Colombiana

Un conte de fées façon Luc Besson. Certes, le thème est du mille fois réchauffé et semble avoir la dent dure chez les réalisateurs et scénaristes, mais bon… tant pis ! J’ai passé une heure et demie au ciné, le cerveau en position off ; c'était risible par moments et j’ai trouvé certains passages tirés par les cheveux, mais dans l’ensemble, ça m’a bien plu. Dommage qu’une telle justicière ne poursuive les malfrats qu’aux USA et pas en Europe. Peut-être un jour… (27/09/2011)

It has a cool cover, Zoe Saldana is not bad either, (though I didn't completely believe some of her deliveries), it is sunny, with yellowish camera filters and good visuals, but they are hardly exploited. It’s just an ordinary routine story about revenge, full of clichés, standard filmmaking elements, and a few average action scenes, the best of which was at the end and was poorly edited. I wouldn't hesitate to praise the person responsible for the sound and especially the mix of the last action scene, Jason Bourne-style (no music, just the sounds of hits, screams, and things breaking around – excellent raw stuff). Unfortunately, in 90 percent of cases, you don't completely believe the main heroine, as mentioned before, and I consider that a fatal drawback. It needed a bolder script. (06/02/2012)

Although it looks better at first, in the end Colombiana is just an average, overly long action film with a sympathetic Zoe Saldana and not particularly original direction. Compare, for example, the weak scene with the police unit with the one Luc Besson shot 23 years ago in Leon, and you'll see the abysmal difference. (29/10/2017)

A pure action flick with a straightforward plot, and since the creators didn't try to make it into something it's not, it served its purpose. Viewers can switch off, relax, and watch the settling of Colombian scores on American soil, where logic often takes a back seat and some of the effects are a bit over the top. But that's okay; if you're a fan of the action genre, you'll still get a kick out of it despite its flaws. If action isn't your thing, then it's probably best to pass. For me, the film did the trick. / Lesson learned: Watch out for women with cute names. They can be deceiving. (24/04/2022)

It's terribly unoriginal, it's got elements of Nikita, Leon, and Bourne, and for a straight B-movie it’s got a kaleidoscope of characters. However, Zoe Saldana's physical charisma, often shot like a stealth game poster, and Megaton's coked-up and exceptionally predatory directing, editing, and ideas (killing off the main boss's right hand) allow you to forgive a lot. Again, it's strictly feminist, as befits EuropaCorp, where the protagonist has essentially the same proposition as 90s B-movie heros – i.e. a completely moronic plan, in the execution of which she is maximally effective. One of my favorite scenes is definitely the bad guy briefing, where they say that the protagonist is like a mouse in the corner of the room, like fog under the door, and then it cuts to an incoming missile being launched by the hundred-pound Zoe Saldana. The critical rants of self-proclaimed action movie fans only underscore how challenging it is to push the genre a little further when it has to be pitched to a canned majority who would ideally watch the same thing over and over again. (04/02/2015)