From Paris With Love
The title dares to evoke From Russia With Love, one of the best Bond movies ever. From Paris With Love isn’t among the best of anything, but it definitely corners the market on the worst. Staring John Travolta with shaved head and badass attitude left over from The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, this clanking bore of a movie teams Travolta’s gun-crazy CIA agent with Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ tight-assed desk jockey who wants in on the special ops action.
Director Pierre Morel tries to duplicate the B-movie tension he instilled in last year’s Taken with Liam Neeson going medieval on the nether regions of badguys hellbent on selling his daughter into white slavery. Taken had real B movie vitality. In comparison, From Paris With Love has no vital signs at all, just crushing dull repetition that makes one noisy, violent scene play exactly like the last one. Even Paris doesn’t come off in this fiasco. Morel and company have managed to put dimmers on the City of Light. Now that takes something. It just doesn’t involve talent.
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