Yawn! 'From Paris' just another bad Travolta movie
Conversation between two best buddies from New Jersey. "Hey, Rico, wanna go see that new movie ‘From Paris With Love’ with me?" "You mean with our wives, right?" "No, just you and me." "Something you want to tell me?" Can you imagine these two walking up to the ticket window? "Yeah, two for ‘From Paris with Love,’ please." Wow. Great marketing and worst film title ever for an action movie. Secondly, John Travolta should add "Pacman" to his name, as this guy chews up more scenery than John Goodman at an all-you-can-eat buffet. John, just because you’re playing a bad guy, doesn’t mean you have to do it badly. Actually, he’s supposedly playing a good guy, Charlie Wax, a super-secret agent who’s in Paris to stop a terrorist sleeper cell from disrupting a big international conference. He’s teamed up with James Reece (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a brainiac assistant to a U.S. ambassador in Paris whose only fieldwork to date has been changing license plates for real operatives’ spy cars. He longs to play with the big boys and will get his chance — as he’s thrown into the deep end of the pool with this crazy, gun-happy Wax character. They immediately head off to a Chinese restaurant, where Wax shoots up the place looking for cocaine, but he’s really looking for the supplier and a little product for himself. Then it’s off to a cathouse for some extracurriculars — plus more cocaine and shooting. Then they chase down some bomb-making Pakistanis — for what? — you guessed it — more shooting, cocaine and blowing stuff up. Then it’s over to dinner at Reece’s place to meet his hot French girlfriend — why not, more drinking, shooting and chasing. In the midst of all this mayhem, Charlie Wax is craving a "Royale With Cheese" which is a wink, wink to all you "Pulp Fiction" fans now forced to remember John Travolta’s last GOOD movie. Gee, thanks. All this is leading up to the big summit meeting, assassination plots and grandstanding by the new superagent Reece, who just picked up a gun less than 24 hours ago. Ridiculous. A few of the action scenes are decent, but Travolta is so over-the-top and the new kid is such a quick study that it defies believability. And don’t get me started on Reece’s love plea just before the big finale. I nearly burst out laughing. At least "From Paris with Love" doesn’t waste a lot of time, clocking in at a slim 92 minutes. But when that turns out to be the film’s most positive aspect? You’ve got bigger problems than seedy terrorists and hammy superspies.
