Perhaps people were expecting too much after director Pierre Morel's previous movie "Taken", which became an unexpected success. But in all honesty, also "Taken" is a quite average movie in its core and essence, that just happens to work out very well. "From Paris with Love" is also an average movie, that however unfortunately doesn't work out as well as "Taken" did.
Don't really know what to think about this movie. Is it supposed to be a fun, over-the-top, action-flick or a more serious and straight-forward type of action-thriller? It seems to be stuck somewhere in the middle, which causes the movie to not really work out as either one.
Still you probably won't regret watching this movie because it's still a maintaining one. While watching it you'll have a good time, though afterward the movie still will leave a redundant and somewhat disappointing impression on you. In that regard "From Paris with Love" is a movie you can easily miss out on.
The story is really standard and progresses in a predictable way. Only thing the movie surprises with at time is how straight-forward its action can get at times, though if you have already seen "Taken" this probably won't come as a that big of a surprise for you. People get blown away and shot through the head from close range and with that it doesn't matter if it's a male or female. It's straightforwardness with it all is still what makes "From Paris with Love" an at times slightly above average one. But nevertheless, the story prevents it from ever truly standing out. I can't even tell you what this movie is supposed to be all about, since the story is that uninteresting and even gets pushed to the background by the movie itself it seems.
Luckily the movie still has plenty of action in it to compensate for this. It all starts off kind of slow but once the action kicks in it really wakes you up and it also keeps the movie going and good to watch. It made me realize all the more how great of an action director Pierre Morel is. Let's hope he'll someday get to direct a James Bond movie, or something along those lines. I think he'll probably be a great choice for that, as long as he gets a decent script to work with of course, which just wasn't the case with this movie.
It's the movie that brought John Travolta back to the action genre once more and he still got it in him, though he is really starting to look too old for it all. I'm still glad he is in this, since he provided the movie with probably most of its fun- and good moments. Also refreshing to see Jonathan Rhys Meyers in action and more mature kind of role. He always had a boyish look to him but he's really finally starting to look more like a man by now. I like him a lot as an actor and even more now that he is maturing up.
Not a great movie by any means but it at least is watchable and entertaining enough to watch, maybe just only once.
6/10
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