Its been 13 years at the tender age of 21 that Zoe Saldana graced our screen in an uncredited role in Law & Order and since then, turns in Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Trek and Avatar have well and truly put her on the global map. A natural beauty, she wowed audiences in Avatar as Neytiri and did a stellar performance as the re-invented Uhura and will do again in the 2012 sequel.
Colombiana sees Zoe take on her largest leading role to date as the child who witnesses her parents murder by a Colombian drug cartel. Even at the young age of 10 (played by Amandla Stenberg) she shows the signs of an aged assassin by evading pursuers and making her way to the safety of a US embassy where the information given to her by her father moments before her death secures her passport to the USA and into the loving, yet deadly arms of her Uncle and his family.
Still a child and determined to take down the cartel that murdered her parents a defiant Cataleya refuses school in the search for training to be a killer however after a slightly unbelievable and impromptu display of violence from her Uncles firearm outside an American School in the middle of the day, with no one saying a word, or in-fact the police taking him out quicker than a bomber in an airport our child heroine learns to bide her time and grow up, gracefully.
Ten years pass and now working as a contract killer, Cataleya is back to her revenge seeking ways and starts to close in on the people responsible for her families murder.
There are parts in this that sadly beg belief! The school incident (mentioned above) is one of the immediate "That could never happen" moments but there are a few more that you end up chuckling along at even though you know they are not supposed to be funny but those aside, I couldn't help loving this movie.
Since Angelina Jolie took off the Croft gun Belt the cinema has been crying out for a replacement all-action lady and with the agility of a ballerina, the looks of a model and the stealth of a ninja, Zoe Saldana certainly ticks all of the right boxes.
Its fast paced, all action and as grizzly as it is seductive and by the end I was completely taken in by Saldana's performance. Its already been and gone like a thief in the night in my local cinema and I know that as far as critics reviews go its not been that greatly received but what do they know!
As far as an action movie goes then its got the moves, if assassins are your thing then its got the stealth and its even got a few moments of clarity when Cataleya (Saldana) takes refuge in the only part of "normal" that appears in her life in the guise of "come and go" boyfriend, Danny who bless him, knows as little about his on/off squeeze as I do about MI6.
There are some quirky moments, some unbelievable moments and some sexy moments. For me, a great movie.
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