost laughable, and dialogs even more. No action, no word is believable, hence disconnected from the audience. I'm not quite sure what has been done to the sound, was every line redone post-production? It ends up being very flat and takes away the spice you would expect from such a great actress as Noemie Merlant. On this note, the entire cast is impressive for giving their very best to an empty shell.

A dozen people left the room during the movie, first one after 10 minutes. I myself fought to stay, out of respect for the cast and crew (Naomi Watts is such a good actress) and for Cinema itself. I hardly managed. The end brings nothing. I left running, quite concerned that a 2024 version of a famously erotic name had been stamped on a movie that reflects in no way the evolution of feminism, and women's pleasure, since 1974.

This is a decidedly darker take in style and substance than the original. The cinematography is darker; where the original was mostly outdoors in the lush yellow sunshine of Bangkok, this version is all shadows and dark interiors. The characters are darker, too, more silent and secretive.

Noémie Merlant, while lovely, is sharper and more angular than Sylvia Kristel, and lacking in Kristel's pure, innocent beauty. She tends to play the part much less open and expressive, adding to the mystery.

The secondary and peripheral characters are mostly undeveloped. Naomi Watts is totally wasted in a very minor role, and no one else seems up to the task of becoming an important part of the story. This version also lacks the other beautiful bodies that populated the original. The nudity, such as it is, is far less copious and quite a bit less explicit, making the sexuality of the character almost a sidelight of her personality, rather than an important feature of the story.

For my taste, there's a whole lot more to like in the original, from Sylvia Kristel's stunning beauty, to the lush tropical scenery, to the beautiful bodies filling so many of the scenes. If you aren't going to make it better, why bother to remake it?

Whoever decided to let Audrey Diwan direct and destroy this nostaligic franchise needs to rather donate the production money to animal welfare.

This movie has nothing in common with the other movies in the franchise and labors on and on with infinite reels of redundant dialogue.

I am happy the franchise has been rebooted but please can they hand the movie back into the hands of a man to make and Audrey Diwan is better suited to directing " Grass is green let's watch it grow" Perhaps the moviemakers should spend some time watching the original movies to better understand what made this franchise actually premiere in movie theatres at one point.

Noemie Merlant was not badly cast, she did her best to bring sexuality into the movie but there was nothing to work with.

No idea what Naomi Watts was doing in this movie.

The good: beautiful locations, often great cinematography and the film mostly has a great atmosphere (reminded me a bit of Lost in Translation). For its style alone, I'd give it a 7/10

The rest however is pretty bad. No character depth or development, pointless and often involuntarily funny dialogue, which makes the scenes that are supposed to be erotic quite dull And also: hardly any story

If you're looking for a stylishly made movie with no substance that gives you a good laugh from time to time because of its ridiculous dialogue and logic, then you'll at least be entertained.

But from a holistic point of view, I can't give it more than 4/10.