Colombiana: Bad? or Badass?

Alright, let's face it, a lot of action films these days are all about special effects, fast cars and no plot. However, Colombiana is a wonderful portrayal of a strong hispanic woman kicking ass and getting exactly what she wants: vengeance. There have been some differences in opinion released lately from many sources regarding the film quality of Colombiana starring Zoe Saldana and with the film's opening weekend approaching, I thought our readers should hear from a non-film critic what the movie is really like.

I had the privilege of attending a red carpet premiere in Miami, FL this past week where Zoe herself introduced the film and encouraged us to get the word out whether we enjoyed the movie or not. She's a strong believer in women being protrayed as "ballsy". Now, here's the bottom line, it's no Oscar contender; however, it was rather entertaining in the sense that it was action packed and actually kept me on the edge of my seat. There were a few things that did catch me off guard. For example, the poor acting of the supposed-to-be-Hispanic actors. As much as I loved his character in this film, Cliff Curtis' performance was cut short only because his Hispanic accent was so terrible and you could tell he was clearly not Hispanic at all. I think there are plenty of Hispanic actors that could've done the character more justice.

There was also a typo (only one that I saw) in the subtitles. Now, I'm not one for perfection, BUT, this is a feature film being released nation wide, the least they can do is proof read for grammatical errors before sending it out to theaters. These were the main things that probably irritated me the most. Overall, I put these pesky things behind me because the motion picture actually piqued my interest and was somwhat inspirational. It's rare to come across a film with a, dare I say it, BAD ASS main character who also happens to be a female. It's like Hollywood can't handle it, so they're scared to put it out there. The only other film that comes to mind is J.Lo's Enough released in 2002. And how could I forget the biggest surprise of all? It wouldn't be fair to write about this film and not mention the young, talented actress who portrays a young version of Zoe's character. Her name is Amandla Stenberg, and I am almost 100% certain that we'll be seeing great things from her in the future; some may even say she stole the movie.

The movie is easy to follow, not hard on the eyes (Zoe is stunning along with her co-star Michael Vartan) and overall a fun cinematic adventure, but you can be the judge of that and let me know what you think. 

Check out the trailer and make sure to catch it in theaters starting this weekend August 26th, 2011.