It’s absolutely no surprise to learn Colombiana was inspired by co-writer and producer-Luc Besson’s script for the unmade sequel to The Professional. Besson’s excellent 1994 dramatic thriller starred Natalie Portman as a 12-year-old girl who’s just lost her family and falls into the arms of her next door neighbor who just so happens to be a professional assassin who teaches her the trade as she seeks her own revenge. However, to compare the two films is folly as The Professional had substance, personality, emotion, style and a character you could empathize with because Besson wasn’t more interested in blowing things up than telling a story.
Colombiana helmer Olivier Megaton, on the other hand, already proved story was of little interest to him in 2008 with Transporter 3. Here he’s improved a little bit, but in a situation where you’re dealing with a nine-year-old girl spending the next 15 years of her life training to become a killer all in a search for revenge you can’t help but have a little emotion in your story… along with random dance sequences and a bit of impromptu sex. I mean, come on, he’s only human.
To be fair, Colombiana isn’t any worse than any other film of its sort. Ludicrously fast paced without much purpose and when it slows down for random “beauty” shots such as slow motion shower scenes or even a pillow fight between a group of scantily clad escorts none of it means anything. Here the FBI doesn’t knock a door down, they blow it the eff up as this is just another one of today’s commercial-driven PG-13 actioners and while some can be better than others, Colombiana is just one of those below average ones that sits at the bottom of the barrel on its way to the bottom of the bargain bin.
Zoe Saldana (Avatar, Star Trek) plays Cataleya, the young girl I told you about in the lead. She watches as her father and mother are killed only to pull her own parkour, out-the-window escape act so she can live another day. On her father’s advice she sets out from Colombia to America where she meets up with her uncle Emilio in Chicago. It’s apparent at the outset Emilio is his own brand of bad guy as he’s seen pummeling a guy strapped to a chair when we first meet him. We don’t know why, but I like to think it’s because he ate Emilio’s last Popsicle without asking. Rude.
The nature of the film takes a turn when Emilio asks Cataleya what she wants to be when she grows up. The little nine-year-old answers, “A killer.” The audience laughs, but not Emilio, his response, “Okay!” So he takes her off to school, a notion Cataleya rejects before he teaches her a lesson by shooting wildly into traffic and a large group of passers by, sending a car crashing into a fire hydrant and pedestrians ducking for cover. Don’t worry, it’s okay, no one died. The police show up, Cataleya has learned some kind of lesson (what exactly I’m not so sure) and they walk home free and clear. Just another day with uncle, now let’s go get a Popsicle.
Flash-forward 15 years later and Cataleya is a professional killer and as the victims start piling up she’s tagging each one with a similar message, hoping the man that killed her father will finally realize she’s after him and come out of hiding. The FBI and CIA get involved, things get hairy for a bit, Cataleya has sex with a guy (Michael Vartan) who thinks her name is Jennifer, he takes her picture, and blah, blah, blah… stuff happens. It’s all very routine and as each scenario plays itself out you watch with a stone face, not surprised by a thing you are seeing and simply hoping something entertaining will happen.
There’s a crazy scene with some sharks that’s more funny than exciting because it’s so dumb, a sex scene with Vartan where he tells her, “Let me this time,” asking for permission to take the lead and be the one to take her shirt off and the film’s climactic fight scene that apes every Bourne fight scene you’ve seen, particularly the towel in Ultimatum the pen in Identity. In short, there’s nothing new to see here. Only a “red dot” moment in a CIA office actually generated any level of excitement out of me, but it was over before it even started.
Saldana is a talent and one of these days I think she’s going to get a role and finally be recognized the way she should have been with Avatar. However, roles like this aren’t going to help her on her way. I can understand having a little fun and taking on a action role where you she gets to be the bad ass in charge, but at least choose the scripts a little more wisely.
As for this Megaton guy, he really needs to sit back and search for some kind of originality because the two films of his I’ve seen play like a greatest hits record. The only problem is, outside of the Bourne films, he’s stealing from similarly like-minded PG-13 junk. I can’t say I’m too excited to see what he does with Liam Neeson in Taken 2.
