Colombiana, starring Zoe Saldana and Michael Vartan

Luc Besson has a history of creating strong, capable female leads. It stretches back to Anne Parrilaud in La Femme Nikita, to when Natalie Portman first fired off a few bullets as Mathilda in Leon: The Professional, and has continued in many films since. Whether he's been behind the camera or penning the script, Besson has a thing for smart, butt kicking ladies. For Colombiana, a film which he wrote, he's drafted his protege, Olivier Megaton, aka the guy with the coolest name ever, to direct his latest scantily clad assassin flick, and frankly they're both lucky Zoe Saldana is so hot.

One of the things that's plagued Besson's films of late, and this includes Taken to some extent, is that they've developed a campiness that dulls their effectiveness. Colombiana is no different. Kicking off in Columbia, the drug capital of the world(and the most overused settings for bad B-movie actioners), a drug lord and his friend/rival have a barely polite conversation over....something. This leads to one being targeted for death, but before he can escape with his family, including his terrified daughter, Cataleya(Saldana) he and his wife are gunned down. Cateleya escapes with a ROM chip(because this is in the early 90s) and goes to stay with her mobbed up Uncle Emilio(Cliff Curtis). Cateleya doesn't just want a place to stay, though. She wants revenge. She wants to fight. She wants to kill. She already knows how to make a ridiculous, acrobatic escape as if she was an extra in The Transporter or something. Emilio trains her to become a hit-girl...er, hit-woman, taking out the world's scum. That isn't enough, though, as she strikes out on her own and begins taking out anybody associated with the stock drug lord who killed her family.

Colombiana sways violently from dreadfully serious to absurdly comical, never even attempting to find some sort of middle ground. In a particularly stupid scene, Emilio chastises a young Cataleya for dissing school, saying that if she wants to be a killer she needs to be smart first. He proves this point of his in the decidedly unwise act of firing a volley of bullets at a crowd of people.....right outside the school's front door.  Really, hoss?

Besson and Megaton collaborated on the silly Jason Statham action flick, Transporter 3. All of the Transporter flicks belong in a circus somewhere, but at least they knew exactly what they were, and Statham's grim demeanor was sortof a running gag. Saldana seems to have gone to the Jason Statham school of under acting, never cracking a smile or showing any emotions at all. She's a weaponized femme bot, who occasionally takes a break from glowering to make out with Michael Vartan or pose with a gun bigger than her entire body. There's no doubt she's sexy as all heck, but her lack of emotion is a straight turn off. And to be honest, I think the PG-13 rating was a huge drawback. Her sensuality has to be muted a little bit because of that, and so does the violence. For an action flick there really isn't a lot to chew on here, with the generic shoot 'em ups quickly becoming a bore.

Megaton recently revealed that parts of this story were taken from the Leon sequel he had been planning with Besson some years ago. If that's true, I'll go to bed saying a little prayer that the film never happened.