FILM REVIEW: Columbiana

5 out of 10

Something like that...

It's shot nice, it has Cliff Curtis, and lots of guns go off, but something in the overall elements of Columbiana just doesn't work. Previous Luc Besson involved thriller projects have been quite good for the most part. From Kiss of the Dragon with Jet Li, to Taken with Liam Neeson. The difference with those films is that as a viewer you are more willing to accept the premises. Jet Li is a Kung Fu master so we accept for him to do Kung Fu master shit. Liam Neeson is class in anything, so if he wants to get pissed off and kill some punks who kidnap his daughter, that's what he's gonna do, and we're gonna believe him just in case he leaps out from the screen and pistol whips us for thinking otherwise.

Not for a second does the premise for the setup in Columbiana stick. A daughter of an Assassin, witnesses her parents execution and escapes to later become a full Assassin badass herself and take revenge. Social stereotyping is partly a problem why this doesn't add up. Zoe Saldana is just too beautiful, hot, trim and sexy. It screams 'boy fantasy' when it should scream 'kinda maybe close enough to vague reality', which is all we're really asking for from this type of film. And even though we see her do the stunts and the action, it is so glossed over with film technique (sped footage, shutter speed tinkering and a thousand edits per fist fight) it comes across as artificial.

One feels they could've tried a little harder with the plot. Again, not a biggie for this type of film, but when it can be surmised in a sentence, it has to be a pretty good sentence to keep you going for 90 odd minutes. Unfortunately, it does not. Still, as mentioned previously, Zoe Saldana is beautiful and it does have Cliff Curtis playing another pseudo-quasi latino (best in the business), so scrapes by with a pass for that.