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 Chris' Review: Ugh. I was looking forward to seeing this movie. It looked like a cheesy, mind-numbing, fun way to blow a few hours. Well... it certainly was mind-numbing. Normally I love watching Queen Latifah on-screen. She has a definite presence about her, she has great comedic timing, she's not afraid to make herself look a little silly (which I always found odd considering the "Queen" title) and she's a genuinely good actress. I enjoy Jimmy Fallon. Not the best actor in the world and his comic talents are questionable. I put him in the same category as I do Will Farrell: I just don't get it most of the time. Still, I expected some high-larity. Not... one... genuine... laugh. Every time I laughed during that movie, it was because I was thinking of something else. It was because something on screen reminded me of another situation, far more funny than this. Yes, during most of the movie I was thinking of other things, laughing at other things, because the film just didn't hold my interest. I was actually bored. A couple times I considered getting up and going to play video games in the lobby. If not for all three of my loyal readers, I would have. The premise of the movie is decent. The standard buddy-cop flick. Not too terribly original except for it's choice of leads. Unfortunately, I just don't think that Queen Latifa and Jimmy Falon had the chemistry to make this movie work. Both are funny on their own terms, but they didn't work well together. Falon would start into some obnoxious, over-the-top, ham-fisted slapstick... Latifah would counter with a smug grin and a wink. It was like oil and water. They swirled around each other, both retained their own properties, but they never really mixed. Instead of a well oiled machine, you have a couple of loose nuts caught in the gears. The biggest thing that set me off was the opening scene. We see a slim, toned biker doing tricks though New York City, obviously in one hell of a hurry. Fantastic tricks, manic speed, pumping legs... it left me winded watching it. Then, when the racing is over, the helmet comes off and there stands Queen Latifah. I'm sorry, what? Queen Latifah is great, but I will never buy her being in that tight a shape... nor wearing a spandex biking outfit. So right away, the movie is bludgeoning my suspension of disbelief. Not only am I expected to believe that Queen Latifah is a near superhuman trick bicyclist, but I'm supposed to believe Jimmy Fallon is a cop. I never bought any of it. What I was most impressed with was the special effects. Sure, Belle's (Latifah's) cab was completely impossible. But the special effects that went into creating it were beautiful. You never really noticed them, and that's the big trick. If you're a special effects team, the best possible compliment is for no one to notice your work. Unlike other high-speed digital effects creations, like Biker Boys, or The Fast and the Furious, Taxi was clean and believable. No speed lines to smudge the shoddy work. No whipping meaningless backgrounds. The chases looked realistic and you didn't think about the special effects. Well done. That's about all I can say that was good in the movie, though. Tim Story should hang his head in shame. I'm terrified that he's the director on The Fantastic Four. The camera angle choices were most often amateurish if not ridiculous. There were some terrible inconsistencies in the first couple minutes of the film, simple things like making sure the guy on the street is carrying that plastic bag in all the shots. Cut to one angle, suddenly the bag is gone... then cut to another, it's back again. It wasn't so much that this happened, but that it happened so often that I had to shut my mind down because they were so prevalent that I started looking for them. The entire cast seemed to be sleeping through their roles, the movie had no flow, and there were some horrendous cuts... to the point I started wondering if the reel had been spliced due to a meltdown. The direction was so bad that I really expected to see someone step onto the set holding a boom at one point. Don't get me started about the opening scene where every time the bicyclist comes up to a difficult roadblock (subway turnstiles, ascending staircase) that they cut away leaving you to wonder what happened. Lame, really lame. If that's not bad enough, there were all these loose ends all over the place. Plot lines that never materialized, went nowhere, or began spontaneously with no back story. Belle's boyfriend was fed up with her always being late, yet loved her enough to give her an engagement ring... but by the time you get to all those points, you feel like it came out of nowhere... and then in the end it goes nowhere. Like the movie was desperately seeking to round out Belle's character and threw in some lazy plot devices and never returned to see if they worked or not. Then there was the mentioning of Washburn's (Falon's) father... or his mother's drinking. All these small points trying to give his character some depth... but it wasn't explored and in the end it was like someone putting a doily on a garbage trucks dashboard... sure, it looks pretty, but what the hell is it doing there? The one that really got me though, was Washburn's girlfriend, Lt. Marta (Jennifer Esposito)... what the hell was that all about? Did they actually date? Did they break up? Was it all a fantasy in his head? I can't even figure it out now, after the movie is long over. It just wasn't explained and you're left wondering. I guess that wouldn't be so bad except they tried to make jokes about the relationship and you're not sure if you're supposed to be laughing or not. So this movie is getting rated REALLY low. 4 thumbs down. The only reason it's rated that high is because it does have Queen Latifah and the stunts and special effects were very fun. Do not even mention this movie in my presence or I may have to hurt you.   Jim's Review: Y'know, when I first heard they were making this movie, I couldn't believe it. "Great", I thought. "They've moved away from making movies of SHITTY T.V. shows, and now they have to violate GOOD ones, too. I mean, how would they cast it? Who would play Alex? Judd Hirsch OWNS that role! I SUPPOSE Freddie Prinze Jr. could sub-in for Tony Danza, and Alicia Witt or Laura Prepon could fill in for Marilu Henner...But what about Louie? Who else in Hollywood can play Danny DeVito besides Danny DeVito? Would Jim Carrey insist on sliding into the Latka jumpsuit again? Is he even AVAILABLE?!? Then, naturally, the screenwriters would stray from the source material. If they set it in the seventies, they'd get the fashions, music, hair, and slang all wrong...And if they played it in the current day, well...No. And then there's the matter of "Angela", the instrumental theme song. I just KNEW they'd call in Linkin Park, or Papa Roach, or some other nü-metal hipsters to cover it, and they'd invariably fuck it up with scratching and distortion. No good could come of this idea. As it turns out, the above might've been preferable. Instead of a limp (albeit nostalgic) retread, "Taxi" offers a tired buddy comedy replete with clichés, crappy direction, and more improbable happenstance than any five WB sitcoms. The saddest part is, nearly everyone involved has done better. Queen Latifah trades down BIG from her Oscar-nominated role in "Chicago" as Belle, a sassy, urban New York bike messenger with an attitude. She is sassy, urban, and has an attitude because that's the only way the old white men that write the movies know how to portray black women in cinema. Take that, Rosa Parks! We meet her on her last day at the service, as she's leaving to become a cab driver. Her soon-to-be ex co-workers gift her with a titanium "supercharger" for the engine of her new cab. Apparently, Belle's speed-demon instincts extend to her driving AND biking. So far, so okay. Soon, we're introduced to Washburn (Jimmy Fallon), a bumbling cop (is there any other kind in Hollywood?) with a glaring fault. He's a crummy driver. Like, wrecked-three-patrol-cars-last-month-alone crummy. His driving is such a detriment that his Liutenant/ex-girlfriend Marta (a ridiculously unbelievable Jennifer Esposito) confiscates his license, and busts him back down to beat cop. Ha, ha! A cop who can't drive! Get it? Well, if not, don't worry. The film will bludgeon you over the head with it a few dozen times in case you miss it. So, what's a cop without wheels to do? One post-demotion afternoon, an off-duty Washburn finds out. He hears on his radio that a nearby bank is being held up by a highly-skilled quartet of armed thugs. It's rough...He's only a few blocks away, but it's NEW YORK blocks. Even with crosstown traffic, he couldn't run there faster than he could drive...But that's not an option. So, he jumps in the first cab he sees and...What are the odds? It's Belle's. He barks out his destination, and Belle rolls her eyes and smirks. Why? A) Because, with such a nearby destination, her fare will be slim, and B) She's a black woman in a movie! Rolling your eyes and smirking at Whitey's squareness and demanding nature is SASSY. Plus, urban. Also, it takes attitude. I felt bad for her. When the thieves' getaway car peels out, Washburn flashes his badge, commandeers the cab by proxy, and orders Belle to commence pursuit. Because cops ordering civilians to engage in high-speed chases is an everyday occurrence. Still, she makes the most of it...Flipping a secret dashboard switch to reveal a clandestine control panel for a host of illegal speed/aerodynamics mods, all of which employ themselves to the vehicle in an extremely sexy, Transformer-like way that would make even Q raise his bushy eyebrows in appreciation. By the time she's finished, her humble taxi is tricked out like an Indy car, complete with blower intake, ground effects, spoiler, and fake license plate. Zoom! So why is it that Belle's exhaust pipes aren't the only thing in this movie that appears bored to near the breaking point? Under the proper circumstances, Jimmy Fallon can be funny. These are not the proper circumstances. He stammers and mutters his way through his role as though he's embarassed to be there. He should be. Washburn is as one-note a character as they come, and Fallon only seems to give him a quarter-note's worth of effort. When SNL alums make the inevitable leap to the big screen, they seem to be either wildly successful (See: Eddie Murphy, Mike Myers, Bill Murray, Will Ferrell) or they tank miserably (See: Julia Sweeney, Tim Meadows, Chris Kattan, Molly Shannon). Fallon has, for now, fallen into the latter category. I suspect he'll do better work with better material, but this one was a dud. For her part, Queen Latifah makes the most of it. She seems to be having a good time despite the weak storyline and weaker direction. I KNOW she's done better, and she will again. Even when rendering embarassingly pedestrian dialogue or working within aimless scenes, she's doing it with enthusiasm. Good for her for giving the material more than it deserves and trying to bring it up to her level of energy. Even if she fails, it's through no fault of her own. Given the setting, she's destined to, despite her best efforts. 'Taxi' will be a speed bump on her resumé that she'll get around. Director Tim Story, on the other hand, isn't getting off quite as light with me. His only other notable piece of direction to this point has been "Barbershop", and we all know what a pinnacle of cinematic mastery THAT was. Maybe he has a clause in his contract that he'll only direct rappers? Whatever the case may be, when every actor in a film gives a far-less-than substandard performance (and you know they're capable of better), one must look behind the camera. And the director's hammy fist can be seen in every schlocky frame of this film, from poor character choices, to inappropriate reactions, to whole scenes that just plain lie there like a ten-dollar hooker and look about as pretty. Just shows to go ya: A great director can wring stellar, moving performances out of even mediocre actors, and a crummy director can make decent-to-good actors look like community theatre refugees. I'm giving "Taxi" 5 thumbs down for its numerous crimes: Making Jimmy Fallon unfunny, handing the much-better-than-this-movie Queen Latifah an insultingly stereotypical character, assuming that vacuous mannequin Gisele Bündchen can act, thouroughly wasting Henry Simmons and Ann-Margret, and generally being about as flat and lukewarm as a can of Sprite that's been left open on the counter for a week. BackHome - Info - Reviews - Map - Message Board - Photo Album |
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