Three years after the events of the first film, Parisian cop Damien (Cyril Raffaelli) and good-hearted hood Leito (David Belle) find themselves teaming up again. They have stumbled upon an evil plan by a government baddie. See, our villain wants to convince the President to do a missile strike on the impoverished and gang ridden District 13 (no Prawns here guys) so that his company Harriburton (reallllll subtle there Besson) can get the contracts to rebuild the place from scratch.
Wow, what a bummer. Words can't even describe how unmotivated this sequel is. Besson takes sole credit for the screenplay and I'm sure he might still have it written on his palm. The sliver of plot is basically a retread of the first film making this his ESCAPE FROM LA (complete with the same ending) to the first film's ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK. We know it is the future because everyone has tattoos on their faces and everyone has a gun, even little kids! Besson is annoyingly still continuing his cinematic quest for French street cred with Parisians from laughable ethnic gangs taking it all the way to the President. We are one ::thumps chest::
The biggest disappoint though has to be action scenes. Despite the two athletic leads returning, you get barely a glimpse of their talent thanks to director Patrick Alessandrin's incessant need to cut up every punch and flip. We're not talking TRANSPORTER 3 bad, but it does crash the flow of the action to the floor. And for a 100 minute film, there is surprisingly little action. My personal favorite bit is in the opening as Damien fights guys while trying to protect a Van Gogh painting. The most laughable part is an escape from police headquarters in a minicar where they make a turn down a dead end and, wait for it, magically find a car ramp leading right up to the window of the building. Not close or nearby, it goes right up to the window. I'd laugh harder if the rest of the film hadn't depressed me so.
Wow, what a bummer. Words can't even describe how unmotivated this sequel is. Besson takes sole credit for the screenplay and I'm sure he might still have it written on his palm. The sliver of plot is basically a retread of the first film making this his ESCAPE FROM LA (complete with the same ending) to the first film's ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK. We know it is the future because everyone has tattoos on their faces and everyone has a gun, even little kids! Besson is annoyingly still continuing his cinematic quest for French street cred with Parisians from laughable ethnic gangs taking it all the way to the President. We are one ::thumps chest::
The biggest disappoint though has to be action scenes. Despite the two athletic leads returning, you get barely a glimpse of their talent thanks to director Patrick Alessandrin's incessant need to cut up every punch and flip. We're not talking TRANSPORTER 3 bad, but it does crash the flow of the action to the floor. And for a 100 minute film, there is surprisingly little action. My personal favorite bit is in the opening as Damien fights guys while trying to protect a Van Gogh painting. The most laughable part is an escape from police headquarters in a minicar where they make a turn down a dead end and, wait for it, magically find a car ramp leading right up to the window of the building. Not close or nearby, it goes right up to the window. I'd laugh harder if the rest of the film hadn't depressed me so.