Don’t

It is February. The days are cold, the sun is shining, and no one care what is in the theatre. It is a dumping ground for cinematic crap. The movies of the month are just filler while all the good stuff is being made or winning awards and that is why I got stuck seeing movies like From Paris with Love.

I am not doing a synopsis for the movie because I just don’t want to waste your time or more of my own. All you need to know is that it stars John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. The movie is pointless, stupid, and just all around bad.

My friends always ask what movie I saw over the weekend and I was utterly embarrassed to say I paid to see From Paris with Love. I tried to explain that I knew it was going to be bad but in a fun way so I could at least laugh at it and be entertained plus I’d already seen everything else I wanted to see. But the thing is it couldn’t even laugh at it. It was horrible; I sat there yawning, completely bored, and not once finding the humour in it.

John Travolta was just ridiculous. He wasn’t Punisher camp or Face Off over the top, he was just stupid. Everything about his Charlie Wax character was wimp playing tough guy. There was nothing hard or gritty about him. He was loud, obnoxious, and violent. And Jonathan Rhys Meyers; poor, poor, pretty boy. I guess he worked with what he was given, which wasn’t much. He wasn’t horrible but that isn’t much of a compliment. His biggest problem though was his accent. He was supposed to have an American accent but it just wasn’t right. It was off just enough to be noticed and distracting.

And the action was just absurd. The director tried to put artsy elements into sequences that just didn’t work. Having the splinter particles of shattered mannequins slowly drift down like snowflakes as guns blared may seem good on paper but in the end it was simply clumsy. But that is what happens when it is stuck in amongst badly shot scenes in a gun battle sequences.

At the end of the movie the whole audience just got up and left. There was no chatter. Everyone knew how each other felt about the movie. There was no need to ask. My friend said it perfectly, “There was nothing redeeming about that movie.”

Don’t bother with From Paris with Love. Don’t pay for it, don’t waste you time watching it when it comes on TV, just don’t bother.

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