Director: Olivier Megaton
Writers: Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen
Stars: Zoe Saldana, Michael Vartan, Callum Blue, Amandla Stenberg

I wonder if Zoe Saldana spurns some jealously in the acting community. In her career, she’s played such versatile roles on hit movies like Avatar (2009), Star Trek (2009), Takers (2010), Drumline (2002), and Center Stage (2000). And now she’s a ruthless assassin in Colombiana. I guess she’s lucky that way.

Really that’s the only thing innovative about Colombiana. It’s not to often that a black woman gets to play the action heroine, and Saldana lives up to the challenge, capturing the mystique of Cataleya and exuding the passionate devotion of a woman who will stop at nothing to avenge her parents’ murder.

We don’t see Saldana in the beginning of Colombiana.

Instead, Amandla Stenberg (upcoming sci-fi film Hunger Games) plays a young Cataleya, a stone-cold preteen with keen street smarts. She witnesses her parents get murdered then escapes her own murder through a series of building-hopping parkour moves, District B13 style.

Colombiana borrows from other films. The pool scene reminds me of The Mechanic, the ending is similar to the Scarface “say hello to my little friend” shootout, there’s a towel fight (Bourne Ultimatum), and a knife-through-hand stabbing (The Godfather).

Colombiana is not perfect. But it is refreshing to see a black woman who is not wearing a maid’s uniform and burning fried chicken. Well, actually… Minnie don’t burn chicken.

Trailer.

2 COMMENTS

  1. Somebody has to say it how it is. I like the picture but that’s about it. Columbiana could have done more, it should have done better with the plot. The beginning of the film was nice then it fell off.

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