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Unmissable
Excellent
Good
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Tragic

FILM DETAILS

Certificate 12A

Cast Zoe Saldana Jordi Mollà Cliff Curtis.

Directors Olivier Megaton.

Screenwriters Luc Besson Robert Mark Kamen.

Running Time 107 minutes

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Colombiana
El Nikita

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Plot
After witnessing her parents’ murder, nine year-old Colombian Cataleya escapes to the United States in the care of her uncle Emilio (Curtis). Fifteen years later, Cataleya (Saldana) works for him as a hitman, while secretly plotting revenge against the gangsters who killed her parents.

Review
Luc Besson, the sizable talent behind Nikita and Léon, has been spreading himself pretty thin since he started writing for other people. Stories and/or scripts for five Taxis, three Transporters, Bandidas, Kiss Of The Dragon, District 13, Unleashed and the megahit Taken have all rolled off his typewriter since he directed The Fifth Element — with uneven results.

In this, his latest script-for-hire, the opening salvos — the murder of the young protagonist’s parents, and a terrific set-piece in which the grown-up Cataleya (Zoe Saldana) kills a drug dealer in a holding cell — serve to demonstrate what Besson and regular co-writer Robert Mark Kamen were aiming for with Colombiana: a 21st century take on the Nikita/Léon girl-assassin motif, with Saldana, rail-thin star of the biggest box office hit in history, as the sexy, troubled assassin mixing equal parts Batman (the offed parents) and Catwoman (the catlike agility). They could hardly have missed the target more spectacularly.

Saldana is not the problem: the title role fits the actress formerly known as Zoe Yadira Zaldaña Nazario almost as perfectly as the Whitney Houston biopic that surely lies somewhere in her future. The principal problem is Besson and Kamen’s script, which not only suffers from a complete lack of logic — for instance, if Cataleya’s life was wrecked by heartless killers, why would she grow up to be one, with no care for consequences or collateral damage? — but is so full of coincidences, contrivances and conveniences that you can actually hear the writers typing. The second, fatal flaw is that Transporter 3 director Olivier Megaton attacks the material with all of the subtlety his surname suggests, leading every scene (with that one frustrating exception) to thud to the floor like slabs of meat — sometimes overcooked, sometimes undercooked, always rotten.

As nonsensical characterisation piles on top of far-fetched plotting, the film begins to resemble a low-calibre cross between an episode of J. J. Abrams’ Alias (a sensation enhanced by the presence of Michael Vartan) and a 1980s-era action movie, but with Rae Dawn Chong or Maria Conchita Alonso in the lead instead of Stallone or Schwarzenegger. It’s actually worse: a Transporter movie minus Jason Statham.

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Average user rating for Colombiana

ZZZZZZZZZZZZ.......

...... crushingly dismal cinematic cliche...... Ms Saldana is hot but this film is just utter pants........with not an original bone in it's entire running time.................. to be honest ...I actually stopped watching after about an hour but something tells me I didn't miss very much....ONE STAR!!!! ... More

Posted by ROTGUT at 15:40, 15 April 2012 | Report This Post

Colombiana Review

Zoe Saldana defiantly has the goods, but she's taken out by erratic and sloppy filmmaking. ... More

Posted by the film man at 21:34, 02 January 2012 | Report This Post

RE: 2 stars?....i think i`ll give it...

In Bogota, Columbia, the parents of nine year old Cataleya are killed during a drug feud, but the girl escapes after swallowing a certain microchip.  After a lengthy chase she get to the US embassy where, in exchange for throwing up the microchip, she is taken to Miami by a CIA agent, but also escapes from him and gets a bus ticket for Chicago, where her father had told her to go.  She finds her uncle Fabio and asks him to train her to be a killer.  Against his misgivings, ... More

Posted by Dr Lenera at 12:11, 13 September 2011 | Report This Post

RE: 2 stars?....i think i`ll give it...

Saldana's character lacks any heart, though. Now, erect nipples on the other hand... But this type of thing has been done before and far better. Saldana keeps it interesting, but doesn't make it any less generic. ... More

Posted by SoonForgotten2 at 15:38, 02 September 2011 | Report This Post

RE: 2 stars?....i think i`ll give it...

eally aren't enough hitmen-with-a-heart movies... ... More

Posted by UTB at 22:52, 01 September 2011 | Report This Post

2 stars?....i think i`ll give it...

After seeing this film recently in the US i have to say giving this film 2 stars was really harsh. Sure there were stereotypes and the script is a bit ropey but so what?For me "Colombiana" is one of the best revenge thriller ever made because of the excellent direction by Oliver "Transporter 3" Megaton,great camerwork and stunts and most of all a towering central performance from the gorgeous Zoe Saldana.Just watching her kick ass puts a smile on my face and that is the m... More

Posted by stephen35 at 11:00, 01 September 2011 | Report This Post

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