Plot: Zoe Saldana plays Cataleya, a young woman who witnessed her parents’ murder as a child in Bogotá. She grows up to be an assassin and works for her uncle as a hitman by day. She spends her personal time as a vigilante, hoping to ultimately find Marco, the man responsible for her parents’ death.
Review: Colombiana is a movie that is best enjoyed if you prepare yourself for the unbelievable. It’s hard not to start here when within the first 10 minutes of the movie I noticed a handful of things on the screen that I just thought were outright unbelievable. I got the impression that the filmmakers were making this movie for someone who doesn’t have much common sense or a grasp on reality, or can just forego such things in the aspiration of entertainment. There are scenes in this movie that are so blatantly exaggerated that you can’t help but feel borderline insulted by the writers for even conceiving the idea let alone thinking that an audience will accept any unrealistic scenario just for the purpose of progressing the story.
Let me try to better explain: You know those moments when you watch a movie and you just see a character do something so stupidly counter productive to their own survival that you just rest your head in your hand until it’s over? That’s pretty much sums up the entirety of the opening scene of Colombiana. It’s one thing to manufacture the progression of the story but it’s another thing to use and write characters as tools while they defy basic logic and common sense for this purpose. I don’t like the use of dumbed down characters just for the sake of story progression and I think It’s a piss poor way and excuse to progress the story of a movie.
Colombiana does have some redeeming qualities as there were a few times I would have believed that I was watching a movie created by a young and lesser experienced Michael Bay with all the flash, eye candy, and explosions to compliment the movie in the usual Bay-Way. Colombiana tries to mimic the action of some of the best revenge movies of our time and at times actually pulls this off pretty well but there are times when you notice that there’s room for improvement. There are a few scenes where you can truly become immersed by the action and cinematography in front of you and how the movie progresses, and there are times when this movie hints at having a level of wit and intelligence that captures your attention in such a way that the movie truly picks up and hints at better things to come.
You’ll follow along with Catalaya as she scales buildings, ventilation systems, creeps down hallways in a sexy and feline fashion that delivers a cool mix of DC’s Catwoman and Metal Gear’s Solid Snake. Her intelligence in the art of espionage and her tactics really add to a level of entertainment with the entire movie as you see her systematically and intelligently take on or assassinate an individual in the most ludicrously guarded places. You’ll definitely have a few moments that make you sit on the edge of your seat just to find out how she actually pulls off these stunts and how she eventually makes a mistake.
Zoe Saldana channels her best “Angelina Jolie” in this movie. Seriously, she has the “effeminate, feline, and seductive” down to a science and produces a performance for a character that’s an amalgamation of Lara Croft, Evelyn Salt, and Fox but you can’t help but feel that the creators “over-sex” this movie to compensate with the weak writing. Thankfully that IS in fact the case as her sex appeal reaches new heights in this movie while tip toeing around any actual revelation of nudity. The film still delivers plenty of the sexiness that voyeurs will still have their “rewind” moments and post on the internet what minute-mark to tune in for other perverts.
Overall the movie is a mindless action platform to introduce and test Zoe Saldana as a draw and leading woman. She’s definitely shows that she’s capable of both despite the inherent weaknesses throughout the film without much fault of her own and I’m very much looking forward to seeing her continue to establish herself as a leading woman and sex symbol. The movie had me upset at the thought that I watched this in the theater and would recommend that others instead wait for a home release, but overall this movie is definitely worth a viewing at least once.
My Score: 6 out of 10.
