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Monday, October 3, 2011

Colombiana [ Movie Review ]

The Pitch

After the recent Star Trek, Zoe Saldana career is on the roll. Appearing in popular movies like Avatar and etc. But however, there isn't a movie that rest solely on her shoulder yet.

Enter Luc Besson, Olivier Megaton and rest of the folks from EuropaCorp. Crafting a movie about a female assassin who is seeking revenge for her parents' death for her, Colombiana might just be that movie that showcase whether Zoe Saldana got the ability to carry a movie all by her own.

The Plot

After witnesses her parents death at a drug lord's hands and escaping the drug lord's clutches, Cataleya seek vengeance by deflecting to the American Ambassador with an important computer chip that her father left her. In exchange for the information on the chip, the Ambassador arranged her to be moved to America. Half way through, she escaped once again and made her way to Chicago to look for her Uncle Emilio.

Her Uncle Emilio took her in and wanted to give her a normal life but Cataleya asked her uncle to train her as an assassin. Conveniently her Uncle Emilio had ties with the underworld and years later, Cataleya became a top notch assassin for her Uncle. She started leaving trademarks of cataleya (orchid) on her victims to attract her parents' killer. What she didn't expect was that she was putting her love ones as risk as she seeks vengeance.


The Perspective - Colombiana Movie Review

Colombiana is filled with over the top action sequences and scenarios that were aesthetically nice to look at but emotionally hollow and a little too convenient plotting. This movie utilize Zoe Saladana's body and looks well but didn't give her much room to showcase her acting nor did it give her character more substance so that the viewers could better remember her and this movie after the credits rolled. It's a wasted chance as female actress seldom gets the chance to headline a movie on her own and this blotch up might just had screw her chance of getting another headlining gig in the future.

Let's head back to the movie review and dissect what went wrong for Colombiana. The whole leaving her calling card at the assassinated victims to get to her intended targets was rather pointless as it didn't achieve what it was intended. Conveniently, she got the information by threatening some top management at the FBI and CIA. She could have done without the numerous assassinations to get the information she needed in the first place. It's also baffling that someone with links to the underground groups had no way of getting the information in a safer manner.

Colombiana was not the Nikita and Léon that I hoped for. In fact, it was more akin to the soulless and forgettable action flick Transporter 3 that Olivier Megaton had also directed. There's lots of bing bam boom and Zoe Saladana looked pretty hot but it's a pity that the plot was so flimsily connected together. Instead of wowing with the over the top setups, it made me lookout for plotholes and what could have gone wrong in the elaborate schemes. Colombiana wilted with poor handling and excessive enrichment. It's a pity because it had the potential to blossom into a beautiful work of art.




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