If you’ve watched the three “Transporter” movies and “Taken,” you know Luc Besson‘s formula well by now. A dude has a mission, some obstacles are put in his way, and he dispatches with them while remaining unflappable and deadly. It’s a premise that has banked huge dollars at the global box office, so no surprise that Besson is sticking to it. But for the next film to come out of the Europa machine, the mega-producer is putting a new spin on a familiar story.
Zoe Saldana stars in “Colombiana,” which is more or less a variation of the films above. She plays Cataleya Restrepo, a stone cold assassin who decides to track down the killers who murdered her parents when she was a young child. As you can tell from the recently released trailer, lots of stuff explodes while trying to distract you from the fact that this is also kind of like a sequel to “The Professional” without actually being one. Anyway, the film has a bit of an arty one sheet which seems slightly strange considering this is a pretty straightforward shoot ’em up, but perhaps they are trying to get more than males aged 18-25 into the theater for this one.
Anyhow, the film arrives soon and was recently moved ahead a week to August 26th, a truly odd weekend that still finds The Weinstein Company with two movies that weekend — “Apollo 18” and “Our Idiot Brother” — as well as the former Miramax horror pic “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark” scheduled. The movie puts “Colombiana” in a good position to open at the the top of the box office, but we’ll see how it goes. Full poster below. [IMP Awards/Box Office Mojo]
