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Taxi (1 Viewer)

Diallo B

Screenwriter
Joined
Dec 18, 2002
Messages
1,085
I went and saw Taxi at an advance screening yesterday. It was marginal at best. IMO, it was your typical buddy cop formula movie with extremely little character development and hyperbolic exaggeration of the laws of physics, space and time.

I like Queen Latifah, but she really needs to expand herself beyond the tomboy-aggressive, roles that she has been loving lately. Her on screen relationship added to this fact as she might as well have been a dude and her ‘boyfriend’ a woman, given how he acted very ‘girly’, IMO. And as for Jimmie Fallon, I am perplexed as to how a professional actor can bring so little to a role.

The real stars of this movie were the stunt drivers and the cars. I was impressed with some of the driving stunts and truly mesmerized by the BMW 760i. It was beautiful. The Marauder used for the taxi had me laughing though. All I could think of was Inspector Gadget when it went through its ‘transformation’.

There was no purpose for the antagonists except to show t & a, and to perform a scene that was so unnecessary and perverse, given the target audience, I am surprised that the movie received a PG-13 rating. Although, the scene in question will definitely entertain some folks.

Anyway, save your money. I saw it for free and I feel cheated. This should have went straight to video or been a network Monday/Sunday night movie.
 

Brian Thibodeau

Supporting Actor
Joined
Dec 10, 2003
Messages
992
The three French originals weren't much better than you're saying the American version is. They had an interesting concept and, as here, the transforming vehicle of the title, but they were rife with ethnic caricatures - especially the tired use of Asian actors as "cool" villains and/or supporting characters. Best thing in the series was a clever cameo performance by a major Hollywood action star in the opening sequence TAXI 3.

I suspect the action quotient has been upped in the remake, which I suspect might be the only reason to check this out. In fact, the originals could have benefitted from the exaggeration of physics etc. that you mention. They certainly tried for that effect, but in the end, the cars were still bound by natural laws and thus the stunts played a little bland. Best thing in those pictures was the placement of cameras IN the cars during certain crashes.

The fun trailer for the Latifah-Fallon version had my hopes up, but almost entirely for the stunts.
 

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