In fact, this amoeba of a movie really might be the very worst film I've ever seen or ever will see, and even that's being VERY generous. Now I enjoyed the first Taxi movie, which had a sense of speed and fun even if there weren't many stunts. I even enjoyed Taxi 2 in its no-brainer way despite the worse direction (different director, held over for this one for some inexplicable reason) because it had plenty of good stunts. But this film really is like the filmmakers knew they'd have a guaranteed audience no matter what so decided to spend 83 very long minutes throwing merde at the audience to see if they'd eat it. It's that bad. No: it's worse.
It starts off with some badly shot stunts ripped off from Jackie Chan's Operation Condor that lead into our hero giving a James Bond figure a lift he'll never forget. Now obviously Pierce Brosnan's contract wouldn't let him do it, but they could have tried for Timothy Dalton or even Roger Moore. I'm sure if Roge was busy they could have got George Lazenby, who's done that sort of thing before enough times. But no, the joke falls flat because they get that epitome of suave sophisticated British espionage himself, Slyvester Stallone (dubbed badly into French) to do the part. Worse is that not only is this almost the best part of the film but it has the only stunts in the whole picture. It does lead into a very, very funny one-minute send-up of the new Bond title sequences that is genuinely terrific, but once that's over, turn off at once - you will not get the next 70 minutes of your life back and you will resent it.
It's horribly wrong on every level. The two stars don't even meet for 45 minutes, and when they do the charm is replaced with whining, there are no chases or big stunts - this from a film who's only reason to exist is car stunts - and a boring plot about Chinese villains disguising themselves as rollerblading Santas to rob Marseilles' biggest bank. But in the end, they don't bother, they go to Switzerland instead. The taxi follows them, the robbers get very easily arrested and the cop goes to hospital where the girlfriend he didn't notice was pregnant for 8 months is having a baby. The end. Add terrible, horrible mistimed 'comic' relief from Bernard Farcy playing a pompous deluded chief inspector and Bai Ling horrendously made up as the most repugnant racist stereotype of Chinese whoredom (sorry, there's no other description) in a hideously misogynist part and you've got a film that manages to be dumb, boring, pointless and offensive without ever passing 'vaguely interesting' along the way. When the best joke is a dumb comic relief black cop being run over by a car he's trying to commandeer because he's black ("It's okay, I'm used to it"), you know you're in the *beep* Never have I seen a film so lazy and with so much contempt for its audience, and I've seen three Michael Bay movies. THAT bad and worse.
It starts off with some badly shot stunts ripped off from Jackie Chan's Operation Condor that lead into our hero giving a James Bond figure a lift he'll never forget. Now obviously Pierce Brosnan's contract wouldn't let him do it, but they could have tried for Timothy Dalton or even Roger Moore. I'm sure if Roge was busy they could have got George Lazenby, who's done that sort of thing before enough times. But no, the joke falls flat because they get that epitome of suave sophisticated British espionage himself, Slyvester Stallone (dubbed badly into French) to do the part. Worse is that not only is this almost the best part of the film but it has the only stunts in the whole picture. It does lead into a very, very funny one-minute send-up of the new Bond title sequences that is genuinely terrific, but once that's over, turn off at once - you will not get the next 70 minutes of your life back and you will resent it.
It's horribly wrong on every level. The two stars don't even meet for 45 minutes, and when they do the charm is replaced with whining, there are no chases or big stunts - this from a film who's only reason to exist is car stunts - and a boring plot about Chinese villains disguising themselves as rollerblading Santas to rob Marseilles' biggest bank. But in the end, they don't bother, they go to Switzerland instead. The taxi follows them, the robbers get very easily arrested and the cop goes to hospital where the girlfriend he didn't notice was pregnant for 8 months is having a baby. The end. Add terrible, horrible mistimed 'comic' relief from Bernard Farcy playing a pompous deluded chief inspector and Bai Ling horrendously made up as the most repugnant racist stereotype of Chinese whoredom (sorry, there's no other description) in a hideously misogynist part and you've got a film that manages to be dumb, boring, pointless and offensive without ever passing 'vaguely interesting' along the way. When the best joke is a dumb comic relief black cop being run over by a car he's trying to commandeer because he's black ("It's okay, I'm used to it"), you know you're in the *beep* Never have I seen a film so lazy and with so much contempt for its audience, and I've seen three Michael Bay movies. THAT bad and worse.