Review of Colombiana (2011) by Hermosa G — 05 Jul 2013

Not good. It has its moments, that's for sure, but it's just boring most of the time. The main problem is that a lot of the film is dedicated toward building sympathy toward a character that's largely unsympathetic.

Yes, you feel bad for her at the beginning of the film, but her character never develops in a positive direction, as you would expect; in fact, she becomes even more unsympathetic and more brutal as the film goes on.

So all of these moments that are intended to make the viewer get behind the character (any sequences with her boyfriend or uncle) become huge wastes of screen time. And honestly, even with this negative development, Catalea just isn't interesting enough of a character to stimulate viewer interest.

I really hope they don't make another one of these films. Colombiana is an 100-plus minute action movie that only has like 10-15 minutes of solid action, with boring filler for the rest of it. The action sequences aren't even that good; I was honestly bored during some of the fight scenes, which are implausible to begin with (she defeats a heavily-trained CIA agent using a toothbrush and towel---are you serious?).

The plot is so confusing, especially with a number of mostly one-dimensional and idiotic side characters that convolute things further. The best parts of this film were honestly the ones with the supposed antagonist, the lead FBI agent played by Lennie James from Jericho and The Walking Dead.

He at least was interesting, and he's such a good actor; I wish the freaking story focused on him instead of Zoe Saldana! Why couldn't they have made the movie like that? That would've been much more interesting.

Anyway, there's a lot horribly wrong with this movie, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless you paid me.