Colombiana

In “Colombiana” cold-hearted assassin Cataleya kills everything in her path, which unfortunately also includes the plot of her movie.

After witnessing her parents’ murder Cataleya (Zoe Saldana) grows up to be a vicious assassin. As she kills she sends messages to her parents’ murders telling them, “I’m coming.” The killings also gain the attention of law enforcements and F.B.I. agent Ross (Lennie James). However, Cataleya manages to escape their grasp every single time.

Other than that there is no plot. The movie just ambles on from killing to killing without much direction. The movie takes too long to get to the climax and there’s not much of an increase in suspense to get their either. Also all the gunk in the middle doesn’t always clearly relate to the revenge story.

Although the action in “Colombiana” proves to be exciting for the most part, the pacing is significantly less so. This makes the overall pace of the movie uneven half the time audiences are bored waiting for something to happen, then it tries to excite audiences with dazzling lights of explosions and gunfire.

Even with the action there’s not enough action to carry the movie. However, since there isn’t much of a plot to carry “Colombiana” just aimlessly floats around. Essentially, the plot has not point and thus is pointless in the direction it wants to take audiences.

Screenwriters Robert Mark Kamen and Luc Besson fail to focus on getting their protagonist from plot point one to the climax. They give Cataleya strong motivation for what she’s doing but they don’t provide her with a clear direction of where to go. It’s almost like they wanted to write a revenge movie but forgot about the revenge part until the last forty-five minutes. Then once it’s over they don’t know how to finish it.

“Colombiana”’s only saving aspect is Saldana’s performance. Cataleya is nearly emotionless she can’t even have a normal conversation with someone. Saldana plays this stoic role with excellent coldness. However when she does show emotion, especially when thinking back on her parents, Saldana gives it her all and unleashes a passion of emotion on to the audience and everyone in the theater feels it.

In spite of Saldana’s performance it fails to compensate or cover up the unsatisfactory plot. “Colombiana” provides audiences with a forgettable action movie that is just like the villains in it: dead.

The Help

“The Help” this summer’s “feel-good” movie feels good due to convincing performances and characters as well as lots of laughs to make audiences feel even better.

Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan (Emma Stone) recently graduated from college comes back home to Jackson, Mississippi and starts work at The Jackson Journal writing a cleaning column. Needing help on her column and knowing nothing about the topic she asks help from a friend’s maid, Aibileen (Viola Davis).

While learning from Aibileen she also learns of the hardships of “the help”. She finally convinces Aibileen to share her stories so they can be published to make a change. Along the way other maids share their secrets as well, including Aibileen’s closest friend the tough and bold Minnie (Octavia Spencer). The group also makes enemies such as Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard) who controls all the social circles in Jackson.

“The Help” brings a strong cast to the screen. The struggles that Aibileen and Minnie face because of their race and the courage they find to stand up are perfectly portrayed by Davis and Spencer. Also the sadness of Aibileen at the death of her son is heart-breaking for audiences to watch.

Stone also gives a strong performance as the no-nonsense Skeeter that also speaks her mind. Stone also manages to handle the emotional parts as her characters finds out what happened to her childhood maid while she was gone. Also the way her character deals with her pushy mother who is always trying to get her married and how their relationship changes is solidly performed by Stone.

Howard villainous character provides the audiences with a good bad guy to root against. Howard portrays Hilly’s hatred for Minnie (and other characters) along with her complete apathy for what happens to them are acted believably; particularly when her character comes completely enraged at Skeeter.

“The Help” also provides an adequate story and characters. The plot moves at a decent pace with obstacles for characters to overtake. The three main characters, Skeeter, Aibileen and Minnie are well-developed and audiences get to know and care about the characters as the movie progresses.

However some characters are less-developed such as Stuart (Chris Lowell), Skeeter’s boy-friend who gets about three scenes and so their relationship is not as expanded as it needs to be. Same with Leroy, Minnie’s abusive husband who fails to even appear on screen but proves to be big factor for Minnie’s choices.

“The Help” is not focused on Civil Rights or racism as much as it concentrates on the bravery that Skeeter, Aibileen and Minnie use to stand up to the social standards of Jackson. “The Help” also flawlessly blends the serious elements with comedy and balances each part in such a way that it’s not too funny or too serious. With strong characters and more importantly strong acting, “The Help” fails to need any.