I'm tempted to just write "This movie sucks" and then go see the original again, but that wouldn't be very helpful to you guys. Here's why this movie sucks.
To sum up the movie, I steal from oshram-3 (One of the other comments) "The plot of Taxi follows Detective Washburn (Jimmy Fallon, making his debut as a movie lead) and bike-messenger-turned-cab-driver Belle (Queen Latifah) as they inadvertently get tangled up with one another and have to figure out who is ripping off a series of Manhattan banks and try to catch them. Rounding out the cast (no pun intended) are Jennifer Esposito (you might remember her from Spin City) as Washburn's lieutenant, Marta, and supermodel Gisele Bundchen as the head hot chick."
Luc Besson's action-comedy Taxi(1998) was a great movie, mostly due to decent acting, funny characters and social/cultural references. In this American remake, all that is gone.
The characters in themselves are severely less intricate than in Besson's original, and maybe the best of them all is gone. I am, of course, talking about the utterly insane police captain. Then again, of course the Americans would leave him out, since he's a parody of every single angry police chief in American movies. All that's left is Queen Latifah driving a taxi, and a cop that's just pathetic, and doesn't have that likable quality Frédéric Diefenthal had in the french version.
Also, the political correctness really shines through the gaps in this film. Every single strong character is a woman. The only guy in the entire core group of the movie is the awkward cop/disguise artist. The movie has been carefully constructed so it doesn't lash out at any particular groups in society, and by doing that, you lose the edge.
I see this movie as a blatant attempt to salvage careers and make some money on the fact that Americans don't like subtitles. It's also a classic example of what happens when you let lawyers and politically correct groups scare you out of doing things right.
To sum up the movie, I steal from oshram-3 (One of the other comments) "The plot of Taxi follows Detective Washburn (Jimmy Fallon, making his debut as a movie lead) and bike-messenger-turned-cab-driver Belle (Queen Latifah) as they inadvertently get tangled up with one another and have to figure out who is ripping off a series of Manhattan banks and try to catch them. Rounding out the cast (no pun intended) are Jennifer Esposito (you might remember her from Spin City) as Washburn's lieutenant, Marta, and supermodel Gisele Bundchen as the head hot chick."
Luc Besson's action-comedy Taxi(1998) was a great movie, mostly due to decent acting, funny characters and social/cultural references. In this American remake, all that is gone.
The characters in themselves are severely less intricate than in Besson's original, and maybe the best of them all is gone. I am, of course, talking about the utterly insane police captain. Then again, of course the Americans would leave him out, since he's a parody of every single angry police chief in American movies. All that's left is Queen Latifah driving a taxi, and a cop that's just pathetic, and doesn't have that likable quality Frédéric Diefenthal had in the french version.
Also, the political correctness really shines through the gaps in this film. Every single strong character is a woman. The only guy in the entire core group of the movie is the awkward cop/disguise artist. The movie has been carefully constructed so it doesn't lash out at any particular groups in society, and by doing that, you lose the edge.
I see this movie as a blatant attempt to salvage careers and make some money on the fact that Americans don't like subtitles. It's also a classic example of what happens when you let lawyers and politically correct groups scare you out of doing things right.